Have you turned your central heating on yet?

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Don't you people have thermostats?

I have a lower limit of temperature I will tolerate in the house, and a thermostat set to that temperature. In summer the heating is not needed, so it stays off. In winter it gets colder, it comes on. The thermostat is a modern programmable electronic one that is predictive and knows how long the house takes to warm up and just deals with it.

There have been some nights when the radiators have warmed up.

I admit I have been lazy and not told the thermostat that I like it a couple of degrees colder at night, I really should do that.

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Yup, we do .... but in the summer, I just turn the heating off.

We haven't needed heating for months, so turning it off either made no difference, or saved us a bit of money if it would haved fired when we didn't need it.

But when it's on, it's set for :-

- overnight, and cool
- early AM, warm up before getting up
- cool back down, when nobody is here in the morning
- up again briefly at lunchtime when someone's home
- drop a bit while unoccupied in the afternoon
- back up again late afternoon, ready for us getting home
- about 9pm, drop back to overnight temp.

And that's Mon-Fri. For Sat & Sun, we have a similar schedule that reflects later times for getting out of bed, and that we're here all day.

Then there's an 'away' mode I can select for anything from an hour to several weeks, which allows me to set just a minimum "guard" temp to prevent freezing pipes, etc.

And it radio switches, with the receiver tucked away with the boiler. And, another radio thermostat on the hot water circuit, controlling HW tank temp.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Don't you people have thermostats?

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We have one. You'll love where ours is.

In the kitchen. I jest you not.

The kitchen in our house is tiny. So, fancy baking something during the winter? Hope you didn't want the rest of the house heated, because even with the thermostat over 25C it can still get warm enough in the kitchen to turn off the heating.

best heating we ever had was about 3 houses ago, we had a wireless roomstat in the living room with proper digital settings, and we could keep the house at exactly 16C. Saved so much money on fuel bills.

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

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best heating we ever had was about 3 houses ago, we had a wireless roomstat in the living room with proper digital settings, and we could keep the house at exactly 16C. Saved so much money on fuel bills.

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Basically, that's what I described above. And being radio-linked, I can move it around looking for the optimum place to put it.

Of course, thermostatic valves on radiators also, first, help control room temps, and second, save money by not heating, or over-heating, places you want cooler.

I THINK my heating thermostat is Draytek, but it's BG-badged, so I'm going by apparently identical models.


And what dipsh.... erm, muppet, thought the kitchen was a good place for a thetmostat? Not you, I'm sure. :D

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Originally Posted by jimbouk

I'm sure one could be retrofitted; you'd have to splice a wire in the controls and find some power for it but nothing impossible. We just use human thermometers at the moment :-) I didn't realise they were that cheap though, I'll add that to my list of house things to do.

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The one I have is powered by a couple of AA cells, so doesn't even need power. The hard part is getting a cable from the boiler to a sane place for checking the temperature, but some of them are wireless these days so don't even need that.

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

In the kitchen. I jest you not.

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lol, I believe you, some things you just couldn't make up :D

Edit to add: I'm sure you can get retrofit wireless thermostats, the receiver would go in the kitchen and you could put the thermostat sender somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

The one I have is powered by a couple of AA cells, so doesn't even need power. The hard part is getting a cable from the boiler to a sane place for checking the temperature, but some of them are wireless these days so don't even need that.

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Mine's 2 x AA powered too, and that's radio-linked. I suspected it might eat batteries, but in fact, I change them about every two years. The receiver is mains-powered.

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Originally Posted by Saracen

Yup, we do .... but in the summer, I just turn the heating off.

We haven't needed heating for months, so turning it off either made no difference, or saved us a bit of money if it would haved fired when we didn't need it.

But when it's on, it's set for :-

- overnight, and cool
- early AM, warm up before getting up
- cool back down, when nobody is here in the morning
- up again briefly at lunchtime when someone's home
- drop a bit while unoccupied in the afternoon
- back up again late afternoon, ready for us getting home
- about 9pm, drop back to overnight temp.

And that's Mon-Fri. For Sat & Sun, we have a similar schedule that reflects later times for getting out of bed, and that we're here all day.

Then there's an 'away' mode I can select for anything from an hour to several weeks, which allows me to set just a minimum "guard" temp to prevent freezing pipes, etc.

And it radio switches, with the receiver tucked away with the boiler. And, another radio thermostat on the hot water circuit, controlling HW tank temp.

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Well I think having the heating on over the summer has made no difference. It certainly can't have saved much money, there may have been cold snaps when it briefly came on overnight but as far as I am concerned that is what it is there for :D

But yeah, I need to program mine better than just a steady temperature.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Well I think having the heating on over the summer has made no difference. It certainly can't have saved much money, there may have been cold snaps when it briefly came on overnight but as far as I am concerned that is what it is there for :D

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Obviously, I don't know your house, but here, I'd be VERY surprised if mine would have fired had it been on. I have a record of gas used, day by day, for many years, and if the heating had fired other than for a very brief period, I'd know anyway. But I also have a 'last thing at night' reading from the heating thermostat, and until about a week, maybe 10 days, ago, it hadn't dropped below 22 or 23, even at 3am or 4am.

Overnight, I tend to have a floor temp at about 10 degrees, and we wouldn't have got anywhere near in that area.

Mine went on at the beginning of the month when we had a bit of a cold snap. Room temp had got down to 15C which is too bloody cold if you ask me.

Hell no !

If you are feeling cold, go buy a furry jacket and wear thick sports socks indoors. Gas and Electricity cost a lot more thna these!

Apart from 2 days spent at home recently feeling rather under the weather no it's been off since well before the summer.

Hoping to keep it that way for a while.

I have a similar thermostat arrangement to that described by Saracen (mine is wired though) but I tend to switch the heating off completely in the summer. That went on at the beginning of the month, and the heating is now coming on first thing in the morning and also comes on in the evening. It isn't cold enough during the day (yet) to fire the boiler.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Edit to add: I'm sure you can get retrofit wireless thermostats, the receiver would go in the kitchen and you could put the thermostat sender somewhere else.

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If we owned the house, perhaps. The best thing about renting is that you don't have to pay for general repairs and upkeep. The worst thing about renting is that means you don't get any say in what gets done or how it gets done. But you can always give your notice, find a better place, and move on :)

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

If we owned the house, perhaps. The best thing about renting is that you don't have to pay for general repairs and upkeep. The worst thing about renting is that means you don't get any say in what gets done or how it gets done. But you can always give your notice, find a better place, and move on :)

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Very true, about the best thing, and a point often missed in discussions on house prices, and "getting on the property ladder". There are advantages and disadvantages to owning versus renting.

BUT, if the best thing about renting is that you don't pay for repairs and upkeep, the worst thing isn't that you get no say. The worst thing is that you stop paying rent when you buy, ir when you top breathing.

Guess what my rent/mortgage payments are? Yup, you got it .... nil, zip, bada, bupkiss, naff-all.

And THAT is why those struggling so hard to get on the ladder are in such a bind. It's great for me. No monthly payments, and unless there's a house price collapse, a very nice chunk of cash to be released when we move and downsize. But younger people, you included, are going to find it far harder to do that and that simply ain't fair.

Mind you, while buying a house now still guarantees your monthly payments stop after x years (25, if you get a mortgage like mine), certainly doesn't any longer guarantee building up a large equity block. That will entirely depend on future house price trends. Though to be fair, that wasn't guaranteed, by ANY stretch of the imagination, when I bought, though it did turn out that way. It was no part of my buying decision, though.

So no, don't agree that "no say" is the worst thing about rent. That's that it is a lifetime drain on income/resources, not a fixed term one. Believe me, having NO rent or mortgage payment is a HUGE psychological benefit, especially in these very uncertain, insecure times.

true, but that's a benefit that would take a long time to realise, and I'd still be liable for a lot of large, and potentially unexpected, costs. I was chatting to a friend last night who had to replace both the boiler and the roof in the first couple of years after buying a house.

Besides, you're only guaranteed to stop paying that mortgage if you don't move, or if you realise enough equity to take a smaller mortgage over a shorter term if you do move. I know for a fact that I will be moving away from Manchester, and probably in not too many years. While I'm renting that's going to be dead easy.

Plus actually renting is in some ways less problematic if you have uncertain employment, thanks to the provision of housing benefit - the government won't pay your mortgage for you if you lose your job, but they will pay your rent (well, some of it, at least). So yeah, there's plenty of pros and cons to both options - I guess you just have to weigh up which ones you care about most...

Indeed. And, what the best choice is today might not be the best choice in 2 years, or 5 years.

As for replacing roof and boiler, yup, I've done the boiler, but not the roof, and that's in well over 25 years. And if you're doing that, especially the roof, in the first couple of years, I'd suggest you didn't have a full survey done before buying, or it should have highlighted both those problems, but certainly, the roof. On top, I've replaced all the doors and windows, and of course, carpets, fridge, freezer, washing machine, beds, kitchen hob, and so on.

You're right, owning a house can be expensive. But .... how much rent do you pay a month/year? Rhetorical question, so don't feel a need to answer, but consider what applying that amount, every month/year, to roofs, boilers, etc, after you've paid off the mortgage.

Round here, you'll be lucky to find anything under £1000/month, and that'll be at the low/smallish end of the market. So, £12k a year. It's not unreasonable to expect that, having paid the mortgage off, you'll have 30 years left. So, 30x£12k = £360,000, at today's prices. And I know I couldn't rent (as a renter) this house for that, so that £360k is likely to be on the low side.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying buying is for everyone, or even for those that will/should buy, that it's necessarily right to do it right now. Clearly, if some factor, like moving areas for work, is going to take you away, then buying isn't right .... unless you rent out while you're away, assuming you'll be coming back to the area.

Mine hasn't been on since around March time and I doubt it will be on again until November at the earliest....even though the rainy season has started in Plymouth, its still fairly warm and not feeling the need at all yet.