Question about heating systems

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Slippery

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Ok, so we moved from our apartment to this new house, our home. Now, aside from the bigger space, we cannot take some liberties that we used to before like having the thermostat at 80F all day long. I mean we could, but we would get poor in a month :crazy:

So what would be the right temperature in order to have a pleasant ambient for us and both for the heating tubes. You know that having the heating tubes unused and suddenly turning them on, would case them to explode.

I am actually kinda worried about it. :nervous:
 
Holy crap, 80F?

Put that sucker on 73.
 
I keep my thermostat on 62F all year.

What is a heating tube?
 
[QUOTE='85fierogt]I keep my thermostat on 62F all year.

What is a heating tube?[/QUOTE]


The tubes from where the heat actually travels?

I put it on 69F on weekdays.
 
Aah, the ducts. I've never heard of any exploding from not being used, then used.

Theoretically it could happen, but i don't think normal use would heat them up quick enough for them to expand so fast they would explode.

If you have gas heat and there was a leak it could collect in the ducts and explode when the heat is turned on I guess.
 
Turn off the heater and wear a sweater. ;) (That’s how we do it! Actually, only because we don’t have heating. But seriously, it’s really cold out right now, and I’m wearing a sweater, and I’m perfectly comfortable.)
 
Skin a polar bear and wrap yourself in carcass. Blood is pretty warm and stuff, too.
 
63 F is good for sleeping/when you are at work, and 68 F is plenty for when you are at home.
Sage
Turn off the heater and wear a sweater. ;) (That’s how we do it! Actually, only because we don’t have heating. But seriously, it’s really cold out right now, and I’m wearing a sweater, and I’m perfectly comfortable.)
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No heat?! Did it get shut off, is your house still being constructed, or, otherwise, why?
 
skip0110
63 F is good for sleeping/when you are at work, and 68 F is plenty for when you are at home
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👍 That's the way to go. The trick to saving on heating is to keep it down when you're not at home or are sleeping.
 
kylehnat
👍 That's the way to go. The trick to saving on heating is to keep it down when you're not at home or are sleeping.
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There is actually a school of thought that it is cheaper to keep the heating on all day than it is to only run it at key times.

There are some things you can do to cut your energy bills:

- Make sure all of your exterior doors fit properly. You can add a draught-excluder for a few pounds, which will save you hundreds in the medium term by stopping all your precious heat running out of the door.

- If you have a roof, ensure it is fully insulated. As with the draught-excluder, a few pounds spent now will pay back immeasurably.

- If you have a multi-floor house, turn off all the radiators in the upper floors. Heat travels upwards, so there's no point in making more heat up there.

- Turn your hot water thermostat down a little. Sure, you might think you need your hot water at 75-deg C, but the fact is you can't really tolerate it at more than 45 degrees, so that should be your aim.

- Buy a 7-day heating timer. This will allow you to set the heating to be off when you're at work, but on during the weekends when you're at home.

- Set the heating to go off an hour before you go to bed in the evening. Go on! Get that hour free! When the house gets cold, go to bed.

- Similarly, heating on an hour before you get up, off an hour before you go to work.

Basically, the way to save money on energy is to run the house at the minimum temperature that you can stand. There are some steps that you can take to make your system more efficient, but these will cost money, so the return on investment will take a while to come through. Try having the heating system flushed - it works wonders by allowing the hot water to move around the house faster, so it gets where you need it while it's still hot.
 
skip0110
No heat?! Did it get shut off, is your house still being constructed, or, otherwise, why?
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Because Sage lives in a location that is sunny and warm all year round. Plus, he's almost "off the grid" when it comes to relying on utilities.

From what I've been able to discern, he lives very close to Area 51 and his father occasionally "travels abroad" ;)

As for radiant heating tubes exploding, that is very unlikely. The liquid in the tubes is there constantly, and when heated, simply transfers the heat to the piping and fins, thus radiating warmth into the air. Which alleviates any chance of an explosion.

Set the temp for 67 or 68 degrees and purchase some blankets.
 
We keep the heat thermostat set at 70 dF when we're in the house and awake. It's a digital, 7-day-setback type. Due to the way it cycles, the heat doesn't come on until 2 dF below the set point, and it goes off at the set point. So during the winter the house stays around 68-69 dF most of the time when people are in it and awake. Then, at night and during work days, it sets back to 66 degrees, allowing the house to drop to about 64-65. It does kick up for a brief hour or two in the morning to make it possible to get out of bed and into the shower.

Giles is correct, depending on what type of heat you have. Particularly if you have electric heat, it's cheaper to run it a little bit but more or less continually than it is to let the house get cold and have to run the heat hard and long to bring it back up to temperature.
 
Slippery
So what would be the right temperature in order to have a pleasant ambient for us and both for the heating tubes. You know that having the heating tubes unused and suddenly turning them on, would case them to explode.
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I seriously doubt it, becuase I turn on the heat maybe once or twice a year (usually when company comes over on the 4-5 chilly days we get in the winter), and the coils fire right up. You might smell the dust burning for a few minutes, but it dissapates after a few minutes.

Other than that, there's been years where I never turn on the heat. When I live in Gainesville, it would get 30 degrees colder than it does here (yes, it snowed once), but even then, I turned on the heat only when waking up and if I had to do activites that didn't involve much finger movement (like playing GT).
 
skip0110
No heat?! Did it get shut off, is your house still being constructed, or, otherwise, why?
Click to expand...
As Der Alta said, since I live in southern California, I don’t have as much of a need for it as you coldies in Massachusetts, and I’m off the grid to begin with, so there’s no way we could get enough energy to run a central heating (or air conditioning!) system. We actually have a few small gas heaters in the house, but they never get used, because you only feel the heat if you’re standing right next to them, or if you leave them running for hours in a locked room, so it’s not really worth the money to run them. We’ve always just relied on warm clothing.
 
Duke
We keep the heat thermostat set at 70 dF when we're in the house and awake. It's a digital, 7-day-setback type. Due to the way it cycles, the heat doesn't come on until 2 dF below the set point, and it goes off at the set point. So during the winter the house stays around 68-69 dF most of the time when people are in it and awake. Then, at night and during work days, it sets back to 66 degrees, allowing the house to drop to about 64-65. It does kick up for a brief hour or two in the morning to make it possible to get out of bed and into the shower.

Giles is correct, depending on what type of heat you have. Particularly if you have electric heat, it's cheaper to run it a little bit but more or less continually than it is to let the house get cold and have to run the heat hard and long to bring it back up to temperature.
Click to expand...

I also have 7 day timer digital thermostat. Honeywell brand. It is just that I had to replace the batteries and when I did it, the previous settings resetted. Before that, the heater wouldn't even turn itself on during daytime, but on nightime, once.

Now it turns everyday at 6:00 am, 4:10pm, 7:00pm and 11pm on weekdays. Maybe it is too much.
 
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