When to move pawns on the castle side

To make my question more specific: assuming I have already castledand the last threw pawns on the castling side are still in their original position, are there guidelines as to when I should avoid moving these pawns if at all possible?

I have often come across comments about the king being safest if these pawns have not moved yet but I am often itching to move one of these pawns, especially the last two to either push away an attack from a bishop, queen or knight or simply gain some space.

wow,really that much better at online chess than blitz?  There's a 700 point difference.  Why don't you ask your program when you should move it. 

I don't have a program. I am nearly 40, happy with my life, and could care less about ratings in case you are implying I am cheating... Now if you have advice about blitz, I am all ears open: I even posted about that but didn't get much traction: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/improving-on-blitz

you should just ignore those posts. I would also be terrible on blitz, thats why I dont play it.

for your question: if you have to move the pawn to h6 / h3 in order to push away a bishop or knight its good at most times, because it creates an escape field (a tempo) for your king.

moving the g-pawn is a bit more risky because you'll get a weakness on the light squares (dark squares for black). You should only move it, if you have to, or if the opponent hasn't the bishop for the squares you got the weakness anymore.

for moving the pawns in order to attack:

you often can move the g or h pawn if the center is closed. it depends on the situation.

also if you have more attackers on the kingside than your opponent or if you gain a strong initiave.

I often won games because I pushed the pawns although it was risky - if my opponent had been a computer I'd lost, but human opponents often have trouble with a bit pressure :)

Your comment is both rude and unfair.

Older players are often good at online chess and poor at rapid time controls.

I'm 57 years old. Compare my online rating to my other ratings. With an online rating over 2100, you can take it for granted that this site has already checked my games for possible engine use... that's standard procedure for players rated over 2000.

Kageri & blueemu (I love emus!), thank you for your comments.  I had actually the curiosity just now to look at revengeofthepawns facebook page and saw how vain that person is, posting all the games that he wins like trophies, which naturally no one comments on. That explains a lot about his attitude...

Kageri, these seem sound rules that you provide. I probably went by some of these instinctively but it's useful to have it formulated and broken down this way. In addition to a bishop with the color of the weak square, a knight able to reach f3/f6 is also a threat for a queen attack on h2.

I am still a little unsure about the safe/unsafe nature of h3/h6. I suppose that it does make it slightly harder to fend off an attack on the g column or the h2 square because g3/g6 then leaves the h pawn unprotected. But like so many things, it's a trade of what is being gained by making the pawn move in the first place.

The move h3/h6 is safer if the opponent has already castled on the same side as you, since that reduces the danger of a g-Pawn rush to open lines. Also, an open center makes it more difficult to sustain a Pawn-storm, since the other player has easier access to the weak squares left behind by the advancing Pawn mass.

Thanks blueemu. This does make sense too.