Economical use of gas heating

S

Sweet Pea

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Hi,

I live in a 2 bed apartment which has GFCH. There is no immersion, so the gas boiler is used to heat the radiators and the water. I'm trying to work out the most economical way of using the heating while obviously remaining warm and cosy! The apartment is quite small (750 square feet) and when the heating goes on, it heats up fairly quickly and it retains the heat for about an hour. I share with another girl and we have the timer set to come on for 15 mins at 6:30 when we both get in from work, then 15 mins at 7:30 and then another 15 mins at 8:30.

I would have thought it would be more economical to have the heating on constantly on a low heat for two hours than have it go on and off three times for a short period of 15 minutes. This was confirmed by someone in Bord Gais however we don't know whether to believe them as it's in their interest that we spend more!

Advice appreciated!
Thanks
Sweet Pea
 
The only way to know for sure is to time it. Its a bit of work but one evening will do it. Set the heating to come on for 15 minutes before your return (as yo do already) and then let it run until 8.45. Log how many times the boiler runs during that time and then compare it to the running times of the boiler on the current system. Alternatively take a gas meter reading on two seperate evenings using the two seperate methods. My guess is that it'll consume more gas to run the heating all evening but you may notice that the room temperatures are more stable and comfortable. I could be wrong though!
 
I have gas also. I run the timer from about 6 in the evening til 11 at night - a half hour in the morning also. I have it on a fairly moderate setting. My neighbours were doing what you were doing. They had the thermostat up way higher than me. They would even be opening the windows in winter to let a bit of air in and they would be nearly in summer clothes. There bills were always at least twice mine. I'd say I like my comforts and heat so it's not just that I'm warm blooded. Hope this helps.
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We run our heating from a combi boiler and leave it on all the time controlling it via a thermostat. Since our recent double glazing of all windows we have the thermostat set to 17/18 C during the day and turn it down to 15 C when we go to bed. Outside daytime temps recently have varied from abou 4 C to 10 C.

I am waiting with great interest for my next gas bill!
 
Thanks everyone,

We currently have the thermostat set at around 23 degrees which is way too hot - tropical! So I will do a little experiment as suggested and take a meter reading using the current system whereby the thermostat is set very high and the heating only comes on for short bursts of time, and compare it to a reading whereby the thermostat is set to 18/19 degrees and the heating is on for a couple of hours. I've noticed that the rads go off when the room reaches the temperature set on the thermostat so am I right in saying that if we have it set to 18 degrees for 2 hours, the rads will probably only be on for half that time as the rads will power off when the room reaches the temperature set on the thermostat - if the temperature drops below that, they will turn back on etc?

Will let you know the results of my experiment!
 
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