Is it nearly time to not bother with heating?

[LGY1]

Like everyone I’ve started to worry about heating costs, we are currently on a fixed tariff until Aug & pay a DD of £140 a month. I looked at our rates & yes they will double when the fixed term ends.

Looking at cutting back on our heating use, however I’ve attached a photo of our Hive schedule and I can’t see where we can cut back much more!

If we go with the easy “turn your thermostat down 1 degree” we would be on 17 degrees!

We both WFH full time now & have a 1 & 4 year old so I don’t want it too cold overnight.

Anyone else thinking the same?

No heating overnight. We have 20 degrees 6am to 7am then 3pm to 7pm and that's it WFH.

Films/TV shows made in the UK years ago are full of people dressed in interesting knitwear... inside homes. This is not true of modern dramas -except perhaps the occasional nordic one. (A sad truth for the knitting enthusiast.)

We are all out of the habit of dressing for cool conditions indoors.

It is fine to have a house unheated overnight - unless someone is ill. (Beds do seem cosier if it is cool outside them.)
Our children seem to run very hot overnight - in or out of blankets.

Lack of heating might be more a problem for the elderly though.

Other people's heating habits are a strange thing to get worked up about.

Just work out your own bills and comfort level and do whatever's right for you.

So many heating martyrs on here boasting about how cold their houses are!

@Chasingaftermidnight

We bought a small oil radiator for our youngest’s room (which is colder than the rest of the house). It’s got a thermostat and we set it to come on if the temp in his room drops below 16 at night. It’s really useful for WFH too, much cheaper than heating the whole house if there’s only one person at home sitting in one room.

It's almost certainly cheaper to run the boiler and only have the radiator in that room on. It's quite inefficient, but that's more than made up for by the fact that gas is a quarter of the price of lecky for the same amount of heat.

(And you save the cost of buying an electric heater!)

Has anyone mentioned insulation? Could it be improved ?

I moved from a 1938 home to a similar size modern house a few years ago & my G&E bills were halved.

The old place was poorly insulated - mainly because it was not suitable.

@cookiemonster2468

Other people's heating habits are a strange thing to get worked up about.

Just work out your own bills and comfort level and do whatever's right for you.

So many heating martyrs on here boasting about how cold their houses are!

Yes, I think it's a bit sad that people are forced to wear jumpers and double duvets to bed in 2022 because prices are so ridiculous We are very fortunate to be able to keep the house warm during the day. I wouldn't want to be sitting in a room in a 14-degree house, but appreciate that some people have no choice and that really sucks. Having a basic and comfortable level of warmth shouldn't be luxury.

@LGY1

There are a lot of comments about the heating being “on at night” I’ve had a look at the graph and last night it came on at 3am for 15 mins and it was zero degrees last night, think the settings might be a bit of a red herring about how much we are actually using at night

I think how you have it is probably more economical than letting the house get very cold overnight, then needing a lot of energy to warm it up. Suspect that keeping it on 24hrs in a lowish thermostat setting would work, then blast it up a but if you feel cold

@Georgyporky

Has anyone mentioned insulation? Could it be improved ?

I moved from a 1938 home to a similar size modern house a few years ago & my G&E bills were halved.

The old place was poorly insulated - mainly because it was not suitable.

Good point, I was astonished at the difference when we massively beefed up the insulation in our loft, in an otherwise large drafty old house.

Although half of me is now thinking we lap up the cheaper gas this winter & then buckle down for a cold winter 2022

@cookiemonster2468

Other people's heating habits are a strange thing to get worked up about.

Just work out your own bills and comfort level and do whatever's right for you.

So many heating martyrs on here boasting about how cold their houses are!

My point was that my house isn't cold & I don't have the heating on at night. I hate being cold. (1930s poorly insulated house)

I can't get programming the heating, if I'm cold I need heat now! Not at a set time. And I will go and turn it on if I am that cold. We turn the thermostat over 20 to turn it on and when it feels warmer we turn it down. It's rarely on from 6pm unless we've only just got home and need to warm the house a bit for the evening before we go to bed. It's never in over night.

@Hugasauras I had a look at the graph, it clicked on for 15 mins at 3am last night, so no, it hardly comes on overnight

Ours is off all night but we do put it on in the morning and for when we get home from work for showers, as our bathroom is in a crappy, cheap extension at the back and it's bloody freezing in there.

Without heating it for a couple of hours a day (and using a dehumidifier) we get really bad mould.

We don't have it high though, around 18 degrees.

@jevoudrais mine is so over the top. It wants to know what temperature you want it for every hour of the day. Seven days a week.
I turn that off. I have it on 14-15 during the day. But I just turn it up when I want the heating on for an hour

Our house is usually around 14 degrees, we wear thermals and dressing gowns over fleecy pjs for bed, hats and gloves if really cold at night. Heating on for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening when our son is getting changed for school/the day or into pjs. Dog wears a coat. I really hope prices come down soon so we can warm up a bit!

@Silverswirl

People gave heating coming on over night???!! Really? You learn something new every day. I’ve always had mine programmed to switch off at 8 or 9pm and come on at 6am all through the year. If you are cold at night, your duvet isn’t thick enough or you don’t have enough night clothes on!!

That tends to be the case for my severely autistic ds. Will only wear one layer on top (and is very particular about what that layer is). Won't use a duvet do sleeps under fleecy blankets that are often hanging off him because he just randomly heaps them up. We're lucky we can afford to keep the house at a comfortable temperature for him and that sometimes means having the heating on so it comes on for a while in the early hours because his room gets very cold when the wind blows in a certain direction.

My overnight heating is set to come on when it's 7 degrees but in the morning the "natural temp" seems to be about 14-16 degrees.

I wfh and have a couple of hours during the day then a couple of hours around the time that the kids get back from school so it's cosy for them. I wear lots of layers and blankets. I'm on a fixed rate but I'm a single parent so every penny counts.

Moved into new build and the difference compared to old houses we rented for years with no insulation in lofts or in house and drafts everywhere as could never get warm even with the open fire that heated radiators upstairs and heated the water (back boiler).. here in new place put in on hour morning/daytime. then evening when get cold for hour or two. Cannot sleep with heat on at night as wake up with my sinus in bits. I open my windows also to air the house for abit every day unless like past few days very cold. Lucky here though do not have to have dd for electric/gas can pay a bit off weekly and if struggling they let you set up a payment plan to catch up. Having to have dd puts pressure on me for payments so pay abit off weekly and keep on top of bills. Supplier also gave 100 credit when moved in here as I stayed with them. Feel sorry for people who feel the cold more as not fair in this day and age that all so expensive and elderly and sick should be given help monthly towards their heating bills. We grew up in a house where the open fire was the main heating and living room so cosy but then went to bathroom at back of house and would be freezing. In our last rented only had open fire in living room and was lovely but rest of the apartment freezing and it was awful. Landlords should have to have some standard that is checked regards heating as so many rented not insulted and no proper heating. So lovely here having proper gas heating and have separate switches if want to only heat living room, hall and bathroom and another for bedrooms so handy. I have throw I put over me on sofa also and do not like heat on for long as gets too stuff. have at 18.

It completely depends on the house. Ours is fetched, tall and slim, so most rooms have 3 exterior walls with no insulation. 17 degrees is chilly.

17 degrees in our old flat felt toasty.

We found that keeping our heating on low round the clock was cheaper than having it come off and on throughout the day.

No heating overnight. 15/16 max. One hour in the morning, one at night.

I'll be turning it off in a few weeks though. Do sleep with 15 tog duvets and hot water bottles though.

fetched? detached!

If you’ve got a jumper, socks and dressing gown on and you’re still cold then put the heating on.
If not there’s no need to.

If you have a damp home then have it on in the morning for an hour but as other PPs have said you definitely don’t need it on during the night.

We live in a 1930's semi, I have never had heating on overnight even when it's been snowing or below freezing overnight. We just double up on blankets over our duvets.
Rarely have the heating on all day either- usually just a couple of hours in the morning and then from 5pm until 10pm during winter. Our house does hold the heat very well though and I only work from home one day a week as does DH.
I am old enough to remember scraping the ice off the insides of the windows as a child and having to have a bed full of hot water bottles in winter - my kids roll their eyes when I tell them that!

Ours is on all the time, set to 17 when we are home. Turn it down to 12/13 when out. We have a baby and she wakes up at night if it gets cold, dh used to turn it down until I kicked off at him in a sleep deprived state.

I think what's depressing about all these threads is that we're all focused on what we can do to make sacrifices instead of what direct action we can take to force the government to act.

The government has written off £4 billion of fraudulent Covid debt and yet here we are talking about how cold we can let our houses get. Everyone is too tired and too disillusioned to go out and protest and it's really very sad.