Cutting down on using heating

Yes this is a government failure. We can decarbonise our energy and have enough energy! But there’s been no national vision or energy minister to take it forward. Useless.

I only have gas heating via the combi boiler and radiators. It's set to 17c atm and even then the flat often feels cold.

Well intentioned but YABU. Everyone should be be warm at home in winter and it would be rationing for the poorest, not those who need it least. There is no practical way to separate the heat "deserving/undeserving", save on the grounds of ability to pay (and that would be foul and disastrous).

YANBU to want less of our heat to come from fossil fuels.

MN is a funny place sometimes. On lots of threads people say they earn £100k and anything less that £80 is a poor salary. On the next thread everyone is so poor they can only have the heating on for 2 seconds a day without starving to death.
Im sure the op is talking about the average person who perhaps sets their thermostat at 20 degrees but could perhaps turn it down a couple of degrees to save energy.

Plus yes I do layer up and still feel cold!

Easy for you to say. Our house is Edwardian and does have some damp so when cold it really feels cold. Also I have Raynaud's. After years of not having it plus two young children I will put the central heating on. We are used to having less heating on but it is a miserable life.

Re environment. I am sure there is a scheme to offset basic need like heating as rich do their private jet rides

He needs to run an electric dehumidifier. That's utterly barking mad.

A rich world economy should be able to keep its population warm without harming the planet though

Yes it is depressing

Imagine if heat pumps had been mandated in 2012 for all new builds
Imagine if all low income households had been given an insulation grant

But the thread isn't about money saving, it's about using fewer of scarce resources and reducing pollution/environmental damage etc. Just because some can afford to use more power, doesn't mean they should!

No. You can keep all that, op. I like to keep my home warm.

God, this thread is depressing. And this is the 7th world economy?

"For PP worried about hands, there are gloves (fingerless?) and wrist warmers, and for the face then masks (the wearing of which is a fantastic way to protect the vulnerable and the aged, though of course that benefit is less likely to accrue within your own home, unless you are in one of the (literally) millions of households which do contain someone who could be categorised like that)"

I am not wearing gloves and a mask indoors. I refuse to be cold, it's just miserable.

i HATE cold air around me when i am at home. No amount of jumpers will fix that.

The heating in my house is on whenever it drops below 20 right now I the day. It has struggled to keep it at that temp this morning and has been on since 8am.

I have a 4m old baby, have asthma and rheumatism, and I can't do much if I'm hacking up a lung and my joints seize. Plus my house is a nightmare for mold if it gets too cold in here, tried it last year by having the heat off entirely during the day while we were both at work.

At the moment I'm looking at ways we'll shuffle money around to pay for it this winter as I'm off on Mat leave and then once I go back to work we're sinking thousands into home improvements to replace flooring, loft insulation and windows and doors.

@MotherOfCatBoy

in the winter I can put my hand to the sitting room floor boards and feel the arctic draught coming straight up!

Presumably you have bare floorboards rather than fitted carpets. They may look good, but are pretty impractical as you've found out. I do wonder if we're going to have a reversal of these modern fads.

Another fad that causes excess energy use is open plan everything - just think how much space you're having to heat that you're not actually using. Smaller rooms are far easier to heat and you can choose which to heat and when to heat them, also easier to avoid drafts etc as any drafts are contained in a smaller room.

I’ve been putting our heating on morning & evening for the past 3 weeks, there’s thick frost outside now and been relentless rain prior to that. I don’t want to be cold, I don’t want my house to be damp and I’ve got 2 young children who are vulnerable enough to viruses from nursery without adding a damp house to the mix. Were lucky our mortgage is cheap, we have decent income and our energy bills haven’t gone through the roof, I feel genuinely sorry for people who can’t afford to run their heating or are too afraid to turn it on, in the long run fixing damp & mould issues will be much more expensive.

And as usual, we have people arguing about extremes. How about the middle ground? That's putting on another layer of clothes (or substituting thicker clothes for ridiculously skimpy clothes in winter), and turning down the heating a little (either slightly lower temperature, or for a slightly shorter time). That won't cause mould or the elderly to die! No sane person would suggest turning the heating off completely

Cutting down from 22 to 20 is massively different to cutting down from 16 to 14 for example. Whether you can cut down depends on what temperature you maintain now!

Wood burners are really bad for health and air quality levels. I really don't think they should be used unless people live in a rural area where their ability to access normal heating is poor or non existent.

I agree with you OP and voted YANBU because if you are able to be sparing with the heating then that’s great for you, planet and politics. But of course not everyone can because it is so dependent on housing age and type.
We have a large Victorian terrace, good that the heat stays in at the sides but boy it disappears out the front and back and through the floors! Fireplaces throughout, two chimneys, cavity under the floors and air bricks in the front wall - in the winter I can put my hand to the sitting room floor boards and feel the arctic draught coming straight up! We will probably look for another rug to throw down for that.
We have solar electric which is great in the summer but makes little difference in winter as our heating is still gas. We also use a log burner and occasionally the open fire in the sitting room. Whichever way we do it, it’s an expensive house to heat. Last winter and this, we are keeping the thermostat to 18 indoors and bundling up. We don’t have hearing on yet, we are only going to put it on November to February.
Also agree ventilation is key. Always try to open the windows in the day time only for an hour to air the house.

Exactly. Not good breathing cold air especially for asthmatics

When it gets cold, my lungs start to ache, and my hands lock up. So even if I wear a balaclava and fingerless gloves it's not great TBH. A badger has a better deal living underground. I lived in a 1930s detached property when growing up completely and utterly freezing most of the time, even with the heating on lots. Our 1900 terrace is better, but not great, and I've got 1ft of insulation in the loft.