Heating

[la vache!]

It is a little cheeky putting this in the manage your property sections as it is actually for my own house!

For those of you who have and need central heating in winter (gas or oil), can you advise if it is cheaper to:

a) have the heating on a timer so it only comes on when required (i.e. not through the night or during the day when I'm at work) but it has to heat up from a low temperature each time, therefore using a lot of energy

b) to keep the heating on at a constant thermostat temperature, e.g. 19.5°c and switch off the radiators when not required, e.g. in the bedrooms at night

My gas bill was horrendous last year (even though I only had the heating on timer 3 hours a day) and will be worse this year, so I'm looking for ways to economise where possible, so any advice would be appreciated!

[Vally]

I guess it would really depend on the construction of your house, our old granite building takes an age to warm but with constant heating during the day it is easy to warm up again in the morning. My parents house, a newish ( well 20 years old now ) Scandinavian kit house in the same area has tiny heating bills because of the triple glazing and thick lagging.
Also I am a very chilly person and need heat indoors , keep my coat or a fleece on indoors most of the winter!!!

[Ciapolin]

Our house is solid stone and the walls are about 0.75m thick. We have found it cheaper to keep the heating on constantly at around 10 ndegrees and then turn it up when we need to. We also use our wood burner throughout the winter - more comforting and I think a nicer heat.

[sunny by nature]

I totally sympathise Susan. We live in an old stone victorian house with un-draughtproofed cellars and 20' high ceilings. It's beautiful and spacious and we love it, but .... we've had a recent quote of £400 per month from our gas supplier.

We spent a fortune this summer putting in double glazed sash & case windows, so we are hoping to get some recompense. I seem to spend all my time going round turning down radiators and switching off appliances!

Following our freezing cold first winter, I have come to the conclusion that it is better to keep a low ambient heat from the central heating during the day (we still switch off overnight unless it is very, very cold). We tend to supplement this with log fires, woolly socks and fake fur throws from Matalan, but it would definitely be easier - and warmer - just to give the thermostat a little boost when you need it.

In the meantime, I'm checking quotes to switch to a cheaper gas supplier. There are loads of UK sites to do this, might this be an option for France too?

[la vache!]

Thanks everyone - SBN, I think this year it will cost me only a little less than that to have the heating on - I had a woodburner put in last year and got plenty of use from it - that is why we could avoid having the heating on so much at weekends, for example. I will try some other suppliers, but I am not on town gas and a cistern buried in the garden is unfortunately the most expensive heating you can have now. My house is a converted barn and there is just me and my daughter there most of the time (plus a few cats and dogs), so there isn't much human heat being generated either! The last bill I had in January we were paying 1272€ incl.VAT per tonne - I think town gas is around 700€ per tonne.
I will try keeping the heat on at a low temp rather than turning off completely and see what that brings!

[Mouse]

Susan

don't know if this is any interest but we have marble radiators. We had them fitted last winter as we didn't want to faff about with an oil contract and have central heating installed.
Basically they are a marble slab with electric heat elements running through them. They heat up like stone and hold the heat longer (like a stone wall on a sunny day).
The idea is that they are on a thermostat - so keeping the house at a constant temp. They are great with a wood burning stove.

They're also easy to have installed, very clean and maintainance free. The size depends on the room size but you can have them fitted both horizontal or vertical on the wall.
They're a bit more expensive to fit than central heating but the bills are cheaper and when you consider theres no mess and upheaval involved ... and that you can buy them when you can afford them (we got the upstairs done last winter and this winter will have the downstairs done) it worked out cheaper overall for us.

Mouse
x

[debk]

Hi, Mouse - I just googled marble radiators and would like more information. Are you using the stand-alone electric marble radiators... or the radiators connected to a central heating system? Did you use a Spanish supplier? If so, any chance they had a website? Thanks!
debk

[Mouse]

hi Debk

we use stand alone ones. The company does have a website but its in german - though the boys who run it speak excellent english and give a wealth of information including the running costs. its www.genial-sl.com and the email addy is info@genial-sl.com

They were fitted in a couple of hours and there are no wires on show!! The thermostat is by the light switch - so easy to reach.

heres a picture of ours (we went for the cheaper version where you can see the clips that hold it to the wall - but you can have them hidden)


Mouse
x

[Nightowl]

Hi all

We use a similar thing to Mouse, panel heaters, but ours are made from a cement fibre board which can be painted to blend into your rooms. They are very widely available in the Cadiz area and also in Seville - DebK this might be of use to you. Thy don't look as posh as marble ones probably do but they are probably a hell of a lot cheaper at 80 euro each.

I have posted about these heaters before as we have found them absolutely ideal for leaving on for long period and they are cheap to run.

http://www.econoheat-spain.com/

See their web page for further info. I'm not connected to the company in any way.

[debk]

This is great info. The marble heaters could be of interest for our Lisbon place and the cheaper ones might be perfect for our beach cottage... which is less than two hours from Sevilla.

(Heating at the beach cottage is a real problem because the potência is so low: running normal electric heaters overloads the elec system, we can't do oil on the island and bottled gas is too complicated and too humid.)

Knightowl, do you know how much electricity they draw? If it's not too much, I think this may make the cottage useable in the winter. That would be great!
debk

[Nightowl]

This is info taken from the website: http://www.econoheat-spain.com/home.php

Two standard panel sizes are available. These have been found to be the most practical for most applications, but other sizes can be made to orde if quantities are sufficient.

425 Watt 600mm x 600mm x 9mm thick drawing 1,8 Amps at 230 Volts 50Hz. Weight approximately 4kg.

260 Watt 600mm x 450mm x 9mm thick drawing 1,2 Amps at 230 Volts 50Hz. Weight approximately 3kg.

They have lots of other info on the site but I can honestly say that we have been really pleased we discovered them and they are much cheaper than oil filled radiators or anything else we tried to begin with.

We had a very low potencia to begin with (something like 3 I think at first) and used these heaters without a problem, although we did find when they were all on and then we put the kettle or microwave on sometimes it would make the circuit breaker pop.. so we have now upgraded our potencia.

[Nightowl]

Debk - just noticed you can get them from 2 shops in Huelva as well - have a look at the list of suppliers cos you might find one nearer than seville.

We got ours in Polanco in Chiclana, which isn't listed as a supplier; it's worth having a look in any of the big DIY stores that are near to you.

[debk]

oooh, very nice. THANKS again!
debk