I was right: it was bloody hard dragging myself out of bed this morning. It doesn’t help that I was awake at 3am and didn’t get back off to sleep till about 5.
As I lay there, getting more and more annoyed with myself for being awake, listening to the hum of the central heating pump droning on in the background, I realised I was quite thirsty and so I nipped downstairs for a drink of water. Whilst I was there, I checked the temperature on the hall thermostat. 16.5 degrees. That would explain why the heating was on, as the lower set point is at 17.5.
I made my way back to bed and as I lay there, I wondered about the heating. Why was it on? I had just been downstairs, totally naked (I always do that, cos it will scare the shit out of any burglars) and it certainly didn’t feel cold. I got up, went down again and took the wall thermometer from my study and Blu Tacked it to the wall next to the thermostat. I left it a minute then checked the temperature.
17 degrees, said the thermostat.
19 degrees, said the thermometer.
So that’s solved the mystery that I was trying to get my head round earlier this week: why has my gas bill suddenly shot up 30% this last month? Because I’m heating the house all night when we’re cosily tucked up in bed, that’s why!
Right then, a new thermostat required. A quick trawl of the internets threw up this little beauty from the bloke who designed the iPod. Unfortunately, it seems it’s not yet readily available in the UK… and it would be prohibitively expensive even if it was.
It’d look bloody nice on my wall though.
Amongst you gadget ridden abode do you not have a central heating programmer?
A programmer that lets you set the time the heating comes on and the time when it shuts off.
They used to be based on clockwork toy technology but nowdays they use digital touch type wizardry
And setting them is, as one of those charming Meerkats on the telly might say….
“Quite easy really”
Yes, but I don’t use it as it runs the batteries down.
I don’t use the timer. I get home, set my heating thermostat to 21c. As soon as it hits that, the heating goes off. I don’t bother putting the heating on in the mornings.
Simples.
Yes, simples… but cold.
You’d like this
http://www.smarthome.com/wifi-thermostat.html
Or just about anything on that web site. I want to turn my home into a Smart Home, but I really can’t justify doing so. :/
Hi Cheri,
Yeah, there is a lot of good Smart Home type stuff about nowadays. Many times I’ve looked into using the X10 kit, but it’s all prohibitively expensive. But it must be the way forward.
I still get excited whenever I remotely set up my Tivo to record something using my smartphone.
My control box is thirty years old, so I turn the heating on when I need it and off when I don’t.
Hi Toffeeapple,
I’ve tried that… sort of. Problem is, if I turn the heating off at this time of year, it literally takes hours to warm the house up again. I’m not sure if that works out more expensive than just keeping it ‘ticking over’, as it were.
Ah, the ticking over conundrum. I’ve wondered that. In a modern (small) house, is it more fuel efficient to keep the temperature constant?
I’ve had varying views on that subject but now that I don’t have to go to work I can stay in bed with a hot-water bottle while it all warms up.