Confused about different heat settings?

[Help4me]

Hi everyone,

Hope someone can advise me please.
We have gas central heating, with an old Baxi Bermuda back boiler, and a 70's style gas fire.
The only thermastat we have is a yellow knob at the bottom of the fire inside. The heat settings go from 1 to 5. The gas service man set it to 3 & a half, saying that's the usual one for winter.
And we have to have the rads set to 5 to heat the house enough.

What I need to know, is as it gets milder weather, which will be more cost effective, to turn the heat setting down on the gas, and leave the rads high, or leave the gas setting where it is and turn the rads down? We don't have the heating on all the time. It's usually on for 1& a half to 2 hours at a time, depending on how cold it is.

Someone said to us it would be better to put the gas setting on 5 in winter, and keep the rads lower, but we don't know who to believe. We have tried the rads on 2 or 3 but they don't seem to work very well. Some of them go colder at the bottom on those settings but not when they're on 5.

Help4me

 

[Bartdude]

If it's working on 5 then leave it there. The best thing you could do is have a room thermostat thermostat fitted,that will switch the boiler off when the house is warm enough,stopping the boiler firing when it doesn't need to.

 

[ecowarm]

You can have the boiler on high for a shorter period or on low for a longer period but I dont think its going to make a great deal of difference with that dinosaur of a boiler (only joking but a boiler upgrade is the only way to save on gas)

 

[Help4me]

Thanx for the replies.
The trouble is we rent the house from a social housing group, and they won't upgrade it, even though the boiler's as rusty as hell. Oh well, here's to the day when the dam thing breaks down!

Help4me

 

[ecowarm]

It'll go on for ever!!!!!!

 

[Help4me]

Ha ha! Yeah that's what we think. I bet there's another 20 years left in it knowin our luck.
Help4me

 

[tamz]

Keep it set higher in the colder weather and turn it down a bit in the summer. The higher the setting the hotter your rads get, the quicker your rooms heat and the bigger the gas bills.
2 1/2 is about the lowest you will be able to set it. Lower than that and your HW will not be warm enough.
Adjust your rads to 1-2 in the bedrooms, 3-4 in the lounge and bathroom, 2-3 in the kitchen. If you have a thermostat in the hall set it to around 20º. This saves a bit on the heating as when the rads close off you don't need to heat the water in that part of the system.

It probably will run forever. The housing assoc are not stupid. Giving you a new one will cost them lots more in maintainance and repairs

 

[fuzzy]

keep it high in winter, i lower mine to around 3 or 4 in summer, room stat is the key to cheaper bills