Minimum temp in house while away

In article , Pete Zahut writes

That'll be fine and will use a lot less gas than full temp, you're not really going away that long.

For a long break I'd set mine to 10degC min but I've got thick walls so will leave it at 16 to save a long warmup on return if just going away for a couple of days.

That sounds about right. I leave mine set at 10C and it does fire up when I am away. The cost of the gas to keep my house above 10C for a few cold days would not be worth counting.

Cheers fella's, have a great Christmas and New Year :o)

Sounds about right. Bear in mind that backs of cupboards, etc where pipework is can be much cooler, so you don't want it set to 4C. If you were going away for 3 months, it might be worth experimenting to work out what the optimimum setting is for your house, but for 2 days, it's not worth it.

What happens if the boiler starts up due to its own froststat? Will it actually drive heat into the radiators? Depends on how it's linked to the controls for motorised valves, etc. e.g. default position for mid-position valves is usually to heat the hot water cylinder, which isn't going to do much for frost protection of the rest of the system, but froststat may be linked into controls of the valves (particularly for a combi).

Good point Andrew and I don't know the answers. It's an Alpha CD32C condensing combi and pump, valves, everything (i believe) is integral to the boiler itself, and we have no hot water cylinder.

Well, just about ready to hit the road so I'll go away happy that the default min temp will be OK. Cheers folks.

Such luxury even having a thermostat ...

Why is it that some installations (such as mine) do away with the thermostat completely?

Messing about with TRVs (which are all in dark, hard-to-reach corners) and boiler water temperature control is a pain is completely hit-and-miss. I end up doing the job of the thermostat myself by manually turning the system on and off all day.

...

Snipped.

They didn't "do away with the thermostat" - they were plumbed on the cheap - or no-one got around to making a sensible improvement.

Seconded.

Mine's been outside for 3 years with no problems. The shed is currently -3 and it has been down to -10 in the past few weeks. In summer it gets as hot as +30 in there as the roof is bitumen and the walls are brick, never had any problems with it in either winter or summer.

Or you could just buy a wireless, 7 day programmable roomstat for about £40, nail it to the wall, and set it to whatever and whenever you like

Seconded. My house is set to 18C but all the water pipes run inside the outside walls. I've had no water running anywhere other that the kitchen cold tap since yesterday.

JGH

Right pain isn't it, I think there was one boiler from Baxi which incorporated a flow switch so you didn't need a room stat. Have you considered a wireless thermostat?

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

A neighbour's fridge packed up the other day and he was most surprised when I told him to switch it off for a couple of hours and drag it into another warmer room (it sits in a very cold ante room) and then try it. About three hours later I got a call to tell me it was working fine. This fridge is ~5yrs old, replacing a 20yr old fridge which never gave any trouble in the same location.

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

Ditto here. Total pita and I'll be glad of the howling gales and rain come Boxing Day as it will be a balmy 6 or 8degC with it. Even my fecking soil pipe has frozen up. That's a lot of fun, not.

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

Typical half-arsed builder's bodge which is all too common here - rely on the boilerstat to control the system and room temperature. Easy to add a proper roomstat and save some money with tighter control of temp.