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..

@woodhill you're not wrong!

The first thing this thread reminded me of was a referendum-era one where the op was lamenting the fact we have too much choice these days and looking forward to less variety and availability in shops!

I don’t understand the mentality. Live your life your way, but wishing unwanted restrictions on the rest of us is unpleasant.

Depends what you mean by managed. I also remember chilblains, being awake half the night because I was too cold to sleep, and the misery of trying to concentrate on studying while my hands were too cold to write legibly.

Ah the good old Tories and their fake nostalgia for when Blighty was truly great and we were all so cap doffingly happy

As a PP said, even if we went back to the 60's huddled around a single candle and draped in animals skins and hot water bottles the average family we are still going to have to spend my re on energy (in real terms) than your parents did back then.

Difference is very few of us have coal or wood sheds and a raging fire in the living room with a back boiler anymore either. Back then I recall chimneys being swept and bags of coal being delivered by the coal man.

Hmmm didn't know about those.

They're about £500 each. Not including getting them fitted. And I live in a city so not sure where I can get wood that is going to be significantly cheaper, considering one in the whole house won't help that much as we're not open plan.

I didn't have central hearing until 1997. It was grim. We had electric bar heaters. If you stood in front of then, the front of your legs got hot, but the rest of you body stayed cold. I wouldn't want to go back to that

But jumpers, hot water bottles etc is common sense

any day now we'll be told that wanting to stay warm in winter is woke nonsense.

@bellac11 not to argue or anything!

I will never understand this country’s nostalgia for fucking misery.

It won’t be a jolly trip down memory lane but a harsh reality for many this winter, trying to make it fun is messed up.

This reminds me of my mum the other week blathering on about how people dealt with the heatwave in the 70s better because nobody knew any better back then - we're all too used to being comfortable these days 😄

Send one kid down the pit and one up the chimney for a bit of extra cash. You should get a night job during the week so you are working 18hrs a day. And don't forget a nice Saturday job. This solves trying to keep the family warm. That still gives a generous 6hrs a day to commute and to sleep. Afterall back in Victorian times thats what they did. In fact, thinking about what they did in the past, consider 'hot bedding' where you loan your bed out to someone else, whilst you are a work. Afterall its not as if its being used when you are at work.

Problem solved.

I think somewhere in between the two extremes is best.

My home has single glazing and no central heating. Just a gas heater in the lounge room. I also live in Australia which I’m sure most people here think would mean the above is sufficient. It’s not. Apart from the lounge room, which I can close the door to keep warm, the rest of my house is too cold. I’m most definitely a cooler weather person, not a summer person so it would be worse for those who really hate the cold. It does start to grate on you and wear you down. It’s bearable here because it’s not super cold but in much of the UK it would just be too cold and miserable and I imagine bad for your health, especially for babies, small children and the elderly

On the other hand I do find most central heating when I’ve gone to the UK and Europe to be set way too high, especially for sleeping. One Austrian hotel owner even seemed incredulous and possibly insulted when I told him my room was too hot (this was in a ski resort) ‘that is surely not possible’ he said 😮

I think people have got used to very warm homes (I'm on my 30s but still remember going to bed qith a hot water bottle etc out of necessity) but central heating is needed just not to the level people keep their homes.

We keep ours at 18 degrees it's pleasant not freezing and optimal temperature for young children to sleep!

I used to sit so close to our electric fire I had corned beef marks on my legs from the heat of the fire. We didn't get central heating until I was 10 or 11, I can never remember being cold except first thing in the morning & I used to get dressed on the rug in front of the fire. At our old house we just had a gas fire in the front & back rooms, I know my dad put storage heaters in our bedrooms but we moved out not long after.

When I was a student in the 80s I dreaded winter. Freezing damp flats. No CH. Electric bar heater on a meter. It was Baltic. I remember sleeping in thermal long johns, an arran jumper, inside a sleeping bag with the quilt top. Was still cold!

We only have the heating and hot water on a few hours a day in winter. We rely on the fire the rest of the time because oil is expensive and running out means no hot water so we try not to use too much. Without the fire it would be more difficult to keep the house warm in winter, it's a very old cottage and the kids room usually gets down to 11/12° in January at night

@RedToothBrush nailed it. You should run for leader of the Tory party.

I was born in 1973 and when I was a child we always had central heating and a lovely warm home but my dad was a plumbing and heating engineer so I suppose we were very lucky. Dh is the same age and remembers frost on the inside of his windows, his house had no radiators and he had a small gas fire in his bedroom which I remember being there when we started dating in 1990. Since we’ve had a house together (since 1998) I know what it’s like to feel cold cause dh is as tight as a ducks arse when it comes to fuel bills, we have a log burner and our thermostat is always being turned down (he works outside all year so is used to the cold) and back up by me, it’s a big bone of contention every winter but this year I’ll obviously loss the thermostat battle. I’ve purchased extra blankets, heat holder socks and hot water bottles in anticipation.

Like other said, just to back to living in caves and have down with it OP. You’re not being creative by saying that people should be cold in the winter. Raise your bar.

I'm 40s. I remember as a child my mum was very frugal with heating. But I hated it! I remember sitting with my back against a Luke warm radiator holding a hot water bottle, trying to revise for my GCSEs, but unable to focus as I was cold. I remember waking up and going to bed freezing. I grew up on hot water bottles and big jumpers.

I swore as a kid that I would prioritise heating when I was old enough to have my own place, and I have. Until now I've always heated the house so i felt comfortable. I have always prioritised the heating and never scrimped on it.

However, I am now foreseeing a winter like my childhood, and I'm dreading it. Luckily, we do have a wood burning stove, so we will likely use that alot, and perhaps prioritise keeping the kids rooms warm if we can, with their radiators on and none others.

Yes I remember those days:

Single pane windows that ran wet with condensation.

Black mould in my bedroom ceiling and around the window frames

Lead pipes that froze in winter so the bath and sink water couldn't run down and you could remove the cork and it would sit there. For days and days.

One heater on in the living room and almost crying from the cold if you had go up to bed, get up in the night to go bathroom or get up in the the morning.

Having to bathe in a big bowl in front of the fire. Because of the cold.

The gas cannister running out of the portable fire and my dad breaking into the meter to recycle the 50p, because we'd have to use the mains gas fire, until the cannister guy came by again.

Getting chilblains, developing asthma at 9 years old, cold air further inflaming my lungs. Shivering at night. Having to sleep in my parents bed with my brother to keep warm.

It's unacceptable that we're even saying we should jump back to this. Profits are being made and the poor are actively being asked to further reduce their standard of living by decades. Half a century at least.

In fact I say we get rid of houses altogether. Let's dig caves into the ground and forage for food. Worked perfectly ok in the 12th century.

Oh fuck off! Are you being actually serious? Just because some irresponsible climate chaos inducing people like you have been getting warmer and warmer, doesn't mean that central heating is a bad thing! Too used to it? Too used to not freezing off our arses?! Having a basic level of comfort in fucking 2022?! You can go turn yours right off if you want, but don't you go blaming everyone else. So out of touch. We should be striving to improve things not deliberately tumble backwards

Some people managed - notice how many people responding saying they had some sort of fire and it was fine?

I grew up in a council flat with electric heaters that were too expensive to run, so only one room was heated and single glazing.

We used to sleep on jumpers and gloves 😐 with glass juice bottles as hot water bottles.

It was cold and damp and miserable... my clothes always smelled damp, the walls were damp and sometimes mouldy, the windows were covered in ice in winter.

It’s ludicrous that people who have central heating and an average income are having to consider living like that - while power companies make huge profits.