And talking of heating the van..

Jaws

Jaws

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C class, Chieftain
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We have the house heating set to 20c
I try and set the van about the same but Woman always says it is cold..

What do others set their temperature to ?
 
Thermostat in the house is on 16 but keeps getting turned up and down. Car is set to 20 and haven't got one in the campervan
 
At home we set our room stat at 25 but the set the temperature of each room independently using to thermostatic valve on each radiator. The high setting on the room stat ensures that the towel rails in the bethrooms and WC stay on permanently. We've also found it best to run the heating from 6:30am til 8:30pm.
In the van we have the heating set at 22 which seems to work fine
 
one & a half buckets of coal (that's the house BTW)
MH - 10 overnight, 16 day
 
Robert Clark said:
At home we set our room stat at 25 but the set the temperature of each room independently using to thermostatic valve on each radiator. The high setting on the room stat ensures that the towel rails in the bethrooms and WC stay on permanently. We've also found it best to run the heating from 6:30am til 8:30pm.
In the van we have the heating set at 22 which seems to work fine
Click to expand...

If the house is unoccupied thro the day, this is the wrong way for fuel efficiency.
 
18.5 oc and jumpers. Mh is cooler and we rarely use heating, even as cold as it was last night.

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72F in the house, my thermostat is not marked in centigrade. In the van with an Alde system, 21C in the day (0600-2230hrs) 16C (2230-0600hrs)
ezee
 
I like it around 19 in the van, when it gets to around 15/16 in the morning it feels cold.
It went up to 22 last night when cooking baked spuds in the halogen oven, we had to open the door to cool down.
 
Geordies said:
If the house is unoccupied thro the day, this is the wrong way for fuel efficiency.
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No need to worry - One of us is there all day
On a serious note though.... Our house is really well insulated and I'm of the belief that once you've warmed the internal walls up, they act like a storage heater so it's better to leave the heating on from morning to evening rather than heating up from cold twice a day. I've got no evidence to support this other than to say that our house feels much more snug since we left the heating on all day.
 
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Jaws said:
That does not really make sense !
It might lose heat quicker but why set it higher ?
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Thermostat in the van seems to drop 4 degrees before switching on, i.e. at 22c drops to 18c before coming on, so set higher.

You're right the fact it loses heat quicker is irrelevant, senior moment.:)

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Between 1&2 wheel barrow loads of wood, keeps the kitchen at around 22/25 degrees and the lounge about 25, depending on how cold it gets and if the wind is coming from the NE.

Oh, the van? Whatever it takes to 'feel' warm, but rarely have to set the dial on the Truma above 5 unless the outside is into double figures on the minus side.
We just hate feeling cold
 
We set our's at 20 when it's quite mild but when it's cold we put at 30 but as other have said it cools down very quickly so we also wrap up well, it's easier to take off a layer or two or add them, anyway what are all going to do when it does
get cold
 
Robert Clark said:
No need to worry - One of us is there all day
On a serious note though.... Our house is really well insulated and I'm of the belief that once you've warmed the internal walls up, they act like a storage heater so it's better to leave the heating on from morning to evening rather than heating up from cold twice a day. I've got no evidence to support this other than to say that our house feels much more snug since we left the heating on all day.
Click to expand...
I've been wondering about that - we're here all day and it gets really cold early afternoon. At the moment we're varying between the log burner and the central heating for just an hour at night not long before bed time.
Have you had any bills yet to be able to see how/if your consumption is affected?
 
Debs said:
I've been wondering about that - we're here all day and it gets really cold early afternoon. At the moment we're varying between the log burner and the central heating for just an hour at night not long before bed time.
Have you had any bills yet to be able to see how/if your consumption is affected?
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Hi Debs
We can't compare really as our heating used to be oil fired and it was so expensive to run, we had many of the radiators turned off and the rest on low. We spent over £4000 on oil one winter, and the house felt cold. We ripped out the oil boiler 3 years ago and replaced it with Biomass (logs fired). We now burn the equivalent of about one wheelbarrow of logs per day in the winter. We have the heating on all day as said before and the log burner for effect in the evening. The house is much warmer than it ever was and we feel much more comfortable.
Regards
Robert

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We have the house set around 19 and the van varies as we do t like it to warm overnight.
Since we fitted the woodburner last year we are using that more and when the living room warms up we just open the doors and it keeps the chill off the whole house so very rare for the heating to come on. Unable to compare cost as we only bought the house June 13 and fitted stove while renovating, I bpught 4T of softwood from the forestry for £90 and got some hardwood free for helping a friend and so far we are about 1/3 through the softwood.
 
Robert Clark said:
Hi Debs
We can't compare really as our heating used to be oil fired and it was so expensive to run, we had many of the radiators turned off and the rest on low. We spent over £4000 on oil one winter, and the house felt cold. We ripped out the oil boiler 3 years ago and replaced it with Biomass (logs fired). We now burn the equivalent of about one wheelbarrow of logs per day in the winter. We have the heating on all day as said before and the log burner for effect in the evening. The house is much warmer than it ever was and we feel much more comfortable.
Regards
Robert
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Thanks for that Robert, I didn't realise you weren't using gas - guess we'll have to try it for ourselves.
Cheers
Deb
 
lorger said:
We have the house set around 19 and the van varies as we do t like it to warm overnight.
Since we fitted the woodburner last year we are using that more and when the living room warms up we just open the doors and it keeps the chill off the whole house so very rare for the heating to come on. Unable to compare cost as we only bought the house June 13 and fitted stove while renovating, I bpught 4T of softwood from the forestry for £90 and got some hardwood free for helping a friend and so far we are about 1/3 through the softwood.
Click to expand...
Wow £90 - that's a great price!
 
Mike B said:
Thermostat in the van seems to drop 4 degrees before switching on, i.e. at 22c drops to 18c before coming on, so set higher.
Click to expand...

I had this problem in a caravan. It is caused by poor location of the thermostat. You may be able to buy an auxillary thermostat to place in a more sensitive location?
ezee
 
I don't do 'cold' , that's why I live here ! :)
When it starts dropping below 30ºc I'm looking for a coat .
In the house we have a log burner in the lounge that , today when it is drizzling ( :xeek: ) is maintaining temperature at 25-6º & that is with both lounge & front door open as the dogs want to come & go . Normally I have to run it 'shut down' as though overnighting to prevent excessive heat ! :xgrin:
In the van when stopped I'd just turn it on until I was hot.
When driving I have heating full on to start , even here, & then reduce as it warms up.
In the car here first thing in morning before the sun has warmed anything up I'll have temp on 32º (max) & the seat heaters on.:xThumb:
Even in the UK I'd have the van heating on full to keep my feet warm & open a window if it got too hot ! :xlaugh:

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bernardfeay said:
Explain to me why my internal thermometer is incorrectly set and hers is exactly right
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Easy. It's because to be warmer you could put more clothes on, but to be cooler she'd have to... erm... You wouldn't make her do that, not in the snow, surely??? :xblink::xblink::xblink::xblink:
 
Debs said:
Wow £90 - that's a great price!
Click to expand...
Debs don't know about your area up here in Dumfries they do a sale every Quarter £22 + vat for softwood and £28 for hardwood, the forestry cut it into 1m lengths so you have to cut it and chop it yourself which I enjoy as its good exercise. As this will be our first full winter in this house we are hoping to notice a difference in bills. So might be worth giving your local forestry a call next sales January when I'll buy another 4T
 
lorger said:
Debs don't know about your area up here in Dumfries they do a sale every Quarter £22 + vat for softwood and £28 for hardwood, the forestry cut it into 1m lengths so you have to cut it and chop it yourself which I enjoy as its good exercise. As this will be our first full winter in this house we are hoping to notice a difference in bills. So might be worth giving your local forestry a call next sales January when I'll buy another 4T
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's great - we are quite close to a few forestry sites but I've never heard of them doing these sort of sales (and I'd have thought I would have) only the christmas tree sales.
This is our second winter and so far we've managed with free wood from various sources but will be getting a couple of bags of smokeless fuel this week, just in case my dads newspaper was right and we do get a really bad winter.
I'll make enquiries this week.
Cheers
Deb
 
To give a little bit of info about the "leave on / turn off" heating debate. This also applies to keeping the water hot in your storage tank or letting it go cold then reheat it. Years ago talking to a designer for British Gas, he describe the principle like this, using the hot water tank example.

You heat the water in the tank up to 55c say. The ambient temperature around the tank is 20c say. Therefore 35c of heat is trying to escape. You try and prevent it escaping by lagging the tank, but some will still escape. If you keep the water at 55c all the time then the escaping amount is constant and you have to pay for that.

If you let the water cool, thro the night for instance, then lets say by 6am its down to 35c and it was last heated at 8pm then the average heat in the tank was 45c for 10 hours. Which is a temperature difference to ambient, assuming ambient stays the same, of only 25c, hence lower proportion of heat escapes, then you heat it back up.

It all comes down to the average temperature of the water above ambient temperature over a period of time. Of course the better the insulation the less you lose, but it is still all relative.

Guess the same applies to heating houses or Motorhomes.
 
Robert Clark said:
Hi Debs
We can't compare really as our heating used to be oil fired and it was so expensive to run, we had many of the radiators turned off and the rest on low. We spent over £4000 on oil one winter, and the house felt cold. We ripped out the oil boiler 3 years ago and replaced it with Biomass (logs fired). We now burn the equivalent of about one wheelbarrow of logs per day in the winter. We have the heating on all day as said before and the log burner for effect in the evening. The house is much warmer than it ever was and we feel much more comfortable.
Regards
Robert
Click to expand...

Do you live in a stately home????!!!!!

We live in a 3 bed semi and use £600 of oil a year.

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