My house is 8 degrees. 8 degrees

[Bonecold]

Heating oil ran out yesterday. I have £200 in the savings pot with boiler juice. For a minimum order I need 500 litres which is £468.

So I’ve left the heating off until either the price per litre drops, the weather gets better, or my savings pot reaches the amount needed to do an order (£65 DD a month).

In the meantime I have a fire place so I can heat one room (but no wood so have to outlay for that).

I can’t work out if I should:

a) remove the £200 from the savings account and spend it on wood/coal to get through to warmer weather. Pro - would be warm now, Con - even further away from filling the tank

b) heat one room with wood, live near a wood so could scavenge enough wood weekly to do this?

c) plug in electric radiator. Pro: heat, con: eats electricity

D) small loan for £300/400 and top up oil. Pro: heat, con: small loans have huge interest and would be another bill each month

I’m at work all day and kids at school usually so it’s not like we would be freezing all day and can boil water for cooking and have electric shower for washing. But it’s Easter holidays here so they’ll be home for the next two weeks now

What would you do?

Hopefully the weather will pick up soon and help matters.

I too would go with B & C option. Although it is cheaper to heat yourself than a room, so heated blankets, electric blankets, hot water bottles and extra layers will go further than the leccy radiators, expecially in a poorly ventilated house. Keep the one room as warm as you can with the fire and extra blankets and wooly hats on in bed for the bedrooms. Geez it's been 40 years since I lived like this (as did many of my peers) is this where we are at now?

As suggested there may be wood banks around, check out any large managed wooded areas - around here the estate owners have been gradually felling and chopping the huge numbers of fallen trees courtesy of Storm Arwen and giving away wood. Ask around.

Good luck.

I’d say B and electric blankets.
C as a minimum because of the cost. It will just come and bit you in the bum later on

Not sure how much logs would be to buy, but can buy fire logs at supermarkets and garages for a couple of quid a time. They burn for a couple of hours, and with some smokeless fuel, could do one per day (even if to start with whilst drying out some scavenged wood). Previous idea of adding tip for wood is good- just need to

I know many people have gone on recently about how poor wood burners are re the environment.

Which is true.

But at least the OP can have one warm room. That’s better than a lot of other people :(:(

My local company allows you to pay in three instalments have you asked around if any do that?

I don't know where you are but when I lived in Belfast for a bit I"m sure there were a couple of garages that would allow you to buy smaller quantities of heating oil?

Or is there an oil filled radiator you could borrow? I think I'd opt for keeping one room warm, with boots and socks and scarves and gloves and hats for venturing outside it, double or triple layers of clothing (tights, 2 pairs of trousers, 2 pairs of socks, boots, base layer/vest/T-shirt, fluffy tops/fleeces, and lots of hot water bottles and things for bedtime.

8 degrees is really pretty chilly indoors - that's the temperature inside the caves in Somerset where they age some of the posh local Cheddar!

I also think it's horrifying that this is Britain in 2022 - I grew up in the north east in the 1970s and early 1980s and while I never remember going hungry, my God, do I remember being permanently cold.

I second the heated blanket advice.

And scavenge for wood- it'll come in handy to keep fuel costs down a bit next year too. Try and hang on before you refill.

Start planning Easter activities that involve being outside/in the library.

Get the whole hot drink, socks, hot water bottle routine underway. Keeping your feet, wrists and neck warm makes a big difference. Use rubber shoes like crocs as slippers, with fluffy socks. The rubber sole stops the cold com8ng up through the floor.

Make sure no chemicals or paint on it.

@Topbird29

Not sure how much logs would be to buy, but can buy fire logs at supermarkets and garages for a couple of quid a time. They burn for a couple of hours, and with some smokeless fuel, could do one per day (even if to start with whilst drying out some scavenged wood). Previous idea of adding tip for wood is good- just need to

No no no that’s the last thing to do. The logs at supermarkets are rip off!!

What does work for us is using a mixture of coal and wood.
The coal gives a lower constant temperature whereas the wood is great to warm the room to start with.

D. I am so cold at 17 degrees. I’m so sorry OP, hope you can get warm soon. X

Anything except the loan. If you can't afford it today, you definitely can't afford it tomorrow with interest.

I'd wear extra layers, use hit water bottles and blankets and try to stay out of the house as much as possible. Even if it's cold outside, if you're doing something physical you'll keep warmer than sitting around indoors. Long term you'll need to re-jig the household budget or increase your wages somehow because of the increasing energy prices. It's just about do-able now but you don't want to end up in this situation mid winter.

At that temperature you risk hypothermia so I'd use the savings to buy a small amount to get you through.

Every walk you take make it your goal (as we do) to scavenge logs and sticks for the fire. We let them dry out over the summer and use them all winter long. It's amazing how much fuel you can harvest from just windfall. Twigs and dry conifer leaves & pinecones make superb firelighters. I save all newspapers and flattened cardboard for burning too.

Ironing with a door closed, using a slow cooker / hairdryer etc in some rooms can help raise the temperature too.

It is awful that you are facing fuel poverty while paying that rent.

Blimey I thought my house got cold! 14 degrees at the moment but i’ll light the stove soon. Ours is old and draughty but luckily terraced so we have some help from neighbours.

Do the new rules regarding minimum EPC levels and renting affect existing tenancies? Might be worth checking, unless it’s a private arrangement.

When we bought our house we were told we wouldn’t be able to rent it out with its current EPC rating.

@Patented

Hm, it doesn't sound too cold to me, but I appreciate that's not helpful. Jumpers and hats?

What temperature is your house?

Most oil suppliers sell emergency barrels of about 25 litres, likely cost about £25/30 just now. It's not the cheapest way to buy oil but a couple of barrels would keep you going for a few days and hopefully the weather will heat up again soon.

We're in the same boat, only two bars of oil left, don't know what we're going to do. I got the kids (and myself) fake Oodies from Amazon and they're brilliant. Stick a hot water bottle inside them and they're really quite toasty. Good luck.

8 degrees is very cold. I would go for c tbh as I hate being cold. For me anything below 21 is too cold. It's such a rubbish situation for you especially for what you pay!!

Coal ovoids are fantastic and I speak from experience of using these in the red bag ( www.keithbuilders.co.uk/coal-ovoids-in-25kg-red-bag-3769-p.asp ).

You should be able to find somewhere to buy just a bag at a time and that should do you 2/3 days right now. Less once the house has heated up. Cheaper than wood these days too.

@Tulipvase

Blimey I thought my house got cold! 14 degrees at the moment but i’ll light the stove soon. Ours is old and draughty but luckily terraced so we have some help from neighbours.

Do the new rules regarding minimum EPC levels and renting affect existing tenancies? Might be worth checking, unless it’s a private arrangement.

When we bought our house we were told we wouldn’t be able to rent it out with its current EPC rating.

That might not help the OP. I got a large 200 year old property assessed as a "C" for an EPC and all it required was changing the lightbulbs to low energy ones and putting individual thermostats in each room!

Small electric fan heater, heated throw and electric blankets on the bed might do you - I speak from experience of having no central heating for 2 winters. But it is something you adapt to over time, not straight away from no central heating. I did have no colds whatsoever in that time though!

The fallen wood can create issues in your chimney so be very careful of that. If my children were cold I'd approach a charity to try and remedy the situation, I'm sure they're very busy at present.

Fucking landlord. That's bloody awful.

I remember as a child when we got our first central heating - before that it was coal fires. You are probably in the middle of the countryside and fairly far North but if not too far from a town think about places for the Easter holidays where you might walk which are warm and do not cost money to be there.

On the options if you burn wood try to find or buy dry wood or coal rather than damp wood for forests which is not really suitable to burn.

What are you doing for hot water?

What is the EPC rating? It's pretty surprising that a house could get that cold in these temperatures and be legal to be let under current regulations - so what is the exemption that enables it?

Oh shut up of course 8 is cold

It's 7 degrees in London and I was perishing in a vest/jumper/scarf/jacket

I'm in the same predicament @Bonecold and I've gone with Option B. I try to get ahead in the wood collecting stakes so that there is some inside drying out before it needs to get burnt.

Oil prices are extortionate and suppliers round here deliver minimum 500 litres too and won't split between addresses.

@EdgeOfSeventeenAndThreeQuarter coal ovoids...? Stupid question but I can I burn these on a wood burner?? I don't see why not other than that they maybe cause more soot?