Stop implying it's not so bad now because you grew up with no central heating and scraped ice off the windows.

[flashbac]

FFS

I also had no central heating in the house as a kid. There was a hole under the bathtub that cats would use to come in while you were freezing arse off on the loo. It was bloody grim. I don't wish it on anybody. People shouldn't have to be uncomfortable in their own bleeding homes for goodness sakes. It shouldn't be happening in this day and age. Stop defending it.

Sometimes when people say this, they don't mean 'Stop whining'.
They mean- it sucks but it was normal 40 years ago. We all knew how to layer clothes and use hot water bottles. It's survivable.
Chilblains were normal. We've become used to a very comfortable way of living, but we can manage being less comfortable.

I agree. I live in a country where central heating isn't a thing. Most of us heat the room we spend the most time in, our bedrooms are cold - but we are in bed and it's easy to keep warm in bed. It's just part of winter life, and we deal with it. It seems to me that heating an entire house all the time is just wasteful, both in terms of money and energy.

I don't think it's ideal at all, but most people can adapt to living in a house that is mostly pretty cold for 6 months of the year. Central heating is a recent invention. It's going backwards, and we probably don't want to do that, but it is do-able.

I grew up in a non-insulated caravan with only a wood burner that was rarely lit and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I agree OP, the one-upping is ridiculous. People deserve access to heating.

@picklemewalnuts

Sometimes when people say this, they don't mean 'Stop whining'. They mean- it sucks but it was normal 40 years ago. We all knew how to layer clothes and use hot water bottles. It's survivable. Chilblains were normal. We've become used to a very comfortable way of living, but we can manage being less comfortable.

Some younger folk think it's uniquely, unreasonably awful, and don't have the old fashioned skills of preserving heat indoors. Us oldies can share from our youth, in a blitz spirit fashion.

But why shouldn't we be comfortable? I grew up like that and just because something was normal doesn't mean it should be accepted and replicated.

I agree. I live in a country where central heating isn't a thing. Most of us heat the room we spend the most time in, our bedrooms are cold - but we are in bed and it's easy to keep warm in bed. It's just part of winter life, and we deal with it. It seems to me that heating an entire house all the time is just wasteful, both in terms of money and energy

Yes, it's a difference in perspective.

Someone who is complaining because it's 18 degrees in the sitting room and they claim that they had to put a coat on to be able to comfortably watch TV is naturally going to raise an eyebrow or two if the listener is sitting perfectly comfortably in 14 degrees in shorts and a teeshirt. I'm the latter because I grew up in a literally frozen house, so I find 18 degrees uncomfortably warm and can conceive of anyone feeling cold in 18 degrees ambient.

Much of the older generation will have similar experiences, so they naturally view with suspicion anyone claiming that not being able to have the central heating on 'death valley' setting year-round somehow equates to an uninhabitable home.

I don't think it's ideal at all, but most people can adapt to living in a house that is mostly pretty cold for 6 months of the year.

Multi billion pound companies and the very rich can adapt more comfortably than those having to choose between heating, eating, clothing, transport, health and shame.

Us oldies do have to admit being a bit smug about the hardships now faced and harking back to our previous days of hardship as a comparison

I am pushing 60, so am an oldie I guess. I don't feel smug at all about the hardships of my youth. What an odd thing to say.

What I do feel is outraged that living conditions are deteriorating and that people are saying the poor and even those on moderate incomes will just have to put up with being cold and worrying about how to pay for the essentials in life.

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world. The Tories have pissed millions and millions and millions of taxpayer's money down the khazi over the last two years, enriching their mates in the progress. But as usual the Tory voters doff their caps and wibble on about how people should fucking "adapt".

BTW the temperature where I am is 4 degrees right now, not in the mid teens. Not sure where that poster is living!

Much of the older generation will have similar experiences, so they naturally view with suspicion anyone claiming that not being able to have the central heating on 'death valley' setting year-round somehow equates to an uninhabitable home.

Bullshit. Most of the older generation have enough experience and maturity to know that age, health and housing conditions all contribute to higher energy use and higher temperatures.

sitting perfectly comfortably in 14 degrees in shorts and a teeshirt

14 degrees inside a house is cold. Not many people will be able to sit comfortably in shorts and t-shirt. It is not good for people's health for their homes to be that cold.

14-15° - If your home is this cold, you may be diminishing your resistance to respiratory diseases

www.cse.org.uk/advice/advice-and-support/heat-and-health#:~:text=Below%2013%C2%B0%20%2D%20If%20your,recommended%20night%20time%20bedroom%20temperature

Bullshit. Most of the older generation have enough experience and maturity to know that age, health and housing conditions all contribute to higher energy use and higher temperatures

Of course they do, but that's got nothing to do with my essential point, which is that someone who is perfectly happy and comfortable in a 'cold' house is not going to be able to relate to someone complaining they are cold in temperatures they would find unbearably warm.

Again, this isn't about 'one-upmanship' and I honestly don't think that's what the 'back in my day' crowd are about. It's an inability to relate to things that are completely alien to you, like, in my case, not understanding how anyone could possibly feel cold in 18 degrees. My 'cold' would begin around 10'ish, that's when I'd think about putting the heating on. Other people have a completely different concept of what is 'cold' and what is 'warm'. While I can totally accept that difference exists, it changes nothing about the fact that I can't relate to people claiming 18 degrees is cold, and likewise, I wouldn't expect them to turn around and agree with my that 14 is still perfectly temperate.

The GALL on those bloody Royals prancing up and down angers me like you can't imagine.

Absolutely dispicable

@dipdye

The GALL on those bloody Royals prancing up and down angers me like you can't imagine.

Absolutely dispicable

Wrong thread?

18 degrees in the house is just about bearable, if you have lots of layers on. 18 degrees outside is warm.
16 degrees in work feels positively baltic and inspires lots of:"what's the minimum temperature we can work at?"

Having a freezing cold house and no food jn 2022 is abhorrent.

To the person who responded to me upthread I have contacted everyone I can. Supposedly there’s a grant, which I might get, but it won’t help with meds or with water bill increase.

It’s -2c here now (3c inside). Far too cold to sleep and I’m terrified for my pipes. Am in agony, I can’t even have a hot water bottle due to my Ehlers danlos syndrome meaning my skin is too thin as even at lower temperature they burn through my now paper thin skin, so they need to be barely warm and then don’t warm me at all.

Different people have different challenges and that goes for times as well. I’ve never had central heating. Since becoming disabled struggled with heating though of course I now realise those few hours were much needed!

I remember an elderly relative many years ago telling me about how mental illness was just being pathetic. No excuse not to work or function. Her reasoning was that all the soldiers in the war coped just fine and got on with life and they had seen some really tough stuff (this was in relation to a friend of ours who had been admitted with a breakdown and she refused to even acknowledge her and I wanted to send a card). I replied, some yes, but what about those who simply ended their lives. Later she explained she’d never thought of it like that, it was the same with the blitz spirit and how everyone came together, not everyone did. She was really upset by it, she’d simply not thought it through.

The only posts I've seen about no central heating have been how we managed to keep warm, IE what steps we took to mitigate living in cold houses. None of the ones I've seen referencing ice on the inside of windows have said it is ok because we managed to survive just sharing how we tried to or did keep warm or not.

Incidentally the poor sod in an 8 degree house...well her landlord should be forced to make the home habitable as no insulation is awful. Minimum standards should be applied so that houses retain heat and don't get so cold.

I rarely heat my flat. I couldn't do that in ex's house(rented) or mum's house (single skin brick) different homes hold heat differently.bad ones need to be improved.

I could manage down to 15 degrees. Below that was miserable. Not measured how cold the flat gets. Measured how hot in summer. Too bloody hot with no way of cooling it. British homes are not designed for climate change nor the energy crisis.

I worry that whilst single glazing, no central heating and ice on the bloody windows was normal, we also had enough money for hot food (grim though it was and sometimes off) and clothing /bedding for the conditions.

If you've got to the point of heating or eating you ain't going to be buying extra socks.

There are bands of income level. Some of the advice is suitable for only middle bands. Or the bit daft. ex (Turn the fucking heating off if you are hot you numpty, don't open the window next to the thermostat so there is a cycle of boiler kicking in to try and heat the outside while you are too hot) this may be specific to just one person.

The bottom bands aren't going to be able to afford stuff required.

The problem I see is the older generation who never put heating on growing up are now literally freezing to death because they can't afford to put their heating on. When they should be old and comfortable

It’s been -2 here tonight. It’s bloody freezing

A couple of colleagues were chatting about this a few days ago, when one of them came out with ' well, if they got rid of their £40 a month iPhones and TV packages, they'd be able to afford it wouldn't they '
I wanted to bounce my stapler off her head.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

I don't think it's about implying that it's ok to be cold in the UK in 2022, I think a lot of people feel that there are some who are completely over-egging this to a ridiculous degree.

I'm lucky in that I don't really feel the cold and I'm comfortable sitting in a house with the windows open in April, but at the same time I'm not buying people claiming they are 'literally freezing' because they can't have the central heating on for hours on end when ambient temperatures are mid-teens OUTSIDE!!!

Yeah, it's disgraceful that people can't afford to heat their homes how they wish in 2022, but it's hardly a Scott of the Antarctic situation in leafy Home Countiesshire right now. Some people just like to exaggerate everything for effect, and I think that's what's getting up the noses of some of the 'back in my day' generation.

My house is colder in doors than out. I can't have wall insulation because of the type of house it is. Daren't ask my landlord to replace the shit windows and back door. Last time we asked for a new front door, because when it rained the porch was soaked 3/4s in. She shoved our rent up by £100. So yes some peoples houses are colder inside than out.

I was one of those people. Grew up in an old farmhouse which was freezing cold and it was awful. We are going backwards as a society and it’s horrible.

Remember though, despite the cold, rising fuel prices and low wage growth, the UK saw the number of millionaires rise from 3% in 2010 to 5.5% in 2021, a total of almost 3m.....

Meanwhile the wealth and wages of the poorest fell, the wealth divide is the largest ever recorded.

BUT these 3m millionaires can receive a 5k grant for Solar AND will not have to pay any VAT on their new new energy saving installations... this tax saving will of course mean those who can't afford solar, paying for this through higher taxation.

Yes - there are a lot of people in the UK who have a lot of assets. Meanwhile, poverty is increasing, more people are using food banks and people are struggling to heat their homes and feed themselves,