Who has their heating on?

[Jux]

I have just had cross words with dh and he has grudgingly agreed to put the heating on.

We live in a COLD house. It has had all the embellishments it can and it is freezing. I am currently in bed with the 'winter' duvet and a thick cardigan spread over that, I am wearing thermal underwear and a thick cardigan, and a scarf. I also have a cat as a heat pump! The air is icy, my hands are cold, my feet despite two pairs of socks in bed are icy.

DH says "well, you FEEL the cold, it's not colduntil it's minus 10 outside". Whereupon I shouted at him a bit and said I'd be in bed all winter.

DD is at her bf's near London. His parents have yhe heating on. Do you?

My MIL has MS and feels the cold more so theirs is always on a few weeks before we put ours on.

Mine is on all year round whenever I feel cold enough to put it on. I refuse to be cold in my own home. I work from home and sit in one place all day in a room where there is no sun shining on the room and it can feel really cold even though it is fairly warm outside. I hate having cold hands/face even though I have got jumpers/socks/indoor boots slipper boots on.

I don't know where people find the money.

They cut back on other things, generally.

We can't afford both a summer holiday, and to have our heating on this winter. We chose to skip the holiday in favour of being able to put the heating on from 6 - 9pm at night without panicking too much over the cost.

GOD, absolutely! I cannot bear to be cold. We have a small, well-insulated house so our bills are reasonable.

I use about 17000kwh/year on gas, which is a £918 per year at my current fixed rate - before you add the standing charge.

When we tried to cut back, when it rocketed two winters ago, and I thought I'd give it my best shot to try and be economical about heating and beat the rises - we managed to get that down to 14000kwh which is £756, excluding the standing charge, at the current rate and I was fucking miserable.

So, yeah, I can find £162 to improve the whole of winter.

@ByMerryKoala who are you with? We used 11300kw in 2023 and that was £923 (according to my Octopus app)

I'm with eon and managed to get on a fixed rate prior to the October rises with an eon drive tariff and my gas unit rate is 5.5p/kWh.

I think your standing charge is included in your figure. I just set that to one side for comparison sake because it would be the same regardless of usage.

I'm on a fixed rate of 5.89 with Octopus. Moved to this a few weeks ago when Martin Lewis suggested it. The daily standing charge is a joke really. £1 a day for gas&elec so that's £365 before using anything! And I've recently found out it varies across the country.

Yeah, the standing charges are a disgrace - not least because it is an unfairly heavy burden on low usage customers but, as you say, because the cap is variable depending on your area.

We pay about a pound a day too. The gas is 31p/day and the electric is 71p/day but I think that is higher than usual because we are on a time of use tariff.

Ours has, reluctantly, been set to come on for an hour am and an hour pm but the thermostat is only set at 15 degrees.

My room thermostat was saying 14 and I was freezing, sitting in several layers incl thermals, and things were starting to feel damp in drawers, so I had to put it on.

If you were that cold and damp at 14 degrees I doubt having the heating set to 15 degrees will make a discernible difference TBH. You need to have it set to at least 18 to avoid damp.

At present I use a plug in heater for 20 mins if it's slightly nippy.

My place is pretty warm in general though.

@WiserOlderElf its making a huge difference tbh, I was expecting to have to put it higher but it takes the chill off nicely.

They have more money than you (either earnings or for a lucky few wealth) and so the cost of staying warm is not prohibitive.

If you have funds, insulate your house. Ours is a 250 yr old stone house. It was very very cold. Now it’s newly insulated it’s as toasty as a new build. No house has to be freezing.

Well the answer to this is that some people have more money than others.
We have enough money to heat our house because we have a high household income. We are very lucky that that is the case.

It's 17 in my living room at the moment, but 21 in my conservatory (where I'm drying washing.)

It's a bit chilly indoors but we won't put the heating on until it gets to November. We've got blankets on the sofas though.

Nowhere near putting the heating on. I'm in the living room now with 2 windows open. I run hot as does everyone in our family. I'll sit and wait to be called a competitive under heater though.

I have a few times but mainly for the sake of drying washing. Trying to persuade DH to get an heated clothes horse thing

Why don't you just buy one?

Our house is 200 years old and needs to be kept ventilated and warm. Our heating automatically comes on if the temperature ever drops below 20 degrees, regardless.

No holidays, pets, evenings out, alcohol. Cheap to run car and mortgage paid off.

Cos purchases of several hundred pounds are usually joint decisions