In message
,
jgharston writes
David WE Roberts wrote:
This year we haven't turned on the CH yet and I am now wondering what is
going to force our hand.

I never turn my central heating on, I have a thermostat and timer to
do that for me.


I turn ours off in the summer, for a couple of reasons.

1. The HW is an old gravity system. So no valve controlling water flow,
just the CH pump. Even when CH is off I get a bit of gravity flow in the
CH system. The system is old and the main CH flow and return is in about
1 1/2" pipes. It runs along the bottom of the bedroom wall and a small
upper landing and heats up those rooms unnecessarily (and makes the
bedroom too hot in summer). So I manually close a valve on the CH system
to stop the circulation and turn off heating.


2, It will fire up a bit and in late spring/late Autumn when we don't
really need any heating and it doesn't seem to give any benefit (old
Victorian house, big thermal mass, little bit's off heating don't have
the same effect it seems as in a modern, better insulated and draft
proofed house)

FWIW I turned the heating on couple of weeks ago when we had a colder
spell.
--
Chris French