Heating in summer
hi do you turn off heating as the weather becomes warmer or as it’s set up just let it run and do its thing so if warm enough it stays off ?
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I think this is really down to personal preference around comfort.
I normally turn most rooms off between April and October as they can be cool enough in the morning to trigger heating but in the summer I'm not bothered if they're cooler in the morning as the house will warm naturally through solar gain during the day. I do have one room that is north facing, has three outside walls and is above an unheated garage so it tends to get left on the heating schedule all year round
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It depends on what works for you and your family. Pre-Tado, we would have thermostat wars (i'd lose to SWMBO) and the hot water was ON for most of the time.
Now, we set the heating to OFF from May to October. If SWMBO is cold, she can turn up the individual room. The hot water is ON just once a day, for an hour or less. SWMBO can adjust the hot water timings too. That's reduced the summer kWh consumption by circa 50%. We're experimenting with the surplus leccy from the solar PV; whether to heat the hot water or export kWh to the grid for ££?
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@wateroakley, HW on all the time is definitely an energy waster. I used to do that a long time ago until I realised the boiler was firing several times a day just to keep the tank hot. This was despite no water usage and having a very good quality unvented cylinder.
Regarding your solar PV energy. I looked into this around 2010 and was told at the time I'd be paid for every kWh regardless of whether I used it or not. Obviously if you use it then it also saves the cost of imported electricity. Is your feed-in tarriff the same as that?
I have a friend who got PV installed last year but doesn't yet have the HW diverter (?) installed to heat HW when household demand is low. He said that was going to be around £800 but I guess the ROI might be 5 years or so? Obviously you can do it manually if you're at home during the day but there's always the chance you leave it on when it gets dark and you end up using imported electricity unnecessarily
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Once the house stays above 20 during the day without heating, I turn heating off completely. I don't want to waste gas on a cool morning, when the house will warm up anyway.
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@davidlyall The solar PV is new for 2024. The original plan was to consume as much as we can and export the rest. Some of our use is different to the way we had envisaged and ££ estimated. The battery will top-up automatically overnight at 7.5p per kWh. The leccy day-tariff is 27p per kWh. Outgoing leccy credit is 15p per kWh. The solar PV and battery run the house during the more expensive day-tariff.
You can adjust 'what goes where and when’ from the apps. Any surplus (5.7kW just now) is going to the grid at 15p per kWh. March leccy kWh cost £24, outgoing kWh credited £24, plus the daily £ charge.
£800 for the myzappi EV charger that replaced the older of two home EV chargers. Both our EV chargers can talk to the leccy supplier. When we plug-in the EVs, the leccy supplier knows and sets them to charge overnight at the £cheap rate. ROI circa 12 months. You can over-ride the supplier control and 'charge now' if needed.
The myeddi diverter is set to power the immersion heater and heat the hot water with surplus leccy from the PV, or we can turn it off. Obviously, the immersion has a thermostat. Myeddi won't take expensive leccy from the grid unless you deliberately tell it to do so. £800 for the myeddi. The original hot water estimate is to use 700kWh of surplus leccy during May June July and August, to replace about £55 of gas.. On some days during February and March we were testing heating the hot water with surplus leccy. Time will tell how this pans out.
We have also replaced the dripping kitchen tap with a 'filtered boiling water' tap. That's '£free' boiling and hot water at the kitchen sink. The bonus is de-cluttering the kettle & water filter. The only unplanned expense was a cheap iPad for the kitchen that runs several home automation apps and the EV apps.
What we are finding is that the leccy available for export with the outgoing ££ tariff is greater than the original ££ estimates, along with a cheap overnight rate. That gives flexibility as to what to do. It’s a learning exercise.
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I normally turn off my heating between April and October but this will be my first summer with Tado. Are there any best practices for summer to avoid valves seizing/sticking come October after a long period of no use?
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4 years with Tado, not once a stuck valve. 20+ years before w/o Tado, also no stuck valve. So I would say do nothing. TRVs are designed to NOT get stuck.
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I've had a few stuck pins after summer.
Spray pin with WD40 and push the pin up and down a few times, usually does the job.
Sometimes the valve inside sticks completely and then you need a new TRV. Some are better than others. The Drayton ones have a good reputation.
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always fitted danfoss trv with Drayton in bathrooms and never had a stuck pin in 40 plus years fitting them
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