Timing is everything

With the cost of home heating oil and gas at crippling levels this winter, it’s vital to wheedle the best performance out of every cent our fuels cost.

In an ideal world, we would be vigilant, patiently changing any time clock running the system according to our plans day to day. In some households this has become a serious business as the timer is regularly overridden. We’re talking here about the ‘on’ and ‘off’ function directed into heat/water or both rather than playing with the fine tuning of a variety of zones and temperatures.

In my home where I run the heating through a range cooker/boiler system, we prefer to set the heat manually, as our all wood house is never stone cold and I’m tied to a desk here most days. The audible ‘shout’ setting for those leaving the heat on after leaving the house or on a warmer day is 100% efficient. Timing the operation of any system plays a vital role in the overall performance of good heating controls that include room thermostats or individual TVRs (thermostatic radiator valves), a thermostat set on the boiler and another on the hot water tank. Here it’s appropriate to be an utter control freak.