The heating test

[.....]

No, not a preliminary burn up.
My personal threshold for 'whether' dyswidt or not the house needs supplementary heat.
It's simply if the butter can be left out and still spreads easily, then the heating stays off!
Doesn't work so well for the margerine users, you may well freeze to death!

[Count Steer]

When the Hive controller detects the temperature is below 19º between certain hours, whatever the time of year.

(I don't have to lift a finger, look at the calendar, check the butter or anyfink).

[MrLongbeard]

I don't use butter or any other type of spread, but did put away my house shorts and dragged out the house joggers last night, so I reckon we're about 8 weeks shy of needing the heating on.

Of course this actually means the heating will be put on in around half that time as I live with 2 women

[McNab]

Yep, the stat is set and left to that all year round. I'm not one of those people who won't turn the heating on until October.

[.....]

Can't find the thermostat anywhere!

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[Skub]

September's has been mostly cold and wet here,so Mrs.Skub has had the boiler on every day from weeks ago. I take nothing to do with it until more oil needs to be ordered.

[KungFooBob]

When the wife tells me to put the heating on and I tell her to put a jumper on and she tells me to fuck off, that's when the heating goes on.

[Noggin]

No idea. I never had a lot of choice before and it was the smallest apartment, so if I needed heat before the heating came on for the season, I had a tiny oil filled heater. But as I slept with my window open I kinda objected to heating the room only to open the window !!

Here ?? On my days off probably !! But also the temperature down here is very different, so for now, it's ok.

Oh, and i have a little wood fire (sadly not in the sitting area) which apparently will heat the whole place pretty well, soooo, hopefully I won't need to use the radiators 'too' much (oil system for heating, no idea how expensive that will be till after the winter !! )

[Taipan]

Ours has been on a few times in the last few days. I don't see heating as a luxury or worry about the cost of it, I just hate being cold and wont be when I can prevent it. The problem i have is the wife is menopausal and doesn't always want heat when I do, and my telling her to stand in the garden and cool down doesn't go down to well!

[Mussels]

The test for me is does my wife leave the windows open during the day, if so then I'm not paying to heat the graden.
I'm going for a different tactic this year, instead of having it on as little as possible I'm going to have it on all the time running the rads at a lower temperature. My 60s bungalow has solid walls and is rammed full of stuff so takes hours to come up to an even heat and the thermostat is being adjusted too often, if I don't let the house get as cold then I shouldn't need to make it hotter to compensate. Running the radiators colder means the condenser bit works better so it will probably cost the same with fewer complaints.

[KungFooBob]

The test for me is does my wife leave the windows open during the day, if so then I'm not paying to heat the graden.
I'm going for a different tactic this year, instead of having it on as little as possible I'm going to have it on all the time running the rads at a lower temperature. My 60s bungalow has solid walls and is rammed full of stuff so takes hours to come up to an even heat and the thermostat is being adjusted too often, if I don't let the house get as cold then I shouldn't need to make it hotter to compensate. Running the radiators colder means the condenser bit works better so it will probably cost the same with fewer complaints.

That's the way you're supposed to do it.

In winter my heating stays on from 5am to 10pm everyday.

The boiler clicks in every so often when the temp drops a bit, uses a fraction of the energy of trying to get the house up to temp every day.

[Count Steer]

The test for me is does my wife leave the windows open during the day, if so then I'm not paying to heat the graden.

Ever since I got interested in air quality (CO²/H²O and particulates/VOC etc) the heating/ventilation thing has been a real conundrum. If we ever move I'd like to design in a heat exchanger arrangement but I'm not going to do it in this one.

(I had a work interest years ago in kitchen AQ and gas appliances. I'm amazed hobs and ovens never got compulsory extraction stipulated after the things we found!).

As per comments above though, while I don't expect to sit in shorts and T-shirt in December and I do wear warmer stuff (not Scandi-noir pullys ) indoors through winter I'm not going to sit and shiver, watching the 'smart' meter remote display (even if I had one ) and fretting about the ££s.

[Silly Car]

Mine has kicked in a few times, thermostatically controlled, but not on that much. I’ve advanced the time slot a couple of times as I’ve been warm enough, I suspect it won’t be long before I’m not doing that and just letting it run.

My biggest consideration heating wise is whether to relocate the home office from the spacious dining room with a large expanse of glass French doors or to take a spot in one of the spare bedrooms, which means a longer commute… I imagine it’d be more efficient heating a smaller room with less glass even if it is a greater distance from the boiler, and more importantly, the coffee maker!

[Count Steer]

The test for me is does my wife leave the windows open during the day, if so then I'm not paying to heat the graden.
I'm going for a different tactic this year, instead of having it on as little as possible I'm going to have it on all the time running the rads at a lower temperature. My 60s bungalow has solid walls and is rammed full of stuff so takes hours to come up to an even heat and the thermostat is being adjusted too often, if I don't let the house get as cold then I shouldn't need to make it hotter to compensate. Running the radiators colder means the condenser bit works better so it will probably cost the same with fewer complaints.

That's the way you're supposed to do it.

In winter my heating stays on from 5am to 10pm everyday.

The boiler clicks in every so often when the temp drops a bit, uses a fraction of the energy of trying to get the house up to temp every day.

That's true if the house has a) a decent thermal mass and b) is reasonably well insulated. It's not going to work for every property though. You could try running at 17-18º from 10pm to 5am too and see how that impacts on consumption - similar logic, not letting the temp of the thermal mass drop too far.

[Yorick]

Heating? Wassat?

It was 36c all the way today from Portimao to here in Cadiz.

[Scud]

I refuse to sit in the evening wrapped up when we have a perfectly good heating system.
I serviced the boiler yesterday as it was being a bit shitty, new solenoid, photocell, oil line and blast tube gasket, followed with a good clean out and all is good.
I’m outdoors all day, I’m not coming home to a cold house unless we ever get so skint we can’t afford it.

[weeksy]

We have electric only, if i turn ours on they'll only be hot when i don't want them hot and be cold when i want them hot

[Dodgy69]

October maybe.

[v8-powered]

Our log burner had a couple of logs chucked in it yesterday afternoon, soon was too warm!

[ChrisW]

The car decided to pivot to warming the air rather than cooling it a few days ago.