Is It Better To Leave The Heating On Constantly? Boilers & Heat Pumps | Consumer Advice

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That is a superb explanation of how to operate our central heating. I have been keeping our room stat at 17oC all night & most of the day, (we are retired & at home constantly). I have been really worried that we were using far more gas than we needed to. But when the heating has been off for 8 or 12 hours, it takes forever for the house to warm up so I have felt that that was too costly so it's nice to hear that you agree. We are lucky to have a well insulated house & a year old combi boiler, our old one had been installed in 1984 when the house was built, but packed up last Christmas. The new one stopped a week ago because of the big freeze, but the condensing outlet had got frozen at the bottom bend. I had to start near the roof with a hairdryer until it had all melted. Added some insulation around the pipe & got rid of the 90o bend at the bottom & all is good now. Very scary being up a ladder to use the hair drier at 80 years old, but our plumber was too busy with emergency call outs. Thanks for an interesting video.

Wow you literally just validated that the way I have my Atag i15s boiler setup (for 20 degrees basically all day, and 18.5 degrees at night [because we have a 1 year old who we want to keep warmer than us adults]) is basically optimal. We find the house takes a while to heat up - so running a steady temp all day gives us the comfort levels we want. I have worked from home for 2 years (soon to change) so having a warm house has been helpful/comforting. We have weather comp and its a condensing boiler - and it has low temperatures generally - which is great when you have a little one who you don't want to hurt themselves on a red hot radiator. The new tech in boilers is pretty great - but it's fapping complicated. I reckon 90% of homeowners will never bother to learn about this stuff - and I reckon 70% of plumbers don't understand how to tune a modern heating system. My installer didn't understand how to set it up properly for our home's characteristics, and I don't blame them: you need to live with the home and the heating system - configuring it for 2 to 3 months to get it right. Even after maybe 50 hours tuning everything (TRVs, timings, temps etc) - it still needs a tweak once in a while. It's absolutely exhausting tbh.

I've followed this and left the heating on, the results have been fantastic! House is nice and comfortable. Heating bill has increased by £197 and getting my house repossessed now. Just kidding, it has improved thermal Comfort and I'm not seeing the vent exhausting loads compared to the neighbours

I am really shocked you have only 38k subs.. man.. every single plumber should subscribe, and every DIY at heart person should.. absolute gold stuff

I have only recently started to look into heat pumps, your videos are so clear and informative, they should be subsidised by the government. Simply amazing!

Entirely agree. I’ve spent so much time trying to educate friends & family that a consistent, low heat where you just adjust the target temperature during night, day & perhaps evening if you want to comfortably relax is the way to go. When we bought our last house, we had prepayment meters for a while which were obviously awful, but gave me great awareness how much we were spending. Even though I was naive to the flow rate at that point, the constant temperature targets worked a treat. Another level again since I belatedly cottoned on to the flow rate a few years ago…

Just a thought regarding condensing boilers and a bit on heat pumps for good measure. As you say, the vast majority of people with gas or oil boilers now have condensing boilers. So far, so good. What’s not good is that many, possibly most of these, have been installed and ‘commissioned’ to run at high temperature flow rates, as was the norm on pre-condensing boilers pre 2004/5, and often run at 80* flow and 70* return temperatures (or there or thereabouts). This means that whilst the boilers are indeed ‘condensing boilers’ they rarely, if ever, run in condensing mode. Even this is understandable, given that human nature demands that when cold, you want to warm up as quickly as possible, and people want to practically burn their hands on a stinging hot radiator to prove to themselves that their heating system is on. This video helps to re-educate people on how to effectively and efficiently use their condensing boiler systems. And I believe that re-education is needed, even more so with heat pumps which generally can not operate at these high flow temps. Part (and only part) of the reason why heat pumps have gained a bad reputation for being expensive to run is because people have blasted extra electricity into them in their quest for high temperature heat in short bursts. Liked and subscribed, by the way…

Hurrah! At last I have found someone explaining and SHOWING how to use the controls on my Air Source Heat Pump. I am pleased I got an AHSP, I just wish the manufacturers instructions were as helpful and as clear as these videos Congratulations Heat Geeks! This is exactly what I have been looking for since I had the system installed.

excellent, describes my situation to a T! Had a 30 year old boiler changed to a Valliant condensing boiler. Amazed at the difference, but getting a new boiler didnt take into account the 30 year old TRVs. Your explanation of the improvements with heating all the time, (retired in bungalow with solid brick walls) almost decribes me peffectly. thank you. very professionally explained.

I've taken a different approach. We live in South Australia and the winters here are mild (we don't get snow), but still cold. Our house is double brick, with lots of insulation in the roof and triple glazed windows. We have a large solar array on the roof. I considered batteries, but our main use of power is heating in the winter and so we have 3 Heat Banks. A Heat Bank is a simple device. An electric element is surrounded by a thermal mass (Magnesite bricks). 2 of our Heat Banks are charged during the day by the solar array and give up their latent heat during the evening. The third (largest) heat bank is charged during the night using off peak power and gives up stored heat during the day. The hot water system is a Heat Pump run on a timer, so it only runs during the day when the solar panels are generating power and we only run the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer during the day. The system has worked well for us.

well explained. My home is quite modern. I increased my loft insulation to 250mm. I installed hive and new radiators, bigger ones and put insulation behind radiators. Set boiler to 60'c By using my heating as normal timed, when I am in, my boiler showed to be on about 3-4 hours on the hive trend graph. By leaving it on at 18 and bumping to 19.5 when I am in, the boiler is on for as little as 35 mins in 24 hrs. I am 100% convinced my fuel usage is so much less. I never used heating like this but its so much better, the whole heat mass of the building and every thing in it, is kept at a constant. I also use stats on all the radiators and a hive thermostat on the rad in the bedroom.

Thank you for such a thought provoking video and appreciate the time and effort these things take. I’ve passed this on to my two lads who have wet systems as it will help them make a more informed choice than the ones currently doing the rounds. I have a warm air system powered by a very efficient condensing boiler and as we have an open plan ground floor operates very well but I cannot regulate the temperature it operates at but it is much lower than conventional wet systems. As retirees we need heating on all throughout the day and I’ve approached my heating from a similar ‘speeding car’ car approach. The house is quite well insulated, cavity and loft, and my night time stat is set at 16 degrees. Current weather conditions dictate that it does operate, however I build the house temperature slowly first thing in the morning. To help address the cost we go to bed an hour earlier and get up a little later. The first main heat is at 17 degrees for ½ an hour incrementing up to 18 or 18.5 by 10 in the morning. As I have a smart thermostat I can adjust from my armchair raising to 19 degrees early evening. I do supplement the heating when it gets too cold with heated throw-overs which makes us very comfortable. I find that if the house is left to cool down too much you know pretty instantly how hard the boiler works to build up the heat lost - whether all this saves money I can’t say but as you say it’s also about comfort and preserving our health👍🏻 Kindest regards and Merry Christmas Mike

I live in a 2 bedroom , Victorian, stone built gable end terrace - I have tested this over time in terms of how much my gas bill is and found keeping my several years old Baxi Combi Boiler on 24/7 in winter to maintain an average temp of 20* costs no more than switching it off overnight & off again during the day whilst out at work

In support of your video, my ten year old medium sized 3-bed home (in central Scotland) has the condensing boiler controls permanently set for 15 hours at 19 degrees and 15 degrees overnight which lets the boiler run at peak efficiency. Prior to installing a solar PV system, I consumed only 10,500 units of gas for heating, hot water and cooking but this has further reduced by 2,000 units since I installed a solar PV system with an Eddi energy management unit ensuring surplus generation meets the bulk of the hot water load for nine months of the year.

When I bought this house 28 years ago [built 1970] 3 bed semi] I was told to leave the heating on 24/7 as it's cheaper, I tried various timed settings and it was cheaper to leave it on set at 18c. In 2010 I had a new Baxi Solo 15kw boiler fitted, again tried timed settings I used more gas, timed on 6.30am and off 10pm 3.5 units used, timed on at 4.30am to 10.30pm 2.5 units used , on 24/7 1.5 units used [gas meter is in cubic feet] Unless we have very cold weather usage is pretty much the same Running gas fire and heating I use 2.5 units per day, gas fire on around 12 hours and has an input of 6.85kw output 4kw The best way to see if leaving your heating on 24/7 or timed is to take week when temp and gas usage are the same then try your timed method for 3 days and leaving on 24/7 for 3 days, read your meter before and after each , also turn your boiler temperature setting down to the minimum it will work on, if it numbered 1 to 6 set it to number 1, if it just has an arrow find the best point and mark it . This guy says houses don't normally drop below 16c , mine does, without heating it's about 5c warmer than outside

I miss the time when I was living in a 70s flat in Poland heated up by the hot water from a nearby power plant (whole city runs on this). Radiators would come on in autumn and go off in the spring, steady temperature throughout the day with lower temps during the night (you can obviously dial down the rads yourself if you want). No mold, nice and toasty 23C all the time and none of the faff I'm having now in a detached house 😂

Great, informative video. I have a thick floor slab, UFH, ASHP and a home battery. I've recently (last year) found that by running my heating up to 26 over night using my cheap electric (5.5p/kWh about to go up to 8.25p) the heat coming out of the floor slab keeps the house nice and warm up to about 6pm when the heat pump kicks in again to keep it at 20. By doing this I hardly ever need to use any peak rate electric and am saving quite a lot. It seems completely counter-intuitive to have downstairs at its warmest whilst I'm in bed or at work but that's by far the cheapest way to run my house.

I have long espoused and operated this method. I have a programmable thermostat so I simply set the temperature for different times of the day and leave the heating on round the clock. It costs no more to keep the house relatively warm by heating constantly as opposed to letting the fabric (thermal mass) go cold and then burning loads of gas to get it back up to the desired temperature.

This video has helped so much I am in a housing association 1920s large roomed through terrace high ceilings large rooms and my heating bills were beyond high I am not well and home a lot and totally clueless about managing my boiler n thermostat my home was either too hot or too cold I had no idea about how to manage the hand I have a lovely housing association but never informed of anything regarding this and especially with the cost of living and rising fuel prices,I truly believe we need more information out there for pp on low income but I till I decided to google how to manage my ideal boiler n thermostat because the bills n the too hot too cold home so thank you I am going to rewatch again 🙏🏻🔥🥶