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Is this a Heating Conspiracy

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taken2often
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Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396319

Postby taken2often » March 16th, 2021, 11:39 pm

Been away had a misdiagnosis of Paranoia and got sent of to the garage for two weeks to get a full diagnostic. All ok just a bad case of ANTI, This, That and The Other.

Whilst away I looked up a number of boiler manufacturers and they all appear to be sparse on information as to the best operation of a condensing boiler. Very clear where you have good insulation, non draughty and have a good underfloor heating mass. You set your temp and leave it running. Time clocks works against you. So why not use the same principal for ordinary house heating. The condensing boiler operates at a much lower temp than your old boiler. It could produce a lot more heat and faster giving you a faster comfort level. They also recommend if possible to increase the size of your radiators to improve comfort and allow the condensing boiler to operate correctly. Not often mentioned. If not running correctly you may not be getting the 90% efficiency promised.

Now all parties state do not leave your heating on 24/7. Heating on costs money heating off saves money, is the mantra, none take the building mass into account. One or two pundits even recommend switching heating off in rooms you do not use. Great for condensation.

So why do they not recommend the proper use of these boilers, run 24/7 but at a temp range to suit you, so that you are not having to reheat your fabric each time the heating comes on.. The other thing not mentioned is that Heat and Cold will always try to equalise. Now my range is 16 and 21
so when I go from the Hall to a bedroom this takes a few minutes and costs little. If the bedroom was 3/4c the effect would be drastic.

So back to the Post. If the boiler manufactures did not fit time clocks would they be able to sell their boilers. Is it so ingrained, possibly from the war that having the heating on all the time is totally unacceptable, even though it may the best operation for these new boilers. It may even stop the most popular fault the condensing discharge pipe freezing up and blocking.

Mike4
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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396326

Postby Mike4 » March 17th, 2021, 5:12 am

Broadly speaking your post is based on a fallacy.

It is slightly more economical to turn heating OFF in spaces you are not using it because the heat loss from your space is proportional to the heat 'gradient' between it and the great outside. The higher the temperature inside, the faster the heat is lost to outside through the walls, ceiling, floor, via air changes, etc etc.

Consequently the opposite also applies, if you let the interior temperature fall in spaces you are not using, the energy lost from those spaces falls as the temperature falls too, eventually reaching zero when the interior temperature has fallen to the same as outside.

Therefore, less energy must be needed later to re-heat those spaces, than if you maintained them at full temperature the whole time you were not using them. The difference might be trivial but I hold that it will always use less energy turning the heating OFF in unused spaces than keep it ON all the time.

So time clocks do save money if only a little, and are still a Good Idea.

For 21st century heating control have a look at "OpenTherm". Technically complex but guaranteed to shave 0.1% off your energy consumption ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenTherm

Definitely strikes me as a good example of a solution looking for a problem.

staffordian
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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396334

Postby staffordian » March 17th, 2021, 7:46 am

One point touched on but not emphasised by the OP is the water temperature in a condensing boiler.

As I understand it, if the water returning to the boiler from the radiators is too warm, or outside a particular range then condensing will not occur and the boiler will be less efficient.

So setting the correct water temperature for the heating side of the boiler is possibly more important than the issues the OP mentions?

I set this temperature quite low as I prefer a more gradual change and feel that if it's set too high there may be a yo-yoing as the temperature shoots past the thermostat set point because the rads are so hot, then a longer time that it's off for before firing again. Maybe the effect is psychological but it seems to work for me.

swill453
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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396344

Postby swill453 » March 17th, 2021, 8:35 am

Mike4 wrote:Therefore, less energy must be needed later to re-heat those spaces, than if you maintained them at full temperature the whole time you were not using them. The difference might be trivial but I hold that it will always use less energy turning the heating OFF in unused spaces than keep it ON all the time.

The way I like to look at it is that, over the long term, the only heat you actually pay for is that which is lost to the outside, through floor, doors, windows, roof, chimney, cracks etc. If none was ever lost externally then your house would stay warm forever.

That's why insulation is so important, obviously.

So if you heat the house while you don't actually need it, you simply increase the losses.

(Obviously you want a timer to switch on in advance since you can't have instant heat with central heating.)

Scott.

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396348

Postby scotview » March 17th, 2021, 8:52 am

We have gone to the opposite extreme with our heating installation.

Our house is split into 4 heating zones (traditional radiators) which each has a dedicated, programmable, digital thermostat (Heatmiser). All areas are controlled for heating as required.

Our hot water tank is very well insulated and is heated 24/7.

We recently had a new boiler installed by BG, who recommended a 24kW Greenstar. I signed a waiver and got them to put in a 15kW boiler. This boiler has a much better turn down efficiency and is more often than not only heating a couple of rooms via the zoning system.

The 15kW boiler has gone through a couple of winters now with no problems.

Most boilers are grossly oversized and throw away a lot of unused heat.

dspp
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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396364

Postby dspp » March 17th, 2021, 9:27 am

scotview wrote:The 15kW boiler has gone through a couple of winters now with no problems.

Most boilers are grossly oversized and throw away a lot of unused heat.


And that is why the most important walls (and windows) to insulate are those close between the boiler and the outside world.

regards, dspp

taken2often
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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396475

Postby taken2often » March 17th, 2021, 4:19 pm

Mike 4. You are right but still not taking into account the building fabric mass. In general an unknown all buildings are leaky.. I am not suggesting that all rooms should be at full temp all the time. A bedroom could be between 8 and 16c keeping the fabric dry, perhaps not warm but safe. Other rooms I adjust as needed but the heating is on all the time. Now that I have done away with the old gas boiler and moved to electric I am finding a massive reduction in energy costs although it is early days. It still takes time to go from 16 to 21c so I am burning energy for a period of time. How long would it take from say 4c to 21c when the heating may have been off for say 6,8,10 or 12 hrs plus.

The other point is if a bathroom or kitchen door is opened and say a cold bedroom door . The hot moist air hits the cold dew point in wardrobes, walls and windows. Ideal breeding ground for Moulds and Asthma.

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396501

Postby gryffron » March 17th, 2021, 6:03 pm

taken2often wrote:Mike 4. You are right but still not taking into account the building fabric mass.

Hi taken2often,
Your point has some relevance, but is ultimately wrong. Thermal mass of the building has some effect. But considering the Thermal mass of a building is VERY hard to do. And, unless you live in a castle with 3' thick internal walls, won't to be the driving factor. In the overwhelming majority of homes, heating up the building fabric is FAR cheaper than paying good money to throw heat away when you don't need it. Hence, the universality of timers.

Gryff

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396566

Postby 88V8 » March 17th, 2021, 10:45 pm

gryffron wrote:Thermal mass ....the universality of timers.

The exception of course being ufh because of its inflexibility.

V8

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396575

Postby dspp » March 17th, 2021, 11:36 pm

88V8 wrote:
gryffron wrote:Thermal mass ....the universality of timers.

The exception of course being ufh because of its inflexibility.

V8


But often (not always) wet loop ufh is in very high thermal mass construction, much more so than ones average wall. The exception is wet loop ufh in a suspended wood floor, but even then the amount of tile & grout is a significant thermal mass. This is in many ways the whole point of ufh systems, to dampen the wild temperature excursions.

regards, dspp

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396661

Postby 88V8 » March 18th, 2021, 10:11 am

dspp wrote:
88V8 wrote:
gryffron wrote:Thermal mass ....the universality of timers.

The exception of course being ufh because of its inflexibility.

But often (not always) wet loop ufh is in very high thermal mass construction, much more so than ones average wall. The exception is wet loop ufh in a suspended wood floor, but even then the amount of tile & grout is a significant thermal mass. This is in many ways the whole point of ufh systems, to dampen the wild temperature excursions.

From my limited knowledge of ufh, it seems a good way to keep the chill off, but quite unsuited to dealing with day-to-day fluctuations.
As you say... thermal mass... cannot rapidly be heated nor cooled.
In that respect, rather like storage heaters, only more so.

I boggle when I hear of ufh being installed beneath a wood floor. Wood is an insulator.

V8

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396662

Postby dspp » March 18th, 2021, 10:17 am

88V8 wrote:
dspp wrote:
88V8 wrote:The exception of course being ufh because of its inflexibility.

But often (not always) wet loop ufh is in very high thermal mass construction, much more so than ones average wall. The exception is wet loop ufh in a suspended wood floor, but even then the amount of tile & grout is a significant thermal mass. This is in many ways the whole point of ufh systems, to dampen the wild temperature excursions.

From my limited knowledge of ufh, it seems a good way to keep the chill off, but quite unsuited to dealing with day-to-day fluctuations.
As you say... thermal mass... cannot rapidly be heated nor cooled.
In that respect, rather like storage heaters, only more so.

I boggle when I hear of ufh being installed beneath a wood floor. Wood is an insulator.

V8


I agree, wet loop ufh under a wood floor is not exactly ideal.

Re fluctuations, wet loop ufh in a properly insulated house leads to almost no fluctuations.

regards, dspp

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396740

Postby chris » March 18th, 2021, 1:09 pm

We changed heating setup 3 years ago to one supplied by Heat Genius. Every room is on a different timer setting and whilst some of these overlap, it gives us the ability to control heat to areas where we are using it and switch off where we don't use it. For example, the used bedrooms are on in the morning for when we wake up and get up but are then off until just before bedtime when they are set for an hour or so to warm them up. The unused bedrooms are heated 1 hour per day to get rid of condensation etc.

In the first year our kWh usage went down by about 30%, so a lot more than the 0.1% quoted (tongue in cheek I expect) by Mike. It was similar last year and once the winter season is over, I will let you know for this year, where I expect it to be higher, because the early part of 2021 was much colder.

For our house which is 1920s and with no cavity walls. We do shut the doors of unused rooms upstairs and one downstairs but for us, partial heating, even if that heating was on most of the time downstairs where we were using it in the cold spell, was a lot cheaper than keeping the heating on all day in all rooms.

Chris

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Re: Is this a Heating Conspiracy

#396933

Postby taken2often » March 18th, 2021, 10:40 pm

My Property is a two bedroom flat. Around 1870 13ft ceilings, windows 9ft x4.6 have 5 off these. No insulation other than a flat below and above so that helps. Each electric Rointe heater has its own temp control,mine range from 16 to 21c 24/7. Also have an electric hot water tank running at 55c 24/7 During the last 8 days all my electrics are running at £1.40 per day. Occupation 4 days single 3 days two persons. From Friday to Monday, Lounge running at 22c from 8.00am until 11.00pm. During the very cold spell the highest daily cost was £2.25 per day. Since doing away with all my gas this will be a massive saving for me.

For the last 50 odd years I have only ever been on 24/7 heating. I think one of the main reasons for changing was the massive increase in price that SSE were proposing. Changing supplier every year is now essential.


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