Homes

On average temerature-wise during the year would you say that June, July and August are warm? If anything they could do with being cooler?
The average temperatures for those months are; June 20C, July 22C, Aug 21C. The average temperatures for April and May are; April 13C, May 17C.
Spring is usually considered to have the most ‘comfortable’ temperatures of the year. April and May are the middle and end of Spring.

I think the reason you need to keep the temperature higher in this house may be because it’s losing it elswhere.

Oh do you? Well I have double glazing throughout, we have just increased the lagging in the loft to 30 cm and had the cavity walls insulated last year.
Surely you understand the difference between keeping the house at an even temperature of 20C and losing heat?
Personally, I would not say that our summers could do with being a bit cooler but that’s a question of personal preference and I lived in Italy at one time.
There is in any case a big difference between going for a hike on a spring day and doing a sedentary job.
Come on WWF, what temperature do you set in your offices? Hopefully it isn’t 14 or 15C or you could be breaking the law.

ok, so i was wrong about the house insulation, no need to get snippy – you didn’t say that in your initial post.
So what if you’ve lived in Italy (Average Spring temperature 13C) and you think British summers could be warmer – in your initial question it didn’t sound like you were talking about the temperature on your behalf, it sounded more like you were talking for the other members of your household.
“Surely you understand the difference between keeping the house at an even temperature of 20C and losing heat?” – if you’re not losing heat then there’s no need to keep the heating on now is there? Heat up the house to 20C and then switch it off.

A far better way of controlling the indoor temperatures is to have a combined outdoor thermostat and an indoor thermostat, which keeps the whole house at any given temperature, and during the “winter” season, one never ever needs to even think about switching on and off and on and off the “heating”
It is false economy to think that by switching off the heating when it gets too warm or at night is going to save money it does not.

Try to keep ours to 17-18C even in the winter (Holland, North Europe = gets pretty nippy), but this temperature starts to feel very cold if you’re not moving much. Especially in February when you’re defences have been worn down by months of cold. If I was being less hair-shirted, I would say 19 was the most comfortable. But I also reckon you quickly get ‘spoiled’ by the heating in offices and shops. You get used to high temperatures and expect the same at home.

We also turn our heating off at night and I have to say I am a firm believer that only turning the heating on for a few hours in the evening is cheaper than keeping it at 19 all the time (and, say, 15 at night). But am very willing to accept this is only an ‘intuitive’ position. Anyone with firm maths to prove me wrong would be encouraged!

On another topic, the two I share my office with are so ‘sensitive’ to cold that I haven’t worn a jumper to work all winter.

Like I wrote in my previous post, I am confident that keeping the heating on at all times is the most economically way of doing things. Of course I do have the luxury of having a dual sensor, outside and inside, which works the computer on my heat exchanger, you see I have heating and hot water from CHP station where I live, and the computer works on the principle that I go to bed in the evenings and get up in the morning thereby cleaverly controlling the indoor temperature to suit my lifestyle. Even when we were having temps in the mid -20s for a few weeks, the mornings were never colder indoors than 18.4, and by 1100 hrs it was a comfortable 20.5. Should I feel that it was a bit chilly, then I could always start up my wood burning Contura stove for a couple of hours or so. I do believe that by having a more uniform temperature 24 hrs a day, the whole of the house keeps warm, the walls, the furniture, all the white metal appliances etc etc . The cost for this “luxury” even when it was very cold was about £2.50 a day for heating and hot water. During the summer when no heating required the cost for hot water alone is approx 0.40p a day

I haven’t come across outside thermostats before. What is a CHP station?
We have an indoor thermostat so the heating goes off when the temperature is 20c. I’m not sure what it would be in the middle of the night.
I have watched a number of TV programmes about effective ways of generating electricity and heating but the cost is completely beyond us. As an ordinary family living on a small income in an old house I wonder what else we should be doing?
PS Who else spotted that tonyrobin said his house is a “comfortable” 20.5 by 1100 hours?

Outside thermostats are used in conjunction with the indoor thermostats. This past winter has been extremely cold, like -20 for days on end, then these thermostats tell the indoor computer to speed up things a bit…........

CHP….... Combined Heat and Power plants….... Practically every city town and large village has one, they use forest waste, sawmill waste, anything that is wood based, and the larger plants burn all of our household waste. Very hot water is then piped out into the cities and towns, and each house takes in this hot water, and uses a small heat exchanger to provide heating and hot tap water.

I’m interested and a bit confused. That temperature sounds like you live somewhere like Canada but when I looked you up you were in Newton Aycliffe in the north east of England.
We live about 30 miles from London and I never heard of a combined heat and power plant but it sounds like a good idea.

PEARL.

Mid Sweden is where you will find me despite the map showing Co Durham, the reason being was at the time of joining, I could not use Sweden as my ””home””, something to do with post code if I remember correctly.