My house is not fit for purpose in this weather!

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i know there are some well insulated houses in the U.K. now but so much of the older housing stock is not designed for cold weather. I didn’t fully appreciate this when I first moved to the U.K. because gas was cheap and I had heating on all the time.

I am in a small Victorian mid terrace (pretty much the only housing available in my part of London). Had some renovations including new windows. But still so cold. Fine in mild weather but yesterday I was out all day and didn’t get home until the evening - so heating had been off for 24 hours. It was 13 degrees in my bedroom!

Electric blanket.
The kind you can use to preheat bed, then turn down and leave on all night.
If you're warm in bed, there's no particular need to have a very warm bedroom.
If you feel very cold while dressing/undressing, either do that in a warmer living room, or have an electric heater on for 5 mins (or less).

It is very cold tho atm op. Mines double glazed and not very old.

12 degrees in the house this morning!

Apparently today is the last v cold day where I am for a week or so.

Temps are crazy all over the place aren't they.

Hopefully you'll get better weather too. I'm south west England

Many people dislike modern houses, but they do have the advantage of effective insulation and therefore retain heat better.

Id have thought a mid terrace would benefit from being attached on both sides though. Is the heating programmed to come on before you get home?

if i left my heating off for 24hrs at this time of the year, it would be freezing. Its been -6 outside. You risk having burst pipes

No wonder it was cold, 24 hours with no heating = very cold!

Yep, it’s very cold (also south west), I guess most houses will need substantial heating at this time.
we have electric heaters for a quick blast, I always get dressed on top of mine!

As a PP mentioned, it's risky to have your heating fully off in these temperatures. Throughout winter we have ours set to a minimum of 16 at all times. But we live in a modern house, so it never really goes below 18-20 anyway.

Leave your heating on at 14 degrees?

It will mean the house doesn't get so cold, and shouldn't cost much as it is only coming on to life the temp by a degree or two, occasionally.

Do you have all the normal insulation? Thermal curtain linings, curtain over the door, draught excluders?

Victorian houses have thicker walls than a lot of later builds, so it should be manageable. I have a roll of carpet I get out every year and lean it against the wall behind our settee, which is a very thin 1960s wall and gets cold to touch. I place it so the woolly part of the carpet is next to the wall, and the bottom of the carpet is facing the room. It makes a big difference, and can't be seen from the room

good luck, I hope you find a solution

Yes, I know being mid terrace should help but maybe that just means it would be even colder without it!

You have made me feel better - maybe I am being unreasonable to expect the house to be toasty after a full day of no heating.

Where are you from OP?

My heating is set to 18 all day long and 19 in the morning for 2 hours and down to 7 at night

If your heating had been off for 24 hours it would get very cold quite quickly, it’s really very cold. I guess the question is how long does it retain the heat when it’s up to a decent temp, and how quickly it takes to get there’s.

Doesn't seem too bad to me.
My bedroom was 10 degrees yesterday evening when we came back and the heating had been off since Wednesday night so less than 24 Hours.

And my house was built in the 80s

Mine’s the same. I had a new boiler fitted two years ago but I can’t seem to work out the timer so we turn it on and off as needed. I’ve seen it as low as 8° at times, never above 17 in this cold and as soon as it switches off, it drops straight back down.
Costs a fortune too

Of course a whole day of no heating means it will be freezing. I grew up in a Victorian house, a rather grand huge town house and it was exceptionally beautiful. Apart from the fact a house like that is crazy expensive I always said I would never buy one as they are so cold. I live in a house built in 1928 with decent double glazing.

It is -6c where I am and still been at freezing last couple of days midday.

Same. I'm in a victorian semi and the walls are no longer waterproof. The back wall when it rains, the rain comes through! It's not damp, it's actual rain.

The UK rarely sees extremes. London especially - it rarely drops below freezing now. Electric blanket, turn the heat up at times and get through it. It'll be back in to double digits again soon.

My house is cold. It’s detached, nearly 100 years old, and not well-insulated. We do have double glazing but some of it needs replacing. Our main family room is a very large kitchen-diner and is where I spend most of my time when I’m home. It has small, north-facing windows and no effective radiators. There are electric fan heaters but they’re expensive to use. It’s about 13° in here at the mo and 5° in our wet room. We’re waiting for some funds to come in from the sale of an asset and then we’re going to have someone in to have a good look at our central heating system, as well as installing some decent radiators. We cope by keeping busy and wearing Oodies. The plus side is that it’s a great space during the heatwaves which we have most years in the South East!

It's cold because you didn't have the heating on. Ours goes off at 2300 and back on at 0530. I went to the toilet at 3am this morning and it was FREEZING. Also in Victorian mid terrace in London.

i’m struggling with this too - 1930s semi and yesterday morning our hot tap in the kitchen froze which means the kitchen must have been less than 4 degrees which is frankly ridiculous. We don’t have a boiler with a thermostat so I have been having the heating on from around 4pm to 8pm and then it feels ok (never warm tbh but just not freezing) but then between 8pm and 6am the kitchen temp must have plummeted. It’s so depressing.
I want to update our boiler anyway as it’s not powerful enough to heat the radiators in our new loft conversion at all and would definitely replace with a thermostat one for piece of mind - prob set it at 13
for nighttime. DH however thinks everything is fine with the current temps and the fact our hot water tap froze yesterday!!!

We rent a 4 bed late Victorian semi with stone walls-,it's got very up to date heating and double glazing but to be honest even with all this I can't get away with having the heating set below 21 at the moment - it does come on and go off but I've noticed it's coming on a lot more last 2 weeks. I have no doubt my bills will be horrendous .

We moved from a Victorian terrace to a newer house (2018) and the difference is amazing! Never would consider an older property now. The lowest I’ve seen our thermostat is about 18/19 degrees.

I love the character of older properties but the coldness and high bills just puts me off now.

I wouldn’t say YABU exactly, but more like it is common here in the UK for houses to be poorly insulated especially if they’re older, so many people are just used to it. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-homes-among-leakiest-in-europe-134006559.html

I live in a new build apartment and I was away for a 4 days last week, with the heating off and it was cold when I got back, but not quite as cold as 13 degree. Think it was around 17 degrees. But yeah I can imagine a house, especially one that’s older would be considerably colder unfortunately due to the poor insulation of most housing here.

An oil-filled electric radiator can provide background heat if you don’t actually want the central heating on.

I gave a small one that was no longer needed to a friend who lives in a chilly attic studio flat. He’s very pleased with it.