When do you heat your house in the winter?

[groar]

To lower your heating bill, several techniques have already been discussed :

• http://ecorenovator.org/forum/conser...se-winter.html
• http://ecorenovator.org/forum/conser...ng-winter.html

Another simple way is to heat during less time. This is based upon the fact heating is a 'Pulse and Glide' technique, ie the radiators switch on to upper the temperature quickly, then switch off completely while the temperature is lowering slowly. Examples :

• In weekdays you can stop heating far before leaving the house in the morning, and not at the last minute.
• The same in the evening, you can stop heating far before going to bed.

For some reasons, I woke up sooner during these last weeks. I was leaving the bed while the heating system wasn't on yet... When the heating system was switched on then the temperature was rising by 1-2°C per hour.

We reconfigured the heating system to start & stop 3/4h sooner in mornings. The result isn't a lowering of total kWh consumed, but is a lowering of total bill. This is explained by the heating system starting 1/2h before the end of night hours (0.0673€/kWh), and not after 1/4h after the beginning of day hours (1.1106€/kWh). As the heating system consumes up to 6kW, noticeably when it's started, this is a 3kWh per day transferred from high to low costs, ie a 0.13 €/day saving, so 15 € (22 $) for the 4 months of heating and an improved comfort .

As I'm noting my daily night/day consumption since one month, this is correlated by the fact that during the last week the daily cost is lower than other days before with roughly the same number of kWh consumed.

Denis.