Ill-timed government energy saving advice

Setting the house thermostat a couple of degrees lower and wearing a decent woolly jumper provides by far the biggest saving (short of switching the heating off entirely - which causes other problems).

OTOH at least they have given some approximately correct advice instead of doing the classic Thick Lizzy "Ostrich with head in sand" dance.

Reducing the target temperature for the house and wearing some more clothes when indoors is the most obvious way to save money on energy bills.

It isn't all that likely in a domestic setting unless you set the boiler flow temperature very low indeed (too low to be useful in radiators).

Some people have their radiators so hot ~80C that they are a distinct hazard to small children touching them.

yes, i recently had to turn mine up to get the house warm...

It may also result in the boiler running much longer. If you have a tank stat it may not reach the desired temp seems very wastefull as the pump will run even if the boiler shuts down because the return flow is too hot.

They are also claiming you can save £75/year by switching things off when in standby. Even Which only claimed £30. I think each watt saves around £2.50/year and as most modern items are under 0.5watt thats a lot of old in-efficient appliances...

Dave

They only do it once though. There are still plenty of non-condensing boilers in use and should be set to ?90/70 which is going to mean some rads are going to be hot.

Anyone turning down the boiler temp on an old system like this (if it is even possible) could result in the flue temp dropping too low and go into condensing mode. This is terminal for a non-condensing boiler.

Possibly no risk at all if the dwelling is occupied a flow of chlorinated mains water is input to the hot water system daily/weekly.

and with the estimate that most of the UKs boilers are oversized it will result in more inefficient and faster short cycling.

my boiler (from 1988) can only just keep up with the recent cold spell.

Yep, that's what I ran into. And that is in part because the modulation ratio on my boiler is poor, 1:3. But trying to turn the stat down works fine in the lounge but my study at the back is currently at 15 - and the keyboard is cold to the touch.

I got some snuggle fleece onesies and a USB heated waistcoat/vest. Much more comfortable than trousers and jumpers. I really like the way the heat distributes inside the baggy one piece clothing, with no waist constriction. Stunningly warm, for sitting at the computer.

The only real downside is I have to change when I want to go outdoors. It would be good if there was something similar to a onesie that could be worn inside and outside. Something like a quilted boiler suit. I tried one but, I got the wrong side, and it was a bit heavy. I don't want a coverall/overall I want something light and instead of normal clothes.

I think heated/temperature controlled clothes, could be very significant.

Yeah. i made a mistake when I specced mine, I didnt think about 'heat up from freezing cold'.

The boiler ran nearly 24 hrs non stop when it tripped two days ago, to get the house back up. Then it tripped again on restart.

Ski stuff. Sorta padded romper suit

Many years ago, when camping at a drag racing meet in a cold November, a friend had a Swedish army (IIRC) sleeping bag. Very warm and in the morning he could just unzip down the front and back of the lower part and rezip them to themselves and the bottom half became trouser legs.

I'm glad to say that that is not happening here.

When I first moved here, I sized the boiler and radiators myself, using the calculations in a book from the library. It worked out at 11kW.

Since then we have added a (heated) conservatory, but now have a 15kW boiler.

We have also changed the system, so each room has it's own timer/thermostat and motorised valve and radiator sizes have been increased to allow a lower running temperature, but the boiler has a 6:1 modulation range - in fact from our gas meter readings, it appears that it can even modulate a little lower than quoted.

We have been running it at 60°C, but have had to up it a little for the unusual cold of the last week and to replenish the hot-water cylinder fast enough on days of heavy usage.

In previous years I have kept it on a a low temp overnight. I didn't last week - error.

One sure way to waste an awful lot of heat energy (and money)

As always, its a case of read the small print. Even EDF are advising to turn the flow rate down, not to me there should be a way, sensor wise to do this with an outside Thermometer, and a control circuit for the pump. Brian

Shapps is an idiot. Saw him on TV basically advising everyone to turn their boiler down to 60C regardless..

I'm fairly sure he said "most". But without defining who it is a bit silly. And to do it as an authoritive voice is typical of ignorant career politicians. You'd hope he'd get some expert advice before parading himself on TV.

Been there - but a long time ago.

Once we lived in Bracknell. It's OK, we've escaped now, but one of the nice things was we got a development corporation house. Basically a council house, but via the job not through need.

It had heating downstairs only. In the cold winters we had back then, when it froze like last week for a month (1982?), the boiler was running

Andy