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Central heating energy saving

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roseway:
One of the measures which the government is pushing to cut energy costs is to reduce the boiler flow temperature from 75 to 60 degrees. The government advice says that this "may" mean that it will take longer to heat up the rooms. Can someone explain how this is supposed to work? Firstly, there's no "may" about it - it obviously will take longer if the radiator temperature is lower. And if the boiler has to run for longer, then this will nullify any saving from running at a lower temperature.
Any comments?

broadstairs:
My boiler has an external temperature sensor and alters the boiler central heating flow temperature so when it's warmer the flow temperature is lower and vice versa. It has always worked like this. Experience shows it works well.

Stuart

HPsauce:
It makes no sense other than your rooms will be colder for longer so using less energy on warming before you give up and go to bed.
But can't you achieve that by turning down the thermostat?

There "may" be some other factor about boilers (of certain designs) operating more efficiently overall if only heating water to a lower temperatrure, but I'd like to see the logic/explanation first. No chance of getting that I feel......

benji09:

 I thought there was a chance of power cuts to the electricity supply this winter, so I  am sure that running the central heating pump for longer periods must help no end! Unless the idea is really to cut the heat of your hot water for your washing up, thus saving energy. If not that reason, the idea sounds rubbish..........

broadstairs:
Some idiot of an engineer disconnected the external temp sensor back in the summer as he thought , wrongly, it was causing an issue and I forgot about it until only a week or so ago. When all this about saving gas & electricity came up I remembered and got a guy out to fix it (perfectly capable of connecting it myself but I made a point of getting they guy back to sort it  ::) ) anyway since it was reconnected the heating has been getting the house up to temperature in the same timeframe as it was before with the boiler flow temp 10°C lower, it was about 60°C with sensor disconnected and now it about 48-50°C. My boiler is a combi and the hot water has a separate control and is not affected by the outside temp.

The whole point of this system is to vary boiler flow temp dependent on external temp, there is a graph in the handbook showing how it varies, and so it will come back up to 60-70°C or more when the outside temp falls close to or below freezing. All I can say is that it seems to work and we have sensible gas usage, been fairly constant in the 7 years we've had the boiler and is lower than the one it replaced.

Stuart

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