Hello everyone,
I am leaving in a warehouse, and we have a Central heating.
My question is : what is the most economic, is it better to switch off the central heating for the night or just keep it at the minimum. My common sense tells me it is better to keep it low, especially when it is very cold ouside, and keep a constant barable temperature, but as I am sharing my flat, I would need an answer from someone who knows well these systems.
Thank you very much gaelle
Switch it off will be cheaper in fuel. The lower the indoor temp, the less heat is lost to outside, and thus the less heat is used from the CH.
If youre in a warehouse, good chance theres no insulation at all, and even basic insulation could cut your costs right down. The cheapest insulation would be cardboard sprayed wth borax solution to fire-retard it.
A cardboard cavity is much more effective, cut cardboard boxes down to just 2" high and attach to walls. The closed space traps air and cuts heat loss. Again use borax to avoid a fire problem.
NT
Been covered many times.
simple analysis says turn it off.
Complex analysis of things like boiler efficiency versus output power, thermal mass of building, net gain from solar use (sun shining in windows etc) makes it les obvious.
Probably the better insulated it is, and the more mass it has inside the insulation, the less difference it will make whether you turn it off or not.
|Hello everyone, | |I am leaving in a warehouse, and we have a Central heating. | |My question is : what is the most economic, is it better to switch off |the central heating for the night or just keep it at the minimum. My |common sense tells me it is better to keep it low, especially when it |is very cold ouside, and keep a constant barable temperature, but as I |am sharing my flat, I would need an answer from someone who knows well |these systems.
We really need to know where you are and what temperatures occur where you are. Also about the construction of the "warehouse", and what sort of Central heating you have.
Why does your common sense tell you this? The reason the place cools down overnight is due to heat losses. And those will continue 'till it reaches ambient temperature. If you try and delay this state of equilibrium you must, by nature, use more energy.
Yes you are right. Maybe I should refine my question : Is it better to switch off totally during the night, and then in the morning switch on at medium power, or keep the power at a minimum but constantly. That is more what I wanted to know. I know it sounds a bit weird, but I remember people used to say that about electric radiator in the eighties. Also, is there in england some pics for electricity? I know that in other countries, the rate of electricity is lower during the night than during the day.
Thanks
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
At the moment we have 0=B0C. The box of central heating is "Vaillant" brand. We are living at the top floor (second floor), only one window gets full sunshine. We have around 150 meter squares, and 4 meters high. The question being is it better to switch off totally during the night, and switch on at medium power in the morning, or keep at minimum constantly ? Thanks
Dave Fawthr> >
Its very cheap at night certainly.
|In article , | gaelle wrote: |> My question is : what is the most economic, is it better to switch off |> the central heating for the night or just keep it at the minimum. My |> common sense tells me it is better to keep it low, especially when it |> is very cold ouside, and keep a constant barable temperature, | |Why does your common sense tell you this? The reason the place cools down |overnight is due to heat losses. And those will continue 'till it reaches |ambient temperature. If you try and delay this state of equilibrium you |must, by nature, use more energy.
But if you are in a masonry built *well* insulated building if you switch the heating off at night there is so much heat stored in the walls that the temperature will *not* fall much at all, even when it is freezing outside. My house only falls to about 16 deg C at night in the coldest weather. Thus turning the heating off, is quite reasonable.
As others have said, if your Warehouse is lightly built poorly insulated then the internal temperature will fall unacceptably. When I am in my caravan, on a cold night I turn the heating down to 10 degC or 15 degC.
I'm assuming English isn't your first language. I've combined two of your posts to ask one or two more questions. You're still giving us bits of info, and we don't have enough to be able to give a full answer.
Are you saying that the temperature *inside* the flat has dropped to 0°C - freezing? Or are you saying that it's now the outside temperature that has dropped to freezing, and you are wanting to know how best to keep the flat comfortable?
It's unlikely that the inside temperature is 0°C - that like going back 50 years when we didn't have warm centrally heated houses, when you got up to have ice on the insides of the windows!
Vaillant make boilers, so I assume you have a 'wet' system, with radiators around the flat.
Is this a conversion of an old warehouse into flats? Is it a fairly recent conversion, or was it done a few years ago?
I guess one of your problems is the ceiling height - 4m is quite high, all your warmth is going upwards.
Do you know if any insulation was fitted when the conversion was carried out? If you don't have much insulation, you will lose a lot of heat out of the flat overnight.
It's normal to switch off overnight. As I said above, the inside temperature will drop a few degrees, but not to freezing as long as you have some insulation. You then set the controller or timeswitch to have the central heating come on about an hour before you want to get up, the flat will be warm and comfortable for you.
If you leave the heating on all the time, it will almost certainly cost you more
There are different tariffs (charges) for electricity, depends on who your supplier is. A normal domestic supply has one rate, if you choose a two-rate tariff, the day rate will be slightly higher than the normal rate, but the night rate units will be much cheaper, currently varies between about 3p and 4.5p per unit, again depending on the supplier. To make it worthwhile to change to a two-rate tariff, you need to use about 25-30% of your electricity in the cheap rate period.
Conversely, keeping it on, and say a 20C internal temp, is not that much different. 20% more heat loss at 0C ...
Thats a different matter.
Lightly built stuff warms up much quicker.
I went down this morning and the UFH which went off at 12pm was down from about 20-21 to just 19C..ok it got an hour blast in the morning..
drawing the curtains and a couple of hours later its up to 21C already.
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