As it was me who suggested that the heating related posts be separated-out, the least you could have done was to open a new thread called something like 'room heating' in Talk about anything.
And spend the rest of my day trying to factor out the off-topic replies to Iain's thread into those pertaining to (a) oil, (b) butter, (c) ghee, (d) butter bells, (e) butter spreading, (f) room temperatures, and (g) anything else. No, sorry George, life is too short. Once a thread goes off-topic, I will migrate all off-topic replies into a single sub-thread of "Off-topic replies" with a subject line that tries to reflect the various topics encompassed. If
you want to start a new thread entitled "Room heating", I will happily move those earlier replies that address that topic to your new thread.
Alternatively (or in addition), as we still have only two moderators, why don't you offer your services as moderator of the "Off-topic replies" thread ? You could then do with it as you saw fit.
** Phil.