We are too used to Central heating..

[Dampclout]

Until the 1980s very few houses had central heating. Most people heated one room, had hot water bottles at bedtime and wore warm clothes. I can recall quickly going out of the warm front room and shutting the door behind me, if I wasn't quick enough there would be be the shout of ‘shut that door’
Nowadays I wear a tee shirt in winter and keep my house at 20c… I think I will be going back to my childhood ways this winter..

We bought our house in 2005 and it didn't have central heating. The first winter was horrible . There was an electric fire that didn't properly heat the room and was ugly AF to add insult to injury . We had central heating put in the next summer and the following winter was so much nicer. We have the heating on around 19 or 20° but it's never warm enough for a t-shirt in winter.
I'm going to sort out the timer and have the heating on for fewer hours this winter but I think it will be miserable to not use it at all.

Actually it will be anyone who can heat their homes is privileged!

Also I can’t believe that 20 degrees is being called “hot” and “roasting” 🤦‍♀️ I swear this site is full of government bots.

Yes that was me as a child but we have no other heat source,but we can’t afford the up front cost of a log burner,I haven’t seen a coal man since I was a kid!

20 degrees is not roasting, it is normal.

It does not matter if rich people try and persuade us we would be better off without heating, no one sitting in a freezing house will believe them.

Indeed during the course of this thread I've been googling about this.

There are a LOT of projections on this which really do suggest we've 'peaked' as such. And that life is going to get a hell of a lot tougher. Yet we are raising a generation which haven't really got either the resilience or mindset to appreciate what this actually is going to mean for them in practice.

It is fucking frightening. People don't want to look at this stuff. For good reason. It makes for really grim reading.

For starters we could talk about how the effectiveness of antibiotics is starting to wane and we are yet to develop the next generation to replace them. We think there is the ability to do this, but we haven't done the investment which has led to the critical break through yet.

Image the implications of antibiotics starting to fail...

In terms of tech, the tech is only good if you can power it. If you have a computer failure, then having all your medical records digitalised and inaccessable isn't particularly helpful. Image what happens if your mobile phone suddenly stops working. How would that impact your life? Who would you be unable to contact and have no alternative means of getting in touch with? How would you do things if you couldn't google how? In terms of critical infrastructure, it means we are weaker as a society in a sense because we'd have less ability to cope with life if we had a significant disaster of some sort.

Genuinely, have you ever thought about this, or do you just assume that everything will carry on being stable? After the last few years, I'd hope people would think about some of this stuff a bit more as part of contigency planning (like our government! not necessarily all individuals).

So many of the problems we are facing right now, are because we haven't properly considered energy security as a nation as a long term strategy. The same goes for food security too. Brexit and Covid SHOULD have woken people up to stuff like this. It hasn't. And thats the thing that I find REALLY scarey

As others have mentioned on threads during the course of the day, civil unrest is really not beyond the scope of this crisis. People will tend to put up and shut up as long as they have jobs and food. If the employment rate spikes or people are hungry then the risk of unrest spikes. This is a statistical historical observation and not hyperbole.

I take the piss on this thread, because I'm all out of actual meaningful intelligent comment thats helpful in the context of what many are staring in the face. Black humour is all I've got left.

I really didn't think putting on your heating could be so contentious! I mean what is this? warm-shaming? 😂(joke, joke) . I think I have seen it all now. Some of you are absolutely off your rocker! (Not in a bad way but ...)

Same with towels - I don’t get how people have time to do it any more than that! (Leaving aside the cost/wastefulness). I don’t even have kids and begrudge how much time cleaning/washing up takes as it is….

😄😄😄 Oh brilliant!

I am a slovenly mother, I hadn't thought to hang my wet knickers and the children's school clothes around the computer tower! What a waste.

Still. At least I'm using the same teabag at least twice, am cutting off any green mold from the bread and the cheese, and have plenty of longlife milk, for the days when the power gets cut...

Anyone having regular sex and only changing bedding monthly is pretty disgusting.

news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/6/newsid_3251000/3251001.stm

On this day in History.
6th December 1962: Choking fog spreads across Britain
A thick layer of fog which has covered London for the last three days is spreading all over the country.

Leeds has recorded its highest ever level of sulphur dioxide in the air and pneumonia cases in Glasgow have trebled.

A spokesman for London's Emergency Bed Service said 235 people had been admitted to hospital in the last 24 hours and issued a "red warning" to prepare for more patients as thick fog continues to affect public health.

So far 90 people have died since the crisis began and the fog is not expected to lift for another 24 hours.

DIY masks recommended

The Ministry of Health is warning those at most risk, such as sufferers of chest and heart complaints should "stay indoors and rest as much as possible".

The ministry's medical advisors said doctors should prescribe masks for vulnerable patients or "do-it-yourself masks" such as thick cotton gauze or a scarf around the mouth and nose.

General advice to the public was also issued:

Only use coke or other smokeless fuel

do not bank up coal fires at night

don't burn rubbish or light bonfires

keep windows closed and draughts out.

Icy roads

The fog has now spread to 22 counties of England making driving conditions extremely hazardous with visibility varying from zero to 50 yards (45 metres).

Black ice was another danger affecting London, most of the south, East Anglia, the Midlands and Yorkshire, according to the Automobile Association.

One AA spokesman described the icy stretch of road on the A12 near Chelmsford as "a battlefield" after a series of minor accidents.

A scene of traffic jams, queues, breakdowns and abandoned cars recalls a picture not seen in this country for ten years when Britain was smother by the so-called Great Smog of 1952 that claimed some 4,000 lives.

Since then the Clean Air Act has been enforced but only dealt with the smoke emissions and not the discharge of sulphur dioxide.

The level of smoke in London's atmosphere today was two and a half times higher than for an average winter day - and the level of sulphur dioxide was seven times higher, according to figures produced by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

All those bloody middle class log burners all going at the same time...

I’d rather be “disgusting” by someone’s arbitrary standards than be cold 🤷‍♀️Though I have sex once a month so not sure how regular that counts as!

Once a month is not regukar

Mold on the CHEESE??? Long life milk?

Luxury!!!

We are well into foraging. Its amazing how far roadkill goes once you've scrapped off the dog shit from the tiremarks. As for milk? We add water to any old dust we can find and then put it in a cool place so we can pretend its milk. Its amazing how quickly you get used to it. As for wasting the mold! Fool. There's plenty of protein in that. Any recipe containing mushrooms? Well just scrap the bathroom wall and Bobs your uncle and you've got dinner.

We had a power cut in winter when I was about 5
It was snowing as well, and off for days
Despite hot water bottles, layers and sleeping in the same bed, I had hypothermia
Ended up in hospital and I still remember how bright and warm it was. Not going back to that

I remember before central heating and double glazing. It was painful

It's 2022 our government and society should have started preparing and increasing renewable energy. Why do some people want to go back to the dark ages? I hate feeling cold it's fecking horrible, so no I don't want to see babies and the elderly getting pneumonia.

Dear GPs? We had a coal fire in the living room when I was growing up and I was born in the early 90s...and I never went to bed cold.

I am fatter than I was the last time I had to live through a cold winter.

That should make a difference. Every cloud and all that!

We have close relatives who don’t have central heating, a number of them in fact - all rural and in traditional cottages or farmhouses with Agas. I didn’t think that was that odd?

I use the central heating in the way I was brought up with. It’s never on all day and overnight has never crossed my mind, a few hours in the morning and night if it’s cold (which I will be reducing this winter). I expect to be colder in winter and wearing jumpers. DC and DH and I all have blankets for our beds as well as duvets.

My dad never used to turn the heating on I remember coughing , ice on the windows having to put my uniform on under my duvet cause it is was fecking freezing. He used to put dehumidifiers on because the house was damp and mouldy. I can't stand being cold I used to cry I would rather eat beans on toast every night rather than my DD go though that.

I remember the news listing people who had died of hypothermia every day, well the local news.

We should be better than that

Probably due to central heating and people no longer having coal fires

I've never had heating in my bedroom. My childhood home had an open fireplace which never had a fire lit. All the houses I've owned have had radiators in the bedroom but I never use them.

I don't see the point- I use a hot water bottle or a blanket to warm the bed.

We never set the central heating to come on in the morning- again no point- quick shower, get dressed quickly, then off to work.

I don't put the heating on until at least October.

I've never lived in a house with double glazing. Our sitting room has the original Victorian shutters, which are fantastic for keeping warm.