Which uses the most amount of Gas?

Question

I live in a terrace house. I have a standard fire in the front room and a standard boiler (not a combi) that heats the hot water and radiators at the same time. Which uses the most amount of Gas?
I'm inclined to turn of the radiators off and just have the fire on to save energy am I right or wrong?..

Answer 1

Just in case there are people who don't know what a combination boiler is, it's one that heats radiators on one system but only heats water for baths, washing-up etc on demand, with no hot-water cistern with 50 quids worth of hot water going cold.

You spend most of your time in one room, usually the lounge, so this tends to be kept the warmest so is the most expensive single room to heat. The other rooms are hardly used so it makes no sense to heat them to the same level, background heat is usually sufficient. Rooms that aren't used should not be heated, obviously.

Although other rooms may be at a lower temperature it is the wall area that is the major factor in heat loss, a setting only slightly lower would be offset by the sheer wall area of these other rooms, another reason to leave radiators low or off in these rooms.

Most radiators are placed below windows to eliminate these cold spots but thermodynamically speaking they're the worst place to site heat sources owing to heat loss through the glass. Double glaze to eliminate cold spots and site radiators on internal walls, preferably your own, not party walls, although I'm sure your neighbours will appreciate the boost. Gas fires are usually on internal walls, so much the better!

Use your gas fire to heat your lounge it is more direct and less wasteful than your central heating boiler. I've never heard of anybody cooking on the oven by circulating hot water round the outside of a saucepan or blowing warm air over it! (Except for a poringer of course but that's a different kettle of fish) Try and find a setting that gives a comfortable temperature; this may be somewhere in between the 2 or three settings that your fire is pre-set for. These pre-sets are not edicts from God, your gas-fire is more adjustable than these allow. A constant setting is more effective than turning the fire up and down as the temperature varies between your presets.

Your description of heating usage appears to meet all these sensible criteria so keep on truckin'.

Answer 2

I have the same. A boiler to heat the radiators and a separate heater to heat the water. I also have a gas fire which I use in the lounge. I am only using the gas fire and a halogen heater at the moment because the price of gas has gone up so much. So just a gas fire and separate CH boiler are the cheapest way to heat the house. The gas fire itself is cheapest of course. A central heating engineer told me once that a combi boiler does not last as long as a radiator only boiler. Mine is 23 years old and still going strong.

Answer 3

In any standard type of open fire, about 70% of the thermal energy goes straight up the flue pipe and doesn't heat your room at all. The running costs of electric heaters, even the quartz ones are about 3 times higher than gas heaters. Your gas fire is only heating one room, but I assume that your boiler is trying to heat the whole house. So I expect your boiler does use more gas because its doing more work. A modern condensing boiler or combi is much more efficient, but you do need to make sure that the controls are working effectively and that draughts are not blowing away your heat.

Answer 4

If it incredibly is an automated transmission.some automobiles won't bypass into overdrive if the pc maintains to be in open loop. The o2 sensor and engine must be warm sufficient for the comp. to bypass into closed loop. Open loop merely skill the pc is making use of preset values to function the gas blend correct. Closed loop is while the pc is making use of the sensors for the gas blend. i've got seen thermostats that are iced over open and could no longer enable the engine to heat up sufficient. If that's the subject, your gas miliage will drop way down. because of the fact, it incredibly is going to purely be in rigidity consistently and in no way bypass into O.D. desire this helps. grasp tech 40 yrs.

Answer 5

wrong, radiators hold heat longer. even when the gas is off, radiators are still putting out heat.

Answer 6

To find out how much gas you are using is to read the meter in say a 24 hour period using both methods. Subtract the difference and there is your answer

Answer 7

Thats what I do, I have a 3 bedroomed semi detatched, since having my walls insulated I hardly turn on my central heating.