The Black Stuff

[Stasher]

We have oil fired central heating which costs a bomb to run (well impressed with Briggs 2.0 cutting that out of the budget ).

Since 2006, we've seen the cost of heating oil rise by 40%. That was the deciding factor to replace our heating source. Where we live, we will always be dependant upon oil, so it had to go.

Oil costs....Have you checked out the Heatmiser thermostats? When we were on oil we fitted one of these and we worked out it paid for itself in one winter. A huge amount of oil is used firing up the boiler and we found the traditional thermostat had the boiler coming on and off, on and off all the time. The Heatmiser stat is digital and therefore precise in its temperature settings. It also gives you four heating time zones of different temperatures, so you can set it for a lower temp in the daytime when everyone is more active then set it for a higher temp in the evening. It has a frost-setting so if you switch off your heating at night, the Heatmiser continues to monitor the temp to keep the house ticking over so there's no huge demand in the morning to get the whole house up to temperature.

Well worth checking them out. Heatmiser.

Briggs

Thanks for this Briggs, my brain is imploding by rereading this several times and looking at the website. Are you really saying that replacing our thermostat will save money? Could it really be that simple? (she types hopefully) We are a 'cold' house and rarely force the heating on, altho it is set to come on automatically when the house is flippin cold. I always know when it's really cold because I wake up to a warm bedroom. A warm bedroom always sends a little frisson of 'just how cold is it out there' thro me. I will certainly look more into this. Thanks for the heads up

[Briggs 2.0]

@Stasher

Yes, in my experience I would say fitting a Heatmiser will save you money. Fitting it is relatively easy if you've got a 230V traditional on/off thermostat. It's designed to replace that type of stat and their technical support are very good if you get stuck. Then it's just a case of reading the manual and setting up times zones and temperatures.

If you have a standard thermostat it's probably set at 20 or 21 or if you're a cold house, 18 or 19, and it's set at that temp all through the day. With the Heatmiser you can set up time zones so overnight it can be set low to say, 14 to protect the house from getting too cold, then between 6:30 and 9:00am it could be set at say, 17 degrees, just to take the chill off while you're active. You can add a further three time zones with different temps so for example, when you want it a bit warmer in the evening between 6pm and 9pm, set it for 20, then just before you go to bed, set it for 18, then let it switch back to 14 overnight. If you're going out for the day, there's a facility to override the thermostat to switch off the heating but still have it monitoring the temp in case the house gets too cold.

So instead of using your existing thermostat as a switch set to one temperature you end up with a more intelligent switch that has better time and temperature controls and this stops your oil boiler from running when you don't really need the house to be so warm.

It may seem complicated but we swear by it. The added bonus is family members who like to wear just a tee-shirt in winter cannot walk by the thermostat and give the knob a quick twist to bring the heating on.

EDIT: I've just revisited their webpage and their product range has expanded with some very technical stuff. The thermostat we have is on their Thermostat page, model DT and it's £47. It's the basic digital one with a blue screen.

[Decaff]

Is this only for oil heating or would it work with gas too? Fantastic idea and if it saves money even better.

[Briggs 2.0]

Is this only for oil heating or would it work with gas too? Fantastic idea and if it saves money even better.

Yes, it would work okay on gas too.

Oil or gas, the boiler is controlled in the same way. I'm assuming you have the standard boiler controller on your wall that does your timed controls, like on, off, twice on and off and constant and you set up the times you want the heating on. The thermostat you have on your wall then adds a further control that sets the temperature that you want the house at, by switching the boiler on and off, within your set time periods.

With the Heatmiser, you set your boiler controller to have the heating on all the time, 24/7 and you set up the Heatmiser to control both the times the boiler is on and the temperature you want in the house. The basic PT model from Heatmiser has 4 timed zones plus the overnight frost-protection setting, so what you get is a more precise monitoring of the time your boiler is running and in my experience saving fuel. We reckon we recouped the £47 within one winter.

Our heating isn't on at the moment but if it was, here's how we set up our Heatmiser. We are both out in the morning and I'm often back at about 2pm, Mrs B in at about 4pm.

Overnight - Home frost protection mode which we set at 14 degrees so the house doesn't get too cold
6:00am to 8:30am - set to 17 degrees. House warms up to a temperature that's comfortable when getting ready for work
8:30am Heating off.
1:00pm to 4:00pm - set to 18 degrees. House starts to warm up again.
4:00pm to 6pm - set to 19 degrees which is comfortable if you're moving about.
6pm to 10pm - 20 degrees for when you're watching your Walking Dead box set.
10pm to 11pm - 17 degrees - we then let the house cool down gradually before bed
11pm back to home frost protection mode.

So rather than have one temperature setting of say 20 degrees all through the day, we can adjust our temperature settings throughout the day in line with when we are active and when we are probably not so active. That way, our boiler only works when it needs to.

I hope I'm not complicating things here, it's really quite simple and well worth investigating further to see if your existing thermostat can be replaced. I did mine in about 10 minutes, mains off, remove stat, make a note which wire goes where, read instructions, rewire, replace. Bingo! Or ask an electrician for a quote, it can't be more than an hours labour.

By the way, I'm not sponsored by Heatmiser, I'm sure there's other similar products out there!

[Decaff]

Excellent! Thank you Briggs.

[Stasher]

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble with this. It goes on the list.................... Thank you

[Stasher]

I meant to update this weeks ago....

Union lignite is my black stuff of choice (once I'd recognized the bag I bought last year). It burns hot and lasts easily overnight

[nickdutch]

I will be stuffed heating wise if shtf, living in a flat doesn't give you any options that I can think of, what does everyone else in a flat have planned? I can't store fuel as it's against my tenancy agreement, although I do have camping gas canisters hidden in a plastic lidded box with a couple of camping stoves I got.

The only option I can see for you is the ethanol fireplace. I use mine to help boost the air temperature in the mornings to help get it warm enough to have a shower (as I don't turn the gas heating on until I get up and it takes hours in this place to get the flat warm enough for showering to not be a health risk what with colds, flu and wotnot).
On the subject of storing fuel, that will be a pain as you have to buy the bottles of ethanol, unless you can strike up a deal with someone or store it off site, I cant see a solution for that one.

[Decaff]

This is a big problem for me, we have no external storage at all and I have no family close by that could store fuel for me. Mind you in a SHTF situation I would stock as much as I could get my hands on!

[ojiu0u4]

Hey,

My current thoughts are to not heat the house but go down an ECWCS route. I dont have a family beyond woof which will get down the bottom of my bag and warm me like a furnace. I get that if there are more people the economics of the solution shift. My plan is to learn to live in -20 rather than heat my environment, lined, two packed, bivied, tarped and tented. I want to upgrade my sleep solution to sungpak rather that my 4 season bag, but in my current -5 test runs I am uncomfortably hot and opening the zips getting air into the bivi. Is this dumb, I am just thinking it is more sustainable?