When are you turning the heating on?

[FetlocksBlowingInTheWind]

Assuming that you will turn it on at some point, is there a date or a temperature you're waiting for?

It's only 16 degrees inside my house right now and my hands are freezing! But somehow it feels wrong to put the heating on before October.

SE England.
Thermostat set at 18c & on a timer.
The last couple of mornings it's come on at 6.30 for about 30mins so obviously the house has gone below 18c.
The rest of the day, it's been warm enough so the heating hasn't come on.
Might up the thermostat when it gets a bit colder outside.

Oooh that's taken me back!! When I was about 3/4 I had a poncho & I loved it!! I thought it was fabulous!! I wanted to wear it all the time. My Mum probably let me so she didn't need to put the heating on as high/as long!! 🤣. Must ask her!

If I didn't have a toddler I would genuinely try to leave it off all winter.

I'll be leaving it as long as possible.

@TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination We have the Hive ones as we had Hive already but just with a hall thermostat originally. They were really easy to install and seem to be working well!

I haven't had it on since the beginning of April but when I got up at 7 am I thought we'd soon need it on for half an hour in the morning so we get up to a reasonable temperature.

We just got hive digital TRVs too. Now my office is a balmy 19 degrees and the rest of the house is set at 14 until the kids are due home 🤣

Like someone else has posted - it's never been off. It's set to a temperature. Obviously it doesn't come on over summer.

It was 21C this morning with no heating so it won't come on.

We're hosting a Ukrainian family, who are used to much warmer temperatures indoors (24 degrees, they have district heating back home!), so we turned ours on at the start of September for them. I can't have it on overnight though, it makes me too hot and then I feel sick, so we bought them electric under-blankets for their beds and 15-tog duvets.

Our guests are out today, it's 16.5 degrees in my home office, which is fine with an electric throw around my legs (and loads cheaper than running the heating).

If it was just me, I probably wouldn't put it on until temps were way below freezing (menopause + 8 stones of extra weight = internal blast furnace), but my DP gets cold so we will probably spend the next five months battling over the thermostat. We have a log burner and have new wearable blankets and hot water bottles, so that might push the date back a bit.

I keep wondering if I should get the digital TRVs - I have normal ones on nearly all of my rads, but apart from turning the guest room off I can't really get my head round how to optimise! Can you schedule the digital, i.e have office warmer in the day, lounge in the evening?

We’ve got our thermostat set to 20 degrees but we’re in a new build so it’s only gone on once so far for about 30 minutes.

In case it's useful there's a few things you can do to make it more efficient -

clean all windows so as much light and heat as possible comes in
seal gaps with silicone sealant around windows/patio doors
get draught excluders
get heavy curtains in dark colours
replace all bulbs with low wattage LED ones
use those battery fuelled spotlights (i have some in a small room and they have lasted years just off two batteries).
I don't know what else..

It's feeling cold in the house at night but I'm currently just wearing fleecy pyjamas, bed socks and using a hot water bottle. I'll keep this up until it's properly cold!

Thermostats set to 15 degrees. We're going to try not to turn it up at all this winter. Can't afford it.

Today.

@Crikeyalmighty I agree to you to a certain extent & the price cap being fixed will help, but at the same time, the SVR is (I believe) about double what it was last year & many were struggling with their bills last year & with the other CoL going up... I don't think it's surprising people are worrying & just not wanting to use it if they can do without.

Ours will come on when the thermostat hits 17c we don’t turn it on or off just set a temperature. So far I don’t think it’s come on.

Chillier out but our house is warm. We still have the windows open in every room!

@Lellochip Yes, that's exactly what we do.

So we have only have playroom heated to a certain temp on days older DD isn't at nursery. It isn't heated on nursery days or after 5pm on any day. Bedrooms are set to be a certain temp at bedtime and again when we get up. DH's office is only heated during his office hours Mon-Fri. And so on. It took a while to do the schedule, but now it just does its own thing and the rooms are warm when we are using them and cool when we are not.

Each room can have its own schedule for every different day and can be boosted individually. They also heat on demand, which means when one of the valves is triggered it can turn the boiler on itself to just heat that room.

@TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination Yes if your bills were pretty unaffordable last year, I see why people are panicking. I'm in an unusual situation that we were abroad with quite high bills for 20 months and the house we left in the UK was hugely inefficient too, so looking at my readings so far- they seem doable , even if they were doubled my DD would still just about cover it and only be equivalent to what we were paying before we left ! As it's a much more efficient house. I get your point though , if people were struggling last year , it's unlikely to be less unless they totally cut down. Just got my notification today that they will be collecting £66 a month less from 8th October .

We're leaving it as long as possible as we simply can't afford it. Blankets and extra clothes will have to do.

It's 13 degrees outside today (generally around 5 degrees at night) and I have a badly insulated old house.
So far we still have the windows open day and night.
We don't heat the bedrooms or bathrooms ever. So far I have put a blanket on my bed but still have my summer weight duvet. Am wearing a fleece for part of the day and have ordered a couple of heated throws for watching TV at night.
Will start to heat the living area once when we feel uncomfortably cold whilst wearing fleeces. I think September has been very mild this year.

Just when we feel cold. We lit the log burner last night but not feeling the need for heating yet.

@StarDolphins

Maybe you need to cuddle up on the sofa & show him pictures of all the trendy doggies in their lovely jumpers & coats??

my girl was like that, I couldn't move from
one side of the room to the other without her moving too! Drive me MAD (as I used to avoid moving if she was comfortable & settled 🙄🙄) but I SO miss her shadowing me now 🥲

What breed is he?

as for the oodie...

daxi or west highland maybe? St Bernard maybe not?

Once my dd starts complaining about being cold even with layers on. If I can hack it!!