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I have an 80's house with electric inertia radiators all over the place.

I have a connected thermostat (like Heatzy, but if you know better I'd love to hear about it). Is it worth turning everything off during the day, even if it means restarting 1 hour before my return?

I see everywhere that it's better to lower the heat instead of shutting all off when housing has average insulation... But I don't see the point, thermodynamically speaking. If I turn off the heat at 8am, there will be less heat loss during the day (lower temperature difference), even if I heat up at 5pm I should have consumed less?

Thank you for your help and pardon my English.

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    You seem to be asking, at least in part, why others say what they do, but you haven't linked us to those others. Where exactly is "everywhere"?
    – isherwood
    Commented Sep 27, 2022 at 21:23
  • Others may be referring to the risk of water pipe freeze, but you're correct about absolute energy use--a lower temperature differential results in less heat exchange.
    – isherwood
    Commented Sep 27, 2022 at 21:27
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    I don't know what an "inertia radiator" is. did you mean electrical *resistance". To comment on your question... I have a small mountain home that I leave it heat turned way down when we're not there, but while I can heat up the air with the forced air furnace relatively quickly, EVERY THING in the house is cold. Sit on the sofa and it's freezing, grab a cup for some tea and it's ice cold. So it's a comfort thing. You might save some on heating costs, but sacrifice a level of comfort. The other consideration is if you live in a freezing climate, you risk having freezing pipes.
    – George Anderson
    Commented Sep 27, 2022 at 21:31
  • Is electric inertia radiator an alternate term for storage radiator? Massive thing heated up overnight at off-peak rates, gives off heat through the day without further power input?
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Sep 27, 2022 at 22:07
  • @GeorgeAnderson you'd need really terrible insulation to worry about freezing pipes indoors when unheated for a few hours. If that was the case the anything you could do to improve insulation would pay for itself very quickly
    – Chris H
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 12:52

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Most likely yes: Heat loss in your house is proportional to the difference between the outside temperature and the inside temperature.

Having the temperature drop during the day lowers the total lost heat, reducing energy usage assuming that increasing the house temperature rapidly does not make the heating system less efficient.

However, depending on the on vs off peak costs of energy, you may or may not save any money.

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  • Re the last sentence: daytime is likely to be peak time so if you're charged different rates by time you'll probably save more than a crude estimate would suggest
    – Chris H
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 12:50

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