An important consideration in this regard is the use of the room. For occasionally used rooms the answer is “no, switch the heating off when the room is not in use”. For frequently used rooms during cold weather, the answer is “yes”. If you turn the thermostat down when you are not in the room rather than switch it off, reaction time is fast when you next use the room. Switching the heating off results in delayed comfort until the heating reaches the required temperature, whereas increasing the temperature from moderately warm to comfortably warm is relatively fast.

A thermostat switches the heating on and off to maintain the set point temperature and the heaters are typically operating only about one third of the time.