have you got heating on and if so, for how long?

[novemberlights]

my husband wants the heating to come on only when it drops to 18 degrees in the house. It's 19 currently and feels cold!
Are you all keeping heat off unless essential?
The bill is already rising steeply and we're not even in the really cold months yet. Our teenagers think that other families are just putting the heating on as normal. Is this true? Are you all putting the heating on as you normally would?

No not putting on the heating on like we used to!

A couple of days ago the house was 15 degrees in the afternoon so I did put it on.

usually it is set to come on at 6:30am-8am (18 degrees)

and 6pm-8pm (18 degrees)

a bit sad really and not as warm and frequent as I’d like! Both DS and DP have health conditions and shouldn’t get too cold.

My house is 12 degrees at night and 15 in the day and I don't have the heating on yet. Hot water bottles and lots of layers. I work from home though and no way I ca. Keep heating on all day every day

Definitely not like we used to. We've only put it on since the start of November and then for 1-3 hours in the evening. But we do have electric blankets and heated throws and I've got a small heater in my home office. And yes, it's getting a bit nippy

14 degrees in my house currently and it's not on. Don't feel cold

Thermostat set at 19c but DH keeps turning it up to 20c whilst walking about in a t shirt🙄. 6-8 am in the morning, and 5.30-10 in the evening. I'm working from home and so far just one day with an extra hour on.

All day long 6am-10pm at 19.5c - which, according to hive, was 3hrs active heating yesterday in total. I sometimes boost it if I need to dry clothes.

Last year we kept the house a little warmer - 20.5c, I think.

I was thinking about getting electric throws/blankets but worried they'd cost a fortune

Nowhere near as we once did!

it comes on for an hour in the morning, with the hot water. Thermostat is set to 16. That hour costs about £2.50 a day. We might the log burner every evening. We process and dry a lot of our wood so that is a saving.

Electric throws, once you've bought them, only cost pennies to heat.

I only started using the heating this week and just for 10 mins in the morning in the bathroom and 30 mins in the evening in the living room. Wearing a lot of jumpers right now!

I used to be one of those people who swans around in just a T-shirt and likes it to be hot at home. But desperate times so....

I think we're just doing what we always do. We don't have our boiler set to come on at a certain temp. We just turn it on for 30 minutes if we feel we need to. We have wood burners though, so use them when we can (we have lots of free wood), and our central heating is set up a bit oddly, so that we can heat one half of the house without heating the other (and vice versa) - one half is a barn that was converted about 30 years ago. So for instance, today, we put one half the house on for maybe 30 minutes and then put on the woodburner in the kitchen. We might heat the other half a bit tonight before bed. I think this is what we'd normally do, but I'm fussy about wasting anything.

Electric throws are amazing OP and very cheap to run, as are electric underblankets. I've been using them for years, never once had any issue and wouldn't be without it. I'm literally sat here typing this under an extra large super soft one.

The heating here is on for an hour when we get up, and and hour in the evening as it gets dark and the temp drops. After that I'm fine with my heated throw and a hot bath before bed.

We have it on from 6:15 - 7.30am then again from 4.30-7pm.

We are out at work / school during the day though, dp and dd get back between 3.30 and 4, I get back at 6

Finally gave in yesterday and bought an oil filled radiator.

Granted I live in a studio so it's only one small space to heat. The flat comes with a storage heater but it more that doubles my use of energy in the winter months due to the need to 'charge' during the night, and I have no control over how long that lasts.

So I plugged in the radiator last night and set it to come on between 4-7am, I'm on economy 7 so benefit from cheaper night rates.

Was lovely and warm when I woke this morning.

For the evening (I woke outside of home) I use my heated mattress blanket and a hot water bottle.

We've got it on a timer for an hour in the morning every day (thermostatic valves on radiators rather than a central thermostat) then we manually put it on if the digital thermostats in each room drop down to about 18 (so about 2-3 hours a day). Log burner in the living room is lit every evening now so there is always one very toasty room! Separate building where games room is has a more modern air source heat pump and that's generally off but set to 20 degrees so if anyone wants to turn it on while they're in there they can.

Nope! I've got a heated hoodie and a heated throw and I'm warm as toast. Some days it gets too hot. If it continues this way, I won't be putting the heating on at all. I'm telling everyone about the virtues of heated hoodies/throws. 😊

Our thermostat is set to 21° and stays that way all day and night 😂

@novemberlights I've got an amazing heated hoodie from Amazon which is powered with a rechargeable battery pack. Was about £40 with the battery pack. Most heated throws cost about 10p an hour to run.

Ours is set to come on at 18 degrees. We've not been turning it up but I'd rather keep the house at a constant ok temp as it doesn't take much to warm it back up again from that point. I'd be worried about damp in some rooms if I didn't have it on.

If you keep it on, with a thermostat, once it's expensively revved up to the required temperature it'll just go on and off for 5 mins or so at a time for the rest of the day. It wouldn't cost you £2.50 per hour all day. But I appreciate that even that costs more money than some can afford.

@novemberlights ours is set at 18c too, just in the day, because DH is wfh, but I plan on getting cheap thermometers because I don't believe my thermostat's opinion re what the temperature is always.

Does anyone know how gas boiler usage is calculated. For example we have a 24kw boiler. So nice theory would use 24kw per hour. But at what temp and how many radiators is that usage calculated for. Because surely if flow was set to 68 degrees vs 80 then if running constantly for one hr you would use less gas at a lower temp.

Is it based on the max output for the boiler eg 80 degrees constantly heating water in the system and not lowering to a simmer at any point.

Does that make sense to anyone

I have a payg smart meter and yesterday I turned the heating on at 10am and off at 10.pm, I had used £5.79 (that is for both gas and electric). When it gets really cold I'll use the log stove and turn the heating off.

It was 8 degrees this morning and pretty cold. I haven't put the heating on yet - I really want to hold out as long as possible. I'll have it on for an hour a day when I cave in.

We have ours on for 90 mins in morning set to 18 and the same in the late afternoon if DC have friends over or our parents are round. If not we dont bother and light a fire in the evening. I had the radiators off in bedrooms (except spare room where we dry washing, DD gets ready for school and I work), but found mould in our bedroom the other day so they are on in all rooms now.

In previous years hearing was in for 2 hours in morning and about 5 hours in the evening and set to 20

Ours heats to 19° for half an hour in the morning then an hour I'm the afternoon.