"We don't have the heating on"

[Christonabike37]

Just reading another thread and seen this "we never have the heating on at night" and I've never really understood what it means, but now with energy prices I need to know if its really what people do.

Our thermostat is set at 15 always, in the evenings we up it to 20 for a few hours. I consider 15 off, and 20 on. Is this the same? Or do people just not have the heating on at all, like your house could be 0 degrees? How cold does it get at night? Surely it gets down to single figures most of the time?

We never have heating on at night, both v warm blooded. We sleep with the window open even on cold evenings. Love being cosy in bed surrounded by cold air. Expecting a baby soon so will have to have his nursery heated overnight but the rest of the house will remain baltic 🥶

Depends on where the thermostat is. Old rental it was by the draughty front door - had it at around 11 overnight and 17 day time to have the main rooms a comfortable temperature and the noisy git not kicking in overnight.

New house haven't done a full winter yet but will be aiming for it not to come on overnight (unnecessary and noisy) - suspect that will be somewhere between 13 and 15 on the hive...

Primark do really good fleece duvet covers. I'd also invest in a cheap and cheerful heavy tog duvet if you're a cold creature like myself.

I don't have a heating switch saying off and on. It's just on all the time but only kicks in at the temperature I've set it at. So over night it's about 15 and never clicks in/radiators are cold. I'd class this as it being off, even though the boiler itself is on.
I'm not sure I really get all this to be honest!

Only time I have the heating on overnight if it is way below freezing. And then I gave the heat on very low all day/night to protect the pipes. A heating engineer advised me to.
Otherwise, ours goes off about 7.30 and we use a wood burning stove.

In a terraced, well-insulated house. Heating is only turned on when needed and nighttime isn’t one of those times. Why would you need heat on at night unless you had a newborn baby at home in a cold house. Even when we had a baby at home, I don’t remember having heating on at night but was certainly more aware of the house temperature to ensure it didn’t get too cold or too warm.

That's interesting.
I never use my thermostat, my need for heating constantly fluctuates.

My heating is always off. The hot water comes on for half an hour in the morning.

If we want anything more than that, we use the "boost" function and the heating or hot water comes on for an hour. If we want more than an hour, someone will have to get up and hit the boost again.

We've never had the heating on at night and with the price hikes I plan to set thermostat at 18 during the day and only turn it up for guests. Gloves, hats, woolly socks and thick jumpers will be the way to go.

This is definitely an insulation thing. The bigger the heat gradient, the more heat will escape is the insulation isn’t there. If you manage to deal with the draughts, you should massively improve your heating bills and the hole will feel fine at whatever temperature you normally have.

Insulation is by far the easiest and most effective quick win one can do for any home. There should still be energy suppliers and local gov’t schemes available, I should think.

On a cold winter's night, our upstairs gets down to 8- 11C. We have heating on two hours in the morning and four or five in the evening, set at 19 or 20C. I turn it right down in the late evening so it doesn't come on in the night.

My DH is constantly turning off heating. When it’s coldest we maybe have it on for an hour in the morning and two hours at night. He is at home all day. I come back and find him in his coat. It doesn’t matter what I say, it makes no difference. At least we’ve got practice in being cold . . . Ir doesn’t make us ill. It’s just not comfortable sometimes, but then I’m now much more miserable in overheated houses

I have not lived with CH since 2001. I’ve been my mum’s carer in her large old farmhouse since then.
There is an electric Aga, 2 storage heaters and de Longhi type heaters in the other rooms.
Since mum died end of 2002 I’ve been careful with heating as our bills have always been crazily high.
Am moving to a small bungalow next month with gch.
Thinking about getting a woodburner installed in the lounge and or 1 or 2 of those attractive lpg heaters which are decorative and functional
I am a heart patient so have to keep as warm as possible due poor circulation now.
Intending to do what I already have done here.
Rads on low in evening as background heat, wear lots of thin layers and 2/3 hot water bottles put in my bed an hour or so before retiring and top up last thing if needed.
Fleecy jammies, bedjacket and bed socks plus a dachshund or 2 in the bed!
Batch cooking in winter, spring, autumn: casseroles, soups, tray bakes, freeze and reheat in Microwave.
Thick curtains for windows and doorways and increase roof insulation if needed.
Not used to luxurious living but should able to survive I hope.
Don’t have a dryer but may buy a heated drying rack which are reckoned to be very economical for the winter.
Otherwise I dry on line outside whenever possible, drying on top of Aga when necessary ( which will obvs not have in new home).
I’m very, very concerned about the energy price hikes but trying to think of solutions to the problem.
I’m 71 so have to be careful re hypothermia.
I truly think if those in power can’t come up with a solution to this crisis that it may well bring the whole government down

But as others have said, every house is different and everyone is different so the idea of 'why would anyone have heating on at night ... ' it's all individual. So far we do not, but as i said I have a child with issues that literally means he cannot get too cold. he cannot have exposed skin to the cold. And I am using the word 'literally' with the actual literal meaning. People with poorly insulated homes that they may have no control over might need to have heating on at night. People with illnesses or disabilities might not be able to get too cold. Loads of duvets may not cut it.

I really find it hard to tolerate the whole 'people who do things differently to me and have different lives to me are just doing it all wrong '.

Oh, snow on a roof is a good insulator itself. And you can often see which houses have poor insulation in winter given they will have birds on the roof or no snow where others have some.

Our usual winter automatic thermostat timer is:
6am-8am 21 degrees
8am - 3pm 5 degrees (off)
4pm - 7/8pm 21 degrees
8pm - 6am 5 degrees (off)
never had trouble before we’ve work jumpers / dressing gowns too if a bit chilly
sometime we will put it on for an extra hour too if really cold but that is how we set our thermostat - we now have a baby so might increase an hour each side and also this is when we were working in office so might have an hour or 2 in middle of day as well

We have our heating on a timer. 2 hours in the morning so it’s warm when we get up; one around lunchtime for a top up; 2 hours in the evening. So the rest of the time, it’s off completely.

The thermostat is set to 18 or 19, so the heating heats the room to that temperature during the time it’s on.

So yes, our heating is always off at night. And for long periods during the day, too. We don’t find it necessary to have it running and heating the whole house all the time.

Our heating has never been on at night, and even in winter i usually have a window open. When the kids were little I had a small electric heater in their rooms if it was extra cold. I couldn't bear the stuffiness of central heating at night. Our house is very well insulated though

When I changed from an on/off thermostat to one of those fancy timer ones I saved a whole tank of oil a year. That's £1000 at today's prices.

So keeping the house at a steady state was not cheaper for me.

Mine's off off at night. It drops to 10-12. I have a thick duvet, and a couple of blankets if need be. And two (sometimes three) dogs in the bed. It's not cold.

I only had a thermostat fitted last year. Previously I timed the grating for hour in the morning and then 6-9 in the evening. Never on at night.
same programming but now with thermostat “ deciding” if it needs to be on during those times. I experimented with different temperatures and for our well insulated 1980’s mid terrace 20 was about right. Some evenings the heating didn’t need to click in so on previous years I’d been having it on rather unnecessarily.

Once it’s cold enough, ours is set to 22/23 in the daytime and turned down to 18 at night.

Grating???? Heating obv

We never have heating on overnight. Ever. What's the point?

very rarely put it on in the morning either

I like to be warm. And the dogs like it and sleep better with it on. 😂