Efficient ways to heat one room.

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Efficient ways to heat one room.
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Stacey

Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 8380
Location: Kernow

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:18 am Post subject: Efficient ways to heat one room.

I'm hoping to spend the majority of winter days in my workroom. I have the central heating on for an hour in the moring in winter till the kids have got out of bed and the house stays warm until they've gone to scool. The temp drops steadily through the day though. I want to heat the workroom but don't want the central heating on. I can't tolerate strong smells because of M.E so any kind of bottle gas heater or parrafin heater is out of the question. Also, our electric bill is already huge because of the chest freeezers for the meat and veg so I'm not keen on convector heaters etc.
Help me out

Lozzie

Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 2595

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:26 am Post subject:

Do you know how the heat is being lost, in your work room (or for that matter, thoughout your whole house)? Is it vanishing through large windows, or a door that is not draught-proofed? Which way does your work-room face: Could you consider moving into another room with a better disposition?

If you have the time, you might want to have a wade through this website:

https://www.theyellowhouse.org.uk/

It has a lot of useful information about how you can improve the efficiency of your house.

nora

Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 1539
Location: West Yorkshire

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:31 am Post subject:

How would you feel about just having the workroom radiator on and the ones in the rest of the house off? I did this when working at home and it didn't cost too much. (I had individual thermostats put on all the radiators so I can choose which radiators to have on)
I kept the heating off until I started to feel cold then just put it on for an hour then turned it off and did this as and when I needed to
during the day. I had a woodburner in the room I worked in but that cost more to run so I found the central heating option cheapest.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:32 am Post subject:
Blimey nora, what's your new av, it keeps going round

nora

Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 1539
Location: West Yorkshire

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:34 am Post subject:
:happy6:

Stacey

Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 8380
Location: Kernow

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:35 am Post subject:

To be honest it holds the heat really well but not all day. I'm really sensitive to temperature change becasue of being ill. We had those people come round and insulate everything. They did the doors and windows and loft. The house is much much warmer since (it also has 2ft thick granite walls) but not warm enough to sit in all day with no extra heat source. My workroom is for spinning which is a sit down all day job - not producing much body warmth.

ETA - the radiators tip might be the way I have to go. It's just a pain in the bum turning all the others off. It's a big old farmhouse.

My workroom is the extension bit on the end

Last edited by Stacey on Sun Aug 21, 05 9:42 am; edited 1 time in total

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:41 am Post subject:

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:44 am Post subject:
Our house sounds similar to yours Stacey and we do the same sort of thing - rads on morning and evening, and then off all day. I use one of those electric oil-filled radiators in my office. I have it on low, but right up next to me so I get all the benefit. My desk is also right by a south-facing window - , on a sunny winter morning when the sun is down right low it gets very warm indeed.

Stacey

Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 8380
Location: Kernow

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:45 am Post subject:
Are those oil filled rads cost effective? I suppose the newer the radiator the better the efficiency? I might go for that.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:48 am Post subject:
To be honest I have never costed it, but I know that I would never get my act together to turn all the rad thermostats down around the house!

Stacey

Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 8380
Location: Kernow

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:52 am Post subject:

Judith wrote:

To be honest I have never costed it, but I know that I would never get my act together to turn all the rad thermostats down around the house!

rofl - ditto!

nora

Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 1539
Location: West Yorkshire

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 9:54 am Post subject:
I trained the children that when they turned off their alarms in the morning, they also turned off their radiators so that was 2 done, then the only other one was the kitchen which I turned off after they went off to school, leaving on the living room one which was my workroom at the time. My house is much smaller than yours Stacey so I was lucky that there were not so many to do.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 10:06 am Post subject:

I had a similar problem when I was working from home last year - it was just daft to put the central heating on for just one room, and it wasn't that it was particularly cold, just that I was sitting still, typing. We had the woodburner in all day, anyway, but downstairs, and the heating on for just an hour or so in the mornings, and sat by the woodburner in the evenings.

I found a few solutions, the most effective (not sure if it'll work with spinning) was to fill a hot water bottle (with water boiled on the woodburner that we kept in all day) and put it under my feet, but a sheepskin rug on my chair amde a big difference too. I also found deliberately leaving going out for the wood or a paper or whatever, until I was just beginning to get cold, and the activity, and coming in from the cold, made me feel warmer.

Later on, I managed to eliminate the hot water bottle, and train a dog to sit on my feet - you can always put the hot water bottle on your lap or behind your back though.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 05 11:25 am Post subject:

Judith wrote:

... but I know that I would never get my act together to turn all the rad thermostats down around the house!

Its more for folk installing or renewing their heating systems, but its not much of an addition to have the heating in "zones" controlled by motorised valves - so that you can choose which parts to heat when.
Not impossible to do for an existing system. But maybe only worthwhile during other work...
The actual valve would only cost from about �35. You could have it controlled by a simple manual switch. (I'm thinking of shutting off all, or at least the vast majority of, other radiators.) But how extensive, and thus expensive to install, any pipe runs would be, is going to depend on the house and existing piping layout.

NannyP

Joined: 26 Aug 2005
Posts: 118
Location: Vienne, France

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 05 11:12 am Post subject:
Wellington Womble, you must get a prize for the most creative idea How clever.

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