A gal of antifreeze in heating system (1 Viewer)

[laurieash]

What's you opinion on putting a gal of car antifreeze in the central heating system at home.
Just in case the frost protection don't come on when away for the winter.
Or leave heating and water turned off all together.
If the pressure drops will the heating come on.
I don't know the answer just throwing out to you heating engineers.
Laurie.

 

[laurieash]

Note to the above in my static I drain down and put antifreeze in the waste traps or u bends

 

[Just smiffy]

I intend to shut everything off, water off at stopcock and I will lower the pressure in the heating system.

Depends on the house and environment but here in Cornwall and with my house I very much doubt it will freeze in the house...

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[treetops1]

We always have antifreeze in the system ,always leave it on frost stat when away , and always turn the mains water off . Our c/central heating is a sealed system so only needs topping up occasionally so no need to leave mains water on. You could leave your heating turned off but would recomend you drain the system.

 

[two]

There should already be additives that will prevent freezing (and other stuff) in your domestic heating system but the thermostat shouldn't fail. You could add another frost stat to you system to be sure. I'd rather come back to a warm house than a chilled one.

 

[tonyidle]

We turn off water & leave the room stat set on 15 degrees with heating on its normal times (2 1/2 hours morning & 4pm to 11pm night) and loft hatch open.

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[Lenny HB]

You can buy proper Antifreeze for central heating systems it is probably the same stuff but I don't think it's much dearer. Screwfix own brand £21.59/5lt or Sentinel around £28.

 

[Lenny HB]

We turn off water & leave the room stat set on 15 degrees with heating on its normal times (2 1/2 hours morning & 4pm to 11pm night) and loft hatch open.

We use a Nest thermostat with the away temp set to 12 deg, last week when we came home I switched the heating on while on the ferry and arrived home to a nice warm house.

 

[two]

Probably not a good idea to mix additives. The anti-corrosion stuff (like Fernox) will protect against frost but you'd be well advised to flush the whole system first.

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[laurieash]

But if we are away for 3 months seems like a lot of wasted heating.
When unloading the motorhome that warms us up until heating kicks in.
Sentinel is what I had in my last system but I thought it was lubricant also for minor leaks. or have I got that completely wrong as usual.
Laurie

 

[two]

Any additive will reduce the freezing point. Different ones are to address different problems but the most common is to combat corrosion.
Leave your heating set between 5°C and 10°C. It'll reduce any damp and the cost should not be excessive. It'll take a long time to drive the chill out of the fabric of a solid house otherwise.

 

[laurieash]

Any additive will reduce the freezing point. Different ones are to address different problems but the most common is to combat corrosion.
Leave your heating set between 5°C and 10°C. It'll reduce any damp and the cost should not be excessive. It'll take a long time to drive the chill out of the fabric of a solid house otherwise.

Yes I think that's the way forward with the water turned off.

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[Lenny HB]

But if we are away for 3 months seems like a lot of wasted heating.
When unloading the motorhome that warms us up until heating kicks in.
Sentinel is what I had in my last system but I thought it was lubricant also for minor leaks. or have I got that completely wrong as usual.
Laurie

You probably had the inhibitor in your system, they also do a inhibitor & antifreeze combined.

 

[Speve]

We never turn heating off just set stat low and leave for warmer climes never drain down or turn off water as long as your pies are insulated up in the loft shouldn't be a problem.
Like to think it's a good idea to at least keep the house a little warm during winter just to prevent damp and mildew etc.

 

[PhilandMena]

Modern houses, and even those that are 40-60 years old are now mostly well insulated as a result of goverment help with free cavity and loft insulation resulting in very few homes in the Uk falling below 4 Deg Centigrade in the winter.
Modern central heating systems have an automatic frost setting and this will automatically fire up the boiler when a trigger temperature is reached and shut off again when a higher set temperature is reached.
We use the Hive system, affordable and easy to use and monitor away from the house. We have our frost setting set to 7 deg. and last year overwintered outside of the UK with the heating switched off. The coldest the house got was 10 Deg. If it reached 7 deg the boiler would have started up and cut out again when the heating got up to around 9-10 Deg. You can also check your temperature from your Tablet/Laptop and switch your heating, hot water on as and when you like.
https://www.hivehome.com/

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[mitzimad]

most modern boilers have built in frost protection but this will realy only protect the boiler

 

[Bobby22]

We turn off water & leave the room stat set on 15 degrees with heating on its normal times (2 1/2 hours morning & 4pm to 11pm night) and loft hatch open.

Maybe folly to leave your loft hatch open....... If you have a cold roof you might be introducing damp to the loft space.

 

[Steve and Denise]

Our heating is under floor but all stats room stats are set 7 degrees frost but being honest we tend to set the stats to 18 as when you come home it feels normal with only slight ajustment.

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[Badknee]

We pumped Sentinal 600 round our central heating in the static, checked with my refractometer till it was down to -18 protection the same as we use to do with ground source heat pumps. Fernox is in my opinion is not antifreeze. While I agree that houses are better insulated these days be carefull that any pipe work or storage tanks are not above the insulation in the loft as they will definitely freeze.

 

[WillH]

Never turn our heating off, ever.

 

[Bailey58]

We never turn our heating off leaving it set at around 15c so it kicks in when necessary, maybe lower if you're away for three months. We returned to a friends house en route for home after a two week cruise in mid October, they'd turned the heating off and the place was bitterly cold and felt damp although it was a modern well insulated house.

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[Clarky]

Like some others we have a Hive thermostat linked to the broad band router.
It has a frost setting at 7ºC so will switch the boiler on in the unlikely event that the inside temp drops below that.
When we are away I can go into the Hive app and see the internal and external temp, so can keep an eye on weather at home.
On the way back from Spain last week I remotely increased the temp to get the fabric of the house warmed up and when we got to Calais turned it up to normal evening temp. Got home yesterday afternoon to a lovely toasty warm house.

Richard.

 

[TerryL]

We've got warm air heating, which tends to heat the house very quickly. However it also means it cools down quite quickly too and we have experienced an occasion when we'd turned the heating off and it took days to get it warm again. So now (and at the insistence of our insurers) we set the frost protection at 10 deg permanently - we also have a remote system similar to the Hive (Salus IT500) with which we can monitor and control the heating via internet. Water heating can also be remotely controlled but we turn off the water main during our winter break.

Modern technology is great!

 

[glastry]

We never turn heating off just set stat low and leave for warmer climes never drain down or turn off water as long as your pies are insulated up in the loft shouldn't be a problem.
Like to think it's a good idea to at least keep the house a little warm during winter just to prevent damp and mildew etc.

If JJ gets to hear that you have warm pies in the loft,you might need to check your burglar alarm system!!!

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[Speve]

If JJ gets to hear that you have warm pies in the loft,you might need to check your burglar alarm system!!!

Blinkin predictive text if JJ goes there the only thing he'll find is a load of old junk loft needs clearing out so he could be doing me a favour