"steve573" wrote in message
ps.com...
Hi All,

We've just bought an old (1870) place in Snowdonia and it came with an
oil fired Stanley Super Star range in the kitchen that does the
cooking, hot water and central heating and seems to work fine. Just
want to know if its better to leave these on all the time (with regard
to the central heating) or on and off with the clock timer connected to
it. Only ask as the house has massively thick stone walls and we've
been told to leave it on constantly even when we are at work to heat
the stone up which is more efficient although we were then told to turn
it on and off when we need it by somebody else. Obviously this makes
for a colder place initially but as money (i.e oil costs) is a concern
we just want to know what the best way of using these things is. Is
there a great difference in costs in keeping it on all the time when it
only kicks in now and again to keep the CH water hot or leave it off
overnight and when we are at work even though it then uses lots more
oil to heat the CH water up to temp and to get bthe house up there too.
Thanks for any advice in advance,

Happy New Year,
Steve.

The answer is a matter of simple physics unaffected by the type of boiler or
type of house. The rate of heat loss rises with the temperature of the thing
radiating heat. The hotter you keep the house the more heat will be lost to
outside. How quickly this happens obviously depends on insulation but sure
as eggs is eggs eventually all the heat you put in will find its way out. So
the cheapest way is only heat the house when you need to. Whether its worth
being cold for a while every day until the house warms back up is down to
you and your pocket. Personally I can't be arsed about a few quid or even a
few hundred quid spent or wasted on heating costs if it means the house is
comfy all the time. It's still a pittance compared to the other costs in
life.

As has been suggested a compromise would be to have a base temperature
setting that's at least bearable until the house gets back up to normal
temperature each evening rather than let the place cool right down every
day. Of some minor interest is the fact that an overspecced boiler and
radiator setup can be a better thing in situations like this than a smaller
one. It gets the house up to temperature faster and means it's less of a
burden leaving it off completely during the day. With a system that
struggles to replace the lost heat it can take hours to get back up to full
temp and then it's time to go to bed anyway.

As to thick stone walls I'm not sure they're much of a benefit. They soak up
all the heat you can chuck at them until they reach equilibrium with the
outside world and then dissipate all this again as soon as the heating is
off. Ideal insulation is not lots of a poor insulator which just acts as a
heatsink but as little as possible of a very good one. You might find that
the best thing you can do for both comfort and heating bills is line the
external walls with celotex or something similar.
--
Dave Baker
Puma Race Engines
www.pumaracing.co.uk
Camp USA engineer minces about for high performance specialist (4,4,7)