To think £10 per day for heating is expensive in a 3 bed bungalow??

[inmyshoos]

Just that really. Currently costing at least 10 per day to heat our house. It is well insulated in the loft although it has stone walls.
I am just desperate for spring
Can't afford for it to be so cold much longer

We also backed up with a calor gas heater.
Would this be a consideration when the dc's are in bed?

Thank you so much for all your replies.
I will look into all the suggestions.
Funnily enough the dc don't ever complain of being cold other than first thing in morning. They even run about with bare feet. No way I would even wear my slippers without cosy thick socks too!

Thanks guys.

Apparently the house we're in now (which has gch) is too cold for most of my dc's friends.
Guess a cold start brought mine up hardier too inmy.

"Funnily enough the dc don't ever complain of being cold other than first thing in morning. They even run about with bare feet."

What temperature is your house kept at? How much of it is kept at that temperature for that time? If it's just you at home during the daytime, you don't need the entire house permanently cozy.

Running the heating 14 hours a day does seem very extravagent to me. Since your kids don't seem to be cold at all, I wonder if you should speak to your doctor - maybe there's a medical reason that you're feeling the cold.

all kinds of wrong.

I have oil-fired heating and hot water, with everything else electric. My electricity bill is £360 a year. No drier. So what are you doing to use all that electricity?

heating-wise, even at its priciest oil is not THAT much more expensive than mains gas as long as you don't have an antiquated boiler. Currently it is the cheapest form of heating.

you need to look at an oil boiler, and also at insulation on the stone walls. Obviously this won't be cheap but with your fuel bill it will all pay off in under five years.

£360 for electricity is astonishingly low. My electricity bill is about £120 a month.

thatbloodywoman every cloud eh? My dc are also very clued up around fire. Ds 10 can build a good fire and is sensible too.

skylark the sitting room where stove is probably sits at around 20°C when stove running throughout day. Other areas are around 14/15 and that is when rads are on. Inthe evening i light another stove in one of the bedrooms and putelectric heater on in hall.
I definitely do feel the cold more than the dc or dh. Poor circulation. Hands feet and nose (weird yes?!) always feel icy cold.
Also have arthritis which makes me ache in winter.

special will defo look into oil. Have previously looked into wall insulating but inside is already pokey and they said couldnt do it outside. Or at least wouldnt be affordable as would be huge job. We have added a lean to on gable end which has made kitchen warmer and less mouldy!!

My electricty bill seems high but is similar to my friends who has same size family, number of rooms etc. Cooker is electric- i cook meal from sctratch each day and bake at least 5 times a week making puddings and snacks for dc to take to school. Cheaper than buying.
Do around 8 loads of laundry a week. Mostly at 20° but towels/bedding at 40°. All dried on a pulley.
Use a dehumidifier every now and then because of the amount of washing i dry indoors.

I wish it was lower but not sure what else I could do!

Yes inmy -we have a 'for fun' open fire now and mine at 8 and 10 are reasonably proficient firestarters!

Have you considered installing solar btw?

Have looked into solar but apparently our roof couldn't take enough panels to make it worth the outlay.

In many ways i love the stove. I wouldnt want to be without one now. In any house but preferably one with another form of heating to back it up.

Have you thought about air source heat pump? Parents 1960's oil burning system in their 2 bed bungalow packed up and this system meant could keep all the radiators etc with out much fuss and is more efficient.

Have you thought about have a green deal survey ?

What kind of tariff are you on?

What part of the country are you in inmyshoes?

I'm all for home cooking! Are you doing the 'make the most of your oven' thing, which means it is never used unless it is jammed full. Also turn off the heat before the end of cooking time to make the most of the residual heat.

an LPG hob will probably work out cheaper to run, although if you don't like cooking on gas that's a non starter.

what else could be happening: non-low-energy lightbulbs, chargers left on, immersion heater on, incorrect tariff, too-expensive tariff? (just some ideas)

just spotted your electric heater. Would economy 7 be worthwhile for you? Do you actually need the house heated at night anyway? Work out what it costs to run per hour: kilowattage multiplied by your unit rate.

whoever it was: A smelly oil boiler is a faulty one. Ours doesn't smell. (Installed 18 months ago)

I need to double check I wasn't read it wrong. 80s 3 bed semi and I am paying £68 for both gas and electricity a month. Central heating on all day, with thermostat set at 20c. I'm glad I'm in a newish build!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2288991-to-think-old-houses-are-pretty-and-interesting-but-not-comfortable-energy-bill-up-4x?

Check out that thread for more ideas
I have rheumatoid arthritis and raynauds. My dehumidifier has improved my pain levels too. I hate the cold and damp but find the changes in pressure worst for causing pain. Merino or silk long sleeve base layers under everything and silk long johns at this time of year keep me moving relatively comfortably although the clicks from my knees and elbows sound like a beetle infestation.
Get friendly with an old timer and see how they heat their house. I heat one room only during the day apart from an hour or two with ch on.
Buy a moisture meter- I got one for 20 quid in Aldi last Autumn and don't buy any wood from locals til you've tested it and can see its at least less than 20%. You're asking to be ripped off by unscrupulous sellers if you're buying by weight.
There's 2 prongs on the MM and you just stick it firmly into the wood and the display gives you % of moisture in it. Don't want to worry you but 14 hours a day is far too long to be using a very old stove so I'd be worried the bottom will fall out of it one day. Get a new coal friendly grate at least for it, you cant run CH on wet wood either, so much of the energy is wasted turning the water to vapour.

I think you need to invest in a change to your heating system.
You are paying £3650 a year in fuel, over 5 years that is £18K. Worth biting the bullet.

I pay £85 a month for all my fuel and electricity and I live in a 5 bedroomed house in coldest SCotland.

We changed from woodburner central heating to oil central heating and hot water (with an oil-fired woodburner-type stove). It costs me about £20 a week to keep it ticking over 24/7 on low and the whole 3-bed house is toasty warm.

We changed because we found that wood burning central heating was crap unless the woodburner was stoked up and smokin' hot (which it wasn't most of the time). And it was messy, and dusty, and I got fed-up carting logs in all the time. And then we got ripped off over 2 loads of wood which wasn't seasoned, so we spent 6 weeks freezing cold. Nah - get rid of it OP.

You need to look into oil boilers & heating. I live in a rural location & a lot of people have oil & even with the premium we pay for delivery to our area it is still cheaper than what you are paying!

bigbluestars I'm not paying that much as it is only £10 per day at the moment because it is -7. Come spring i won't have stove on at all. Usually off until October.

I do think we need oil or something though. It is no fun with the mess, trying to source wood etc like fecklessfairy said.

You need decent wood. We live in a big old non insulated stone house and a wood stove is our main source of heating. I find it best to have it on 24/7 and keep it pretty hot. Weirdly the wood seems to burn slower and throw out more heat once you get and keep a very hot bed of embers. But you need dry wood for this. We burn about 600 pounds worth (8 cubic meters) and live in a cold place where we need to heat from mid October to mid April in general. We do use a couple of oil filled radiators too which I reckon add about about 40 pounds a month to the electric bill in winter. We are cosy and it comes to about 90 pounds a month during 6 months.

Our stove is nothing special, it came from a diy shop and is nonbranded, cost about 380 pounds. Have you tried putting a grate in yours to see if you get a hotter burn? You need plenty of air circulating and you won't get that if you don't have an ashpan and the wood is on too thick a bed of ash. Once you get the burn right, the ash ends up getting burnt and you shouldn't have to empty too often. I agree they are messy and dusty though!

I have friends who routinely forage, we never heard of no stinkin' license...
You need to get onto Oil. A new efficient boiler would revolutionise your life.
I think friend gets old (broken waste) pallets delivered which he pays a cheap price for & they chainsaw done. Burn very nicely, too.

chainsaw down...

We live in a large 3 bed, rurally, surrounded by open fields. The house is 120 years old so no option for cavity walls and we are completely open to the elements.

We have oil fired central heating and it's on 24/7 from October with thermostat set to 19 degrees so it only goes off when it drops below this. Boiler is around 10 year old.

This winter 500L (£200) is lasting around 6/7 weeks so approx. £33 per week.

Having said that this time last year 200L was around £350.

sheebarabbit i'm a clicker too! Notice it most when i visit my parents as they have stairs! My knees are so noisy!
Will keep my eye out for a moisture meter. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people are out of dry wood (i mean the suppliers). Lots have birch which they say burns even when it is wet
We are sticking with the heatlogs at the moment, at least they burn slow and hot.

Thanks again for all the replies and advice.