Normally if I was on holiday for 2 weeks at Christmas I would switch
the heating off and turn the water off just in case.
With very cold weather predicted I just wonder if it would be advisable
to leave the heating on the programmer but turn the thermostat down a
bit. As I see it if it still freezes I am stuffed so I might aswell
switch the heating and water off.
What do other people do?

Kevin

On 28 Nov 2005 01:41:07 -0800, "Kevin" wrote:

Normally if I was on holiday for 2 weeks at Christmas I would switch
the heating off and turn the water off just in case.
With very cold weather predicted I just wonder if it would be advisable
to leave the heating on the programmer but turn the thermostat down a
bit. As I see it if it still freezes I am stuffed so I might aswell
switch the heating and water off.
What do other people do?

Kevin

Have a boiler with built in frost protection.

You can get external frost thermostats which will run the heating if
the temperature drops below a certain point, even if the other
controls are off.

Alternatively, you can just turn the main room thermostat to a low
setting.



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..andy

With very cold weather predicted I just wonder if it would be advisable
to leave the heating on the programmer but turn the thermostat down a
bit.

You have a choice for the heating. Either leave the system on set to 8C or
thereabouts, or turn the system off and drain it down. What you don't want
is the system off, but full of water. Personally, for 2 weeks, I'd leave the
system on, provided it was a sealed system.

As for the water side, rather than heating side, my system is entirely mains
pressure, so I would turn off the stopcock and open all the taps to drain it
down.

Christian.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Kevin wrote:

Normally if I was on holiday for 2 weeks at Christmas I would switch
the heating off and turn the water off just in case.
With very cold weather predicted I just wonder if it would be
advisable to leave the heating on the programmer but turn the
thermostat down a bit. As I see it if it still freezes I am stuffed
so I might aswell switch the heating and water off.
What do other people do?

Kevin

Maybe this is the time to fit a programmable thermostat (such as the
Honeywell CM67) in place of your existing room stat, if you haven't already
got one?

This would enable you to:
* use the 'holiday' setting so that the heating is off* while you are away,
but comes back on -to normal temperature settings - (say) the day before
your scheduled return, so that you come back to a nice warm house
* use the stat as a frost stat while you are away. * 'Off' isn't actually
off - but simply controls to a much lower specifiable temperature (typically
5 degrees) and switches the heating on if the temperature falls below this.
So the heating will only come on if it is necessary to prevent everything
from freezing up.

This is what I do when I go away in the winter.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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Kevin wrote:
Normally if I was on holiday for 2 weeks at Christmas I would switch
the heating off and turn the water off just in case.
With very cold weather predicted I just wonder if it would be advisable
to leave the heating on the programmer but turn the thermostat down a
bit. As I see it if it still freezes I am stuffed so I might aswell
switch the heating and water off.
What do other people do?

Kevin


Going away in the winter I turn the room stat down to minimum (8-10) and
the HW down to 40 (or off it's for more than a week and not predicted to
be sub zero for much of that). The system's quite spread out, so the
reserve of heat in the HW tank will protect much of the pipework. We
have to be careful to leave a door open into the kitchen though - it's
unheated with 2 outide walls and only 100mm insulation in the flat roof.

Chris

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