A suggestion to save gas for some

[Apologies if you've already read this in uk.people.silversurfers.]

This might be of use to anyone who has a gas boiler in an unheated outhouse or garage.

Recently in the very cold weather, our heating has been coming on at night (frost protection for the boiler and pipes in the garage). It had even reached the point during the daytime when the thermostat setting in our downstairs living room was permanently off, because the heat loss in the garage and the consequent firing of the boiler for frost protection was keeping the living room temperature at around 22-23degC (we normally set the thermostat to 20-21degC). The pipes in the garage are lagged, but last summer we had a 'magnaclean' fitted, and I noticed that it felt quite warm, and the lagging had gaps in various places. So yesterday I bought a roll of fibre-glass roofing quilt, and some pipe lagging, and set about improving the lagging of the pipes and around the boiler. (Of course it is important to allow plenty of ventilation to the boiler, so probably not a good idea to be too enthusiastic on wrapping up the boiler). The materials cost £15, and the job took about 45 minutes. There is a picture here:

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particularly elegant, but it seems to have done the job.

I have monitored our gas use for years, and in the four days leading up to the lagging, we were using 97.3kWh per day. In the first 24 hours since the lagging we have used 73.8kWh, on what was reported as the coldest night so far this winter; last night we used 74.7kWh - and with no noticeable discomfort indoors.

Clearly this information will only be of interest to a few people, but if you do have a boiler in an outhouse, and frost protection is causing it to come on a lot, it would definitely be worth thinking about some DIY insulation.

Take care,

John (In Peterborough)

Reply to
Bioboffin
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Ah! A use for the tie-on jackets from the discarded hot water tanks. :)

JGH

Reply to
jgharston

Don't they usually have polythene covers? I'd want to be _sure_ they didn't hit anything really hot. (A tank of course is all below 100C.)

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

In message , Bioboffin writes

As long as you're happy and feel you've achieved something

Reply to
geoff

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Bioboffin" saying something like:

Every bit helps and it certainly makes sense.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

The hottest exposed part is the pipe coming away from the top of the boiler, for which the temperature set by the thermostat in the boiler has a maximum of 82 C. Even so, one would want to be careful about the plastics used.

John

Reply to
Bioboffin

I didn't much like being "out of control" of the heating. Much better now, although the missus has started complaining that the house is not as warm as it was!

John

Reply to
Bioboffin

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