How to make central heating efficient

[King Herald]

So, we have a normal gas boiler, normal system, but the whole thing seems to done rr's about face. And with the price of gas going berserk it only seems to look more silly.

Ferinstance; we're downstairs all day, yet the upstairs rads are still on, plus heat rises, so to keep downstairs at a warm temp, the upstairs is boiling.

Then, when we go to bed, we don't need the rads on downstairs, plus we only need a little bit of heat upstairs as we are all snugged down with quilts and stuff. But the main thermostat is down in the hallway.

What we NEED is a system that will turn off the upstairs rads during the day, but then turn off the downstairs ones at night. Plus will control the temp in any one room so it doesn't get too hot.

I know individual thermostats on each radiator will do that, but what about the main electrical 'stat down in the hall? That will think it is cold at night and keep the CH pumping away trying to warm itself up.

OR, can't we have two complete separate systems, one set for day, with its main controlling electrical thermostat downstairs, and one system for nights, with its thermostat upstairs?

Or am I is that just getting ridiculously complicated and mega expensive to do?

[Ganglandboss]

King Herald said:

Or am I is that just getting ridiculously complicated and mega expensive to do?

No - depending on what pipe work alterations are involved, it is no more complicated than having a separate heating and domestic hot water circuit.

[tonyvid]

Fit individual stats upstairs and turn them down until you are comfortable with the combination of heat rising/radiator warmth....

[groomi]

tonyvid said:

Fit individual stats upstairs and turn them down until you are comfortable with the combination of heat rising/radiator warmth....

Could be difficult due to the body heat generated by running up and down the stairs to keep adjusting...

[johnfm]

New systems must have two circuits for building regs.

You can fit these yourself (or get a plumber to).

You need a pair of diverter valves and a pair of thermostats. I use the salus wirelss jobbies - no need to chase wirtes in etc.

You then have a downstairs thermostat set to one temp and time and the upstaris to another.

Not sure if you can use 2 x timed controllers or one controller and one thermostat.

Either way, it is doable - but the cost of the bits (about £150) plus cost of the plumber (about £1000000 at today's rates!) may not be worth it for the gas saving. Work out the payback period to decide.

[Busamav]

King Herald said:

What we NEED is a system that will turn off the upstairs rads during the day, but then turn off the downstairs ones at night. Plus will control the temp in any one room so it doesn't get too hot.

Thats what we have , with all rads having TRv's

[BigBen]

johnfm said:

Not sure if you can use 2 x timed controllers or one controller and one thermostat.

Two controllers with timers but only one of them is the master so has to be on all the time (this can be at a very low temp so the radiators are effectively 'off') at least that is what our builders told us, buggered if I can get it to work as anything other than one controller does the lot

Ben

[Ganglandboss]

BigBen said:

johnfm said:

Not sure if you can use 2 x timed controllers or one controller and one thermostat.

Two controllers with timers but only one of them is the master so has to be on all the time (this can be at a very low temp so the radiators are effectively 'off') at least that is what our builders told us, buggered if I can get it to work as anything other than one controller does the lot

Ben

You need a stat in each zone with either separate programmers, or one dual zone programmer.

[Police State]

a friend of mine has a recirculating warm air system which seems to be too good to be true...

he says:

warms up quicker than water rads
each room is independently adjustable
no ugly rads on walls
thermostat cuts in and out quicker allowing fine-tuning
less heat exchange loss

can any heating/plumbing experts see a downside?.

If not, I know what I will be looking for on the next house spec...

[Ganglandboss]

Police State said:

a friend of mine has a recirculating warm air system which seems to be too good to be true...

he says:

warms up quicker than water rads
each room is independently adjustable
no ugly rads on walls
thermostat cuts in and out quicker allowing fine-tuning
less heat exchange loss

can any heating/plumbing experts see a downside?.

If not, I know what I will be looking for on the next house spec...

They are very efficient and controllable provided they are designed, installed and serviced properly.

[Busa_Rush]

Ganglandboss said:

Police State said:

a friend of mine has a recirculating warm air system which seems to be too good to be true...

he says:

warms up quicker than water rads
each room is independently adjustable
no ugly rads on walls
thermostat cuts in and out quicker allowing fine-tuning
less heat exchange loss

can any heating/plumbing experts see a downside?.

If not, I know what I will be looking for on the next house spec...

They are very efficient and controllable provided they are designed, installed and serviced properly.

They smell, they circulate smelly air from the intake room to the bedrooms, they are noisey - big fan needed to push the air round, if you have any kind of dust allergy they can kill you

Seriously, I had one and yes it did warm up fast and was controllable but that's where the positives ended and the negs started. Would now have a condensing gas boiler with microbore pipework if you can still get it and ultra thin rads.

[King Herald]

johnfm said:

Either way, it is doable - but the cost of the bits (about £150) plus cost of the plumber (about £1000000 at today's rates!) may not be worth it for the gas saving. Work out the payback period to decide.

Yes, that is pretty much what I was thinking: is it cost effective unless we plan to live here 700 more years. We were planning to get a combi boiler installed this summer, but I spent the funds on a Harley, so if we do that later in the year I may inquire as to how hard it is to re-hack our system and split it at the same time.

Ganglandboss said:

Police State said:

a friend of mine has a recirculating warm air system which seems to be too good to be true...

They are very efficient and controllable provided they are designed, installed and serviced properly.

Our airing cupboard is dead central to the house, meaning it is just a hole away from all three downstairs rooms, hallway, upstairs landing and two of the three bedrooms. I've already envisaged some sort of piped air system 'climate control', centralised in that cupboard, were we to remove the copper tank and accompanying miles of copper pipework.


That might be better than redesigning the central heating we have.

[R5GTTgaz]

Pipe all the rads to a manifold with individually controlled solenoids to turn each room on and off as you like.

[King Herald]

R5GTTgaz said:

Pipe all the rads to a manifold with individually controlled solenoids to turn each room on and off as you like.

This is probably the sort of thing I can do myself I reckon, with a little Google research.

I guess you still have to leave one rad permanently open to save dead heading the heater pump, or something similar?

[R5GTTgaz]

King Herald said:

R5GTTgaz said:

Pipe all the rads to a manifold with individually controlled solenoids to turn each room on and off as you like.

This is probably the sort of thing I can do myself I reckon, with a little Google research.

I guess you still have to leave one rad permanently open to save dead heading the heater pump, or something similar?

Just leave a towel rail on in a bathroom, my uncles done it in his house (self built) you can turn all the rooms underfloor heating on and off via one of those home automation pads. Pretty trick.

[King Herald]

R5GTTgaz said:

...you can turn all the rooms underfloor heating on and off via one of those home automation pads. Pretty trick.

I have to leave my wife in control when I go offshore...

[R5GTTgaz]

King Herald said:

R5GTTgaz said:

...you can turn all the rooms underfloor heating on and off via one of those home automation pads. Pretty trick.

I have to leave my wife in control when I go offshore...

Turn heating off.

Issue blanket.

[Pickled Piper]

An easy improvement you can make is to change your mechanical room thermostat for an electronic programmable version. This way you can have a daytime thermostat setting that automatically turns down at night time. Plus it also controls more effectively than the old mechanical type.

It doesn't get over all the problems you mention but it is an improvement.

pp

[BigBen]

Ganglandboss said:

BigBen said:

johnfm said:

Not sure if you can use 2 x timed controllers or one controller and one thermostat.

Two controllers with timers but only one of them is the master so has to be on all the time (this can be at a very low temp so the radiators are effectively 'off') at least that is what our builders told us, buggered if I can get it to work as anything other than one controller does the lot

Ben

You need a stat in each zone with either separate programmers, or one dual zone programmer.

Yep has a downstairs stat and controller then an upstairs controller with stat built in (and a lot more functionality)

[King Herald]

Pickled Piper said:

An easy improvement you can make is to change your mechanical room thermostat for an electronic programmable version. This way you can have a daytime thermostat setting that automatically turns down at night time. Plus it also controls more effectively than the old mechanical type.

It doesn't get over all the problems you mention but it is an improvement.

pp

That would be an easy start I guess, drops the downstairs temp late in the evening, and in conjunction with TRVs on all the rads upstairs.

Probably the cheapest option too.