Keeping your home warm / heating / energy crisis / insulation etc

Huh yea. It's like the boots thing from that Pratchett book.

@hippy
i'm in my sisters annex currently. she did her husbands office with some magnetic mounted perspex style double glazing and they both reckon that it's working great. sticky mounts on the windows then magnetic attachment for the perspex layer. no condensation, room noticably warmer than it was previously. that stuff above looks a bit flimsy. the magnetic stuff can be removed too so windows can open in the summer. i don't know what the brand name is but she gives it the thumbs up, she may well do more rooms this year. but probably not the annex ! doh !

Seven hours of non-stop central heating

Are your rads like really shit / underspecified? Or does the boiler not have the juice to do it?

At a 60deg flow temp we can get our really shitty drafty / leaky combined back room and extension up to temp (19-20) in a couple of hours with a 30kw boiler and two double panel 2500mm modern rads. We are not end of terrace though.

Suspect it's a combination of under-specced (but nice looking) radiators, high ceilings, massive heat sink of non-insulated end of terrace wall and cheapo, ill fitting double glazing.

Living room has a couple of these. They're about 750mm

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I don't think we have a smart meter. I do have one of those Owl things actually but my missus took over the leccy bills so I don't know if the rates are accurate or not.

I do wonder if at some point the polystyrene balls become the new fire risk cladding.

I don't need it for my place, I was just going to try the stuff out for tent footprint use.

The other thing does sound better but if you or your sis ain't getting it, then my solution is still probably winning :P

We have one rad like that in our loft room and it does fuck all. Despite getting really, really hot.

Looks nice though.

Suspect the effectiveness of a rad is inversely proportional to its aesthetics.

This thread needs more

That’s enough of that.

This is generally true. The fins in your standard type 22 or 33 rads seem really effective.

How big is the room these rads are in? The rad looks tiny, and won't hold a candle to a bog standard double-panel double-convector type 22 rad of equivalent size.

Worth ditching for suitable rads, for an immediate boost in efficiency.

We upgraded to modern convector radiators and I'm impressed at how quickly they seem to heat a room considering they don't feel too hot to the touch. We also got some classic looking tall radiators for a couple of awkward places and they don't seem to do as much. So I'm convinced that convection ones work.

Narrow vertical radiators also don't work very well. Width is essential to convect the maximum amount of air.

the effectiveness of a rad is inversely proportional to its aesthetics

A universal truth.

Our little ugly fucker hidden behind our sofa pisses all over the massive smart thing in our dining room.

Tbf I'm not 100% sure it's correctly balanced, but even so.

We have grey triple column rads along with fancy bronze vertical ones which are all over specified for BTU’s at delta 50 and they cope fine with the current weather, don’t think appearance comes into it if the BTU output is right for the room and flow temp

Width is essential

#hippyisfat

Yeah it was that or nothing because there isn't enough wall space

weirdly, our house has been quite warm over this cold snap (1905 end of terrace, w/double glazing currently a nice 17C).

we're on the octopus tracker tariff so our gas costs are about 30% less so we've been having it on much longer than norm but still only £2.50 a day.

Half way through insulating loft, upgrading it from <100mm to 300mm so im hoping that improves things further.

I think our house is much colder in the wet + cold than the current dry cold as the solid walls get wet and I believe that draws heat out?

I had to turn off the heating in the living room today, currently 22 degrees with all the sunshine.

fuck you

I've had the heating on for 3 hours, brought it up from 5 degrees to 10.

Highrise living for the win, I think being off the ground helps a lot summer or winter.

Sort of similar. Edwardian detached house converted into flats, so we have a flat below us and a flat above. Having 4 external walls isn't great but only 2 have windows in them, all but 3 of the 9 windows in the flat are double glazed. We get the benefit from the heating being on below and above us most of the time, and it's rare that all 3 of the flats are away at the same time.

Still need to add in a sensor to collect how often my heating is on (will be attaching a Dallas 1-wire temp sensor to the hot water and central heating pipes from boiler), and also adding sensors to see much gas/elec is being used*.

* There's an LED on the electricity meter that flashes every 1/1000th of a kWh of use. Think there's something similar on the modern gas meters too. http://www.reuk.co.uk/wordpress/solar/flashing-led-on-electricity-meter/

Not sure if this is a question, a statement, a rant or a cry for help.
We live in a chalet bungalow that’s around 2,5sqft, we have an ASHP. We changed from an oil burning system. We know we need to fit some larger rads, but there’s not a whole lot of wall space, big windows etc. it’s fully insulated, but…
… over this cold snap our a daily electric cost @ 29.21p is averaging at £27 a day and we hit £32 the other day. The temp is set at a not crazy 19* there’s an older person in the house. The stats on the controller are showing a 3 or 1 on energy in heat out. Is this crazy or I’m I just getting obsessed with looking at our smart meter? I don’t look at it normally tbh.
I put a consumption plug thing on a 3,000watt oil rad at work that’s on 24hrs a day in a room with 3 others and it used £17.50 a day on its own so that’s £70 a day to heat that one room. This has made me feel slightly better, but not much.
Edit;
I’ve also just discovered that the heated airer has been on, as has the tumble dryer and the dehumidifier. Fuck me oldies hey!