Tell me about gas central heating

[FlorayG]

I'm going to be moving into a small two bedroom centrally heated bungalow
You may find this hard to believe but I've never before in my life lived in a house with central heating (and I'm over 60) so I need some advice on how to run it most economically.
There will be only me but I work 100% from home for the foreseeable future so the old 'on in the morning, on in the evening' rule won't work. On the other hand, I don't want to be heating two empty bedrooms and an infrequently used bathroom and kitchen all day
The thermostat is in the hall - is that the best place?
I generally am not a cold person (because I never had central heating I've learned to be tough )
Advice on how to run it efficiently without being cold please. There's no advice from previous tenant available as it belonged to my elderly mom and she just had it on full blast all the time and her bills were huge!

[mitch84]

I work from home, but live in a 2 up 2 down terrace. I’m also not A hugely cold person.
We don’t like hot bedrooms. So have the radiators turned off upstairs. Especially as the heat escapes upstairs.
We haven’t any Internal doors downstairs so everything gets heated.
I tend to just turn it on when I get cold daft as that sounds. On a freezing cold day it may be on all day and turned off when we go to bed (or likely start cooking)

[megaflyer]

I have have heating on in any bedroom (or bathroom ) as I like them cold so kits turn the rads off (or down to frost setting) the rest you ad adjust each rad to suit you - ie I like a cosy sitting room and have mine (dual a/c or underfloor heating) set at 21 in that room and works for me

[lizzie145]

You can set each radiator to low in the rooms you arent using, that's what I do. You can turn them up and down as you move rooms.

With a thermostat you set it at the temp you want the heating to go on, so technically it's on all the time but only fores up when drops to the set temp.

Or you can turn it on and off as you need it. I'm sitting in my dining room which is baking as gets the sun but my office is upstairs and faces north and is freezing ( carpenter is upstairs) so not sure where I base myself for winter yet as dont want to use too much energy.

[Mr Tom Morrow]

OP
Firstly do the existing Rads have thermostatic valves? If not I would have them fitted as they aren't expensive. Circa £21 each for a Pegler one, bit more for Drayton.

Like the previous poster we like cold bedrooms so only have the heat trickling in and at bed time have the windows open year round.

What I have always been taught is:-

Dont use gas fires as it's cheaper to have the heating on
Don't have the heating to come on at the time you get up - set it for 30 mins+/- before.
Similarly have it set to go off at least 45 mins before you retire.
Make sure the heating is only one part of your strategy so check on roof insulation, windows/doors etc etc
Never expect a house to reach a nice temperature until at least 45 mins has elapsed.

[Beth_Disney]

Ours is switched off at the moment but when the weather starts to get colder I set ours to 18 degrees when it's off and then 20 when it's on. I set it to come on 30-minutes before we get up, off when we're at work. It then comes back on about 30-minutes before we're due home. Off for the night at 8.30pm.

It rarely dips below 18 degrees, just occasionally in the winter and having a quick boost means it takes less effort to get the temperature back up to 20 degrees.

Will the central heating be warming your water too? There's only 2 of us and we have an electric shower and a dishwasher so I find 30 minutes every other day heats enough water for our washes.

One of our best investments was a Hive. I can set various schedules using my phone app and can turn the heating on if I come home from work early. It's much easier to use than the old control panel that's right at the back of a cupboard and the thermostat that didn't work properly.

[FlorayG]

Originally Posted by Mr Tom Morrow

OP
Firstly do the existing Rads have thermostatic valves? If not I would have them fitted as they aren't expensive. Circa £21 each for a Pegler one, bit more for Drayton.
.

See more...

How do I check if they have these or not? They all have a valve on them but I don't know what type
Mr Morrow what about heating when you are home all day in winter? Do you turn down the radiators in the bedrooms and hope you remember to turn them up again an hour before bedtime? I can't see that heating the whole house will be economical and I'm working at home

[Mr Tom Morrow]

OP. Thermostatic valves will look the same as the picture I posted earlier.

Non thermostatic ones look more like this.

So my whole house has the thermostatic ones but one rad shouldn’t have them as that’s best practice. Mine is in the hall.
With regard to the Winter etc. I’m nearly 66 and my days of being cold are long gone. My Wife would have the heating on in August given half a chance.

Our system is get up, have coffee and then decide do we want the heating on now. If so on it goes and we couldn’t care if it’s on all day long. We tend to go to bed circa 10.20pm so the heating gets turned off circa 9.30pm

We have a 1948 house that has thermal qualities of a bag of peas! It’s cool in the Summer and like an ice box in the Winter.
Our only gas usage in the house is the boiler as we cook on electric.
I pay £76 per Month direct debit year round. In credit in the Summer and debit in the Winter but it balances out come year end each March.

Edit. Sorry, just checked. Not £76 but £70.63p per Month

[FlorayG]

OK so I should get those valves fitted...er...why?

[taffs travels]

we have the valves fitted to all the radiators so we can change the temp in each room and turn them off until it gets really cold. I work from home now ,so it will be interesting to see how being home all day affects my bills. I had to put it on at 11am this morning ( first time this year) as i was in the back bedroom with no sun in the windows. All other rads were on frost protection only then when the sun came into the room in the afternoon it went off as the desired temp had been reached. hopefully this will help with the costs this year