If you have gas central heating should you leave it on all winter or only turn it on when needed?. I only turn mine on when I'm in and need it, but I've been told many times it's cheaper to leave it on all the time as starting it up each time costs more money. Does anyone know if this is true?

Since giving up work, I found no difference between:
(a) 7am-9am then off on again at 4pm to 11pm
and
(b) on 7 am off at 11pm

But I have never left it on all night as it would keep me awake!

I leave mine on permanently but turn the thermostat down to a minimum so as to keep a constant temp.

My gas bills are a thousand quid a month mind....

:hihi:

Joking apart, I think this is the most cost effective way

I can imagine that it uses slightly more gas to start it than it does when running, but it's not going to use several hours worth each time you start it.
Google might have some definite answers, but i expect that only having it on for a few hours a day is cheaper than having it on all the time.
Turning it on and off every 30 mins however would be unlikely to be better than just leaving it running at a lower level (especially if your house goes cold that quickly).

You could find out quite easily by trying both for a day and noting how much gas your meter says you've used, that should settle the argument and tell you specifically for your house.

I leave mine on with the thermostat set at 20deg. my gas is £5.00 a week. It's like summer all year:cool:

we have ours on a timer, so when we're all out at work its on about 6am-9am, then comes back on around 12pm until 9pm, so actually, it maybe cheaper for us to leave it on.

we also have thermostats on each radiator, so it senses the temp of each room and turns itself off when it gets to the desired temp, but these dont always work so well, especially if its behind furniture

I must be stingier than you lot, or warmer blooded. It comes on for 40 mins at 0630, then again for 30 mins at 1640.
If it gets cold again later in the evening I turn it on manually.
I don't have thermostatic radiators though, so leaving it on would result in the house getting too hot and wasting heat.

Originally posted by Cyclone
I must be stingier than you lot, or warmer blooded. It comes on for 40 mins at 0630, then again for 30 mins at 1640.
If it gets cold again later in the evening I turn it on manually.
I don't have thermostatic radiators though, so leaving it on would result in the house getting too hot and wasting heat.


pj66 throws cyclone a scarf hat gloves and blanket jeeeezzzz you gotta be either freezing or sitting in someone elses house all day.:partyhat
ours is on from 0600 till 2100 set at 20 degrees it costs us £7 a week:

it's quite comfortable in the dining room at the moment and the heating has been off for the last 4 hrs. I wouldn't want to sit in the kitchen though, it's freezing in their.

I'm a bit more like Cyclone, I have it set for 50 mins in the morning (0630 - 0720) and then a few hours in the evening (1800 - 2100). I do usually get home earlier than this, but I have a gas fire in my living room so I put that on if it's cold. Usually by 1930 I'm boiling and end up turning the central heating off and leaving the fire on - not much point in heating the whole house up when I'm only in one room - plus I don't find CH gets hot enough for this time of year, the fire's much cosier!

Are gas fires cheaper than CH?

My sister has storage heaters ( :gag: )

Her husband has them turned off in March, and they don't go back on till November!

I just don't know how she copes!

P "totally nesh" T

We never had CH when I was a kid (and I'm only 26, so we're not talking decades and decades ago here!). On coming home yesterday after a few days away and, of course, having turned off the heating completely, the house was FREEZING! Strange thing is though I can't ever remember being cold as a kid in a house with no heating (other than the gas fires downstairs). Although my sister reckons she could see her breath in her bedroom in the middle of winter.

I certainly remember the air feeling thick and damp inside the house without central heating, when it was cold.

I have, (on reccomendation) recently started to keep the CH running overnight, turning it down to about 15 degrees at night, from 20 or so, during the day.

I haven't noticed any discernible disadvantages. Of course, I haven't had my winter quarter's bill in, yet... :O

The house iself seems to keep warmer, generally, with the background heat "airing" the place.


PT

It depends on the house insulation, the boiler, the thermostats settings, how long you spend in the house etc. In other words there is no easy answer. If you have a room stat then try knocking it down 5 degrees or so when you would normally turn it off and knocking it back up to your normal temp. when you would turn it on. Keep an eye on the bill and you'll find the answer for your house.

My friends hate coming round my flat 'cos they find it's always too cold for them. I think it's fine. If it's cold I just get on the exercise bike or stay in bed. Guess that's not too social though.

My heating is archaic - I switch it on and it warms up the radiators. It doesn't appear to have a thermostat and if it does I don't really understand it - there doesn't seem to be a temp guage or anything, just a wheel thing that you turn - don't really know what difference that makes.

When I was a kid my mum's house was always cold and you could see your breath. At Xmas it was like a hot house with her new central heating system and massive radiators - nice of her to make that concession now when I haven't lived there for 12 yrs!

Yesterday after coming back from my mum's and my feet turning into ice blocks driving up the M1, I broke the habit of several years and put the heating on in the daytime. Only for an hour though..;)

Reading all these posts about thermostats and radiators with different levels of heat I'm so jealous. I want a new heating system.

Gas bills are cheap though...I pay about £9 a mth - makes up for the amount of electricity I use!:thumbsup:

that wheel you turn should be a thermostat with temperatures on it, but it probably doesn't work very well now, it was the first thing that started to go wrong with our old central heating.

we now have a combi boiler which is a pain in the ass really, it's never worked properly even though it was highly recommended.

its fine for heating, but the water fluctuates from warm to freezing cold, weve had countless british gas engineers out, who seem to fix the problem for a few months before it comes back

The wheel has the numbers 1-7 on it and cooler and warmer. I have it set in the middle 'cos I wasn't sure what it did. Maybe I'll turn it down and leave the heat on a bit longer - see what happens.

I'm sure someone told me that it determined the ratio of hot to cold water in the boiler :confused: which when I think about it makes no sense at all :loopy:

My fingers haven't gone numb so don't need the heating on yet:thumbsup:

I'd never heard of people leaving the central heating on all the time as a cheaper option before until this thread.. I thought that only applied to underfloor heating where it takes ages to heat up but only a minimal amount of heat to maintain.

I think if you have a really well insulated house it would make sense.. but surely your average terrace would just be leaking heat left right and center and it would be a waste of money?

I have mine on for an hour in the morning and from 7pm til 11.30pm every night... the house is toasty warm and my gas bills are £7 a week.

not all central heating is themostat controlled. Mine isn't and by the sounds of it neither is lucretias.
I've been insulation things over the last few weeks to try and cut down on the amount of energy wasted.
Putting draft exclusion foam around the doors in the dining room and keeping the doors closed keeps it much warmer (it's now the second warmest room in the house). Unfortunately the living room is the 2nd coldest, despite me having put insulation under the floor (between the cellar and the room) and having tracked down at least 1 large source of draft. I suspect that the large window and probably more drafts from the cellar that i haven't tracked down quickly get rid of any heat in there.

We did this experiment in our last house - a victorian semi.

The house always seemed cold, and if you put your hand near to a wall you could feel the cold. Once the boiler was going it was firing continuously - not what you'd expect.

We had condensation on some of the walls, and mildew on the bathroom ceiling from the constant condensation.

I tried running the central heating for lower and longer (contantly), and found that not only did the bills not increase, but the house was warmer, the condensation and mildew disappeared, and the boiler stopped trying to melt itself

:clap: stick your heating on 12ish, and just turn it up a bit if it's really necessary :thumbsup:

Cyclone - a good pair of heavy lined curtains should counteract that big window ;)

Alot of this decision depends on the construction of the property aswell. If your walls are of a solid construction it can make sense to leave the heating on low level as the walls lose heat quickly, however if there is a souce of constant heating this reduces that loss down substantially.

Also in the older houses, it can be a reasonable idea to have a dehumidifier in operation to reduce the amount dampness in the air which needs to be heated aswell.

Insulation levels, the type of system in operation also make a difference - each house has +'ves and -'ves in this respects.

Another thing to bear in mind is that radiators use up to 70% of the heat they generate to heat the wall behind them and if it's an external wall then it's going to be lost. A radiator panel or some kitchen foil behind it will help :)