To think that open plan "knocked through houses" are a design fault in winter.

[swanthingafteranother]

I've been pining for have a lovely airy light filled downstairs for years. Knocking walls down, open plan kitchen etc. Now I am wondering whether the Victorians didn't know a thing or two about keeping houses warm in winter. Small rooms, with doors. Each room for something particular. Thick curtains. Petticoats and shawls. Waistcoats. Pudding.

Does it cost a lot more to keep an open plan family room warm?

Yes! And that's exactly why I argued and argued with DH about knocking through the front and back rooms!

Right now, snuggled in the back room looking out at the snow, I am glad I won!

We are all open plan downstairs (that sounds very rude!).
I hate it! Give me WALLS, lovely LOVELY WALLS!

YANBU, at times like these I'm grateful to live in a pokey little stone cottage with little windows, small rooms, a log burner and 18 inch thick walls. The place is like a giant storage heaters - stays cool in summer too.

Yy to there being no privacy in open plan houses!

I would love a big open plan kitchen/dining room/family room as long as there was a nice snug sitting room to escape to in the evening. It would feel too much like a holiday home if everything was open-plan.

Ooh I get to go against the grain!
YABU

I'm cosy in my edwardian mostly knocked through high-ceilinged warmth.

Don't know why, maybe it's because we're mid terrace and have a lot of borrowed heat but no problems at all with heating this baby.

Living room is still separate, but big knocked through, open to the stairs dining room/ kitchen is always cosy.

We've got heating on a timer but turn it off most evenings cause it's too warm.

Only room that's cold is the icy bathroom - no idea why. It's like fridge in there.

I'm in front of open fire now, with living room door open to stop me melting.

So it can work - lovely spacious open plan bits but also high ceilinged, tiled floor originalness. And cosiness.

We have a large knocked through room and a smaller sitting room. The upstairs is completely seperate and traditional. The knocked through room is warm because it is well insulated. The upstairs with dormar windows and poorly insulated walls is the cold bit of the house. I wouldn't want the whole of the downstairs open plan though because it's nice to be able to do different things in different rooms with no noise pollution.

I've just moved from a modern open-plan house with a giant fridge conservatory at the back into a 1930s semi with ROOMS. Oh, how I love my rooms, and the warmth, and the dryer on a pulley system in the kitchen. I love my new house, I think the 1930s can teach us something too.

Sod the heating costs, it's space for bookcases I need. Current house is only sort-of knocked through - double width doorway with no actual door between living room and kitchen - so I can just about manage. Last house was totally open plan downstairs. Not enough walls! I mastered the art of the book-heap instead, while thinking enviously of my parents' 1930s semi with space for more books on one wall than I could fit in my entire house.

I'd rather sit in a lovely open-plan living/dining room than heat one tiny room and have the rest of the house be freezing cold.

No children though so I don't need to compartmentalise in the same way.

Those of you asking for walls - why not use bookcases to make walls, and then see whether you like the small rooms better?

We knocked through the galley kitchen and dining room and extended so we have a big back room with kitchen dining and living together, but we kept the front room separate - which is cosy and comfortable and lovely in this weather - the back room is never warm enough for me despite underfloor heating - suspect it is the high ceiling with velux windows and bifold doors - too much glass and aluminium frames.

I think they're a design fault with kids! Nowhere to hide all the damn clobber. No door to shut on it all or alternative room for unexpected visitors.

Victorian house here and we're all shivering our tits off. The Victorians knew crap all about double glazing, insulation and not having gaps under their skirting boards unfortunately.

Goodking I don't know about relative costs of wood to gas, but IME fires are more efficient in open plan rooms. My parents' stove (smallest one in its range) heats the whole of a two knocked-through Victorian receps (and the rooms above them a bit as well). Would be a waste if a wall was there containing all the heat into half the reception space.

LOL at all your comments...and I love the one about Tracy Beaker..
portiere is what we need on our beautiful stained glass leaching the heat out front door. And the book problem is why I haven't been allowed to knock through. Far too many bookcases, but that is a good idea about having a bookcase as low room divider, if we did knock through and properly insulate at same time.

And it is still cold here despite the multiple small rooms. The kitchen is knocked through to scullery and that seems to be where worse draught is coming from - the blooming cat flap, as well as the letter box.. Porch and back porch needed...

My house has an open plan living room and conservatory and it is very cold in this weather . Amazing views over the mountains but cold! YANBU

coldethyl I won't mention the sea views then!

My experience of open plan houses is in Denmark so YABU to think they can't be warm

Someone mentioned wood burners upthread. Our turn of the century house was built with small rooms and a small fireplace (all blocked up) in each room, but our living room is a large knocked through dual aspect room which used to be unbearably cold in winter -positively uninhabitable unless we went crazy with the central heating. Four years ago we opened up the livingroom fireplace and installed a wood burning stove. It is a very efficient little stove which not only heats the livingroom beautifully, but, with the livingroom door open also warms the rest of the house enough to take the edge off cool evenings. We don't use the central heating in the evenings at all now. Last night, I noted a temperature of 30 degrees in the livingroom (!), without really trying. Our gas bill is much more manageable now, needless to say. They can be real moneysaving devices if you don't spend money on wood. DP relishes his "wooding"; he has got wood from tree-surgeons felling locally and spoken to the council and land owners nearby about taking dead and fallen wood from their woodlands; we try to get in as much as we can of the coming winter's supply in spring so it can dry in time for winter. DP spends some sweaty Sundays sawing, chopping and stacking but then it's done.
I love having the open space, used to detest the cold but would really recommend fitting a stove if it is an option.

Ours is open plan but seperate lounge and downstairs bathroom has a door not that the dcs ever us it! so kitchen/dining room/hall/stairs is all open. Its fecking freezing, and if I cook in the evenings I risk disturbing children. It works really well for us in the day though when its not cold.

Cant bear open plan. Its like living your entire life in one room no where to hide and cold.

In 10 years our children will all be rebuilding the walls our generation have knocked down and tutting

We have a massive open plan kitchen-living room and it's toasty warm, even though it has 4 french doors and a window (and no curtains). But it also has underfloor heating, double-glazing and the house is properly insulated. It's lovely.
But I agree that it would not be a good idea in an average draughty old British home.

YANBU. And I don't like open plan kitchen/ living areas. Either you clean while you cook and straight after eating or you live with food smells.