"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?

I'm wondering how long a load would take to dry for people that never have heating on? Warm air does rise, but people are keeping their houses cold on this thread and only warming bodies.

@AnnaKorine there are very few systems (if any) that are cheaper to run on, rather than on/off some houses, like old stone house are possibly more efficiently heated by maintaining a degree of heating, but not really modern houses.

0-20 takes a lot of heating, but 15-20 not really.

you can't pay any attention to what others set their thermostats at as it varies greatly depending on where in the house the thermostat is.

if you imagine one person has theirs set at 20 next to the Aga & another has theirs set at 20 inside the fridge the radiators in the lounge are going to be off in the Aga house, but pumping out heat in the fridge house. However that doesn't mean the lounge is the required temperature in either house does it? Nor does it mean someone else having theirs at 20 is in anyway relevant to your house.

my house easily gets to 13 if I'm out, so I would set my 'out' level at 15 as I don't need it heating when I'm out. Mine is always on the minimum frost setting (factory set currently 5° but I'm thinking of changing that to 10° just to be sure). So that's the overnight setting too.

m you can check your efficiency of different options by taking meter readings each weekend & trying different options (most of us are pretty consistent with other use week to week, but you might need to make allowances if you're not).

It makes your life distinctly more difficult if you can’t afford to pay the fuel bills. That’s the point. And people with health issues are more likely to have money issues than others, so it doubly affects them.

I've been burning candles for years. They go into sturdy candle lanterns and are never left on if I'm not in the room. I dont take unnecessary risks. I live on my own. DS grown up.

the 'oooh I have mine at 16°, anything else is too hot/a waste/other sanctimonious claptrap' is meaningless. They might have their thermostat in a draft, near a window, in the coldest part of the house.
Ours is at 16 out of financial necessity, it's by the front door but the sitting room is always the same temperature at the thermostat (cheap thermometer to check).

Snuggling up in a blanket with a hot chocolate is all well & good if you've got nothing more to do than sit watching tv/reading a book.

It's not terribly practical if you have kids to put to bed, school bags to sort, lunches to make, laundry to deal with etc etc

It's not when doing housework that I need the heating. I'm warmer when moving about than when sitting still under a blanket.

Exactly!
And why are people who use sustainable ways of keeping warm being called martyrs?
I hate stuffy CH houses, gives me a headache.
£10 spent on warm clothing which lasts a few years is better than £10 spent on heating that lasts a few minutes.
Ive got thermals older than my adult DC !

No doubt all the CH queens will be on here shortly telling us all they have invented a great new way to keep warm - they put a jumper on 🤣

But you should be having the opposite problem of being cold if you’re busy doing things. Doing chores in summer is worse because even just vacuuming or putting out washing can produce quite a bit of personal heat.

Doing chores in summer is worse because even just vacuuming or putting out washing can produce quite a bit of personal heat

Eh? No it doesn’t! If such low level movement was generating heat to the extent it was keeping me warm I’d be v concerned.

Soeone just after my post a few pages back said for those of us like I am with the heating off every night, what if you need to go to the loo in the night or feed the baby in the night? That surprised me - if you get up in the night in the winter it is just cold and you run to the toilet and straight back. When I breastfed 5 babies in the night it was always fine with no heating on, The baby had its babygro on, you had a shawl around it and the duvet pulled over most of the baby so it really is not cold. It seems a bit pointless to heat houses every night when everyone is mostly asleep.

If you're still cold even though you're rushing around doing housework, surely you just put more clothes on? Why would you need the heating on sort school bags or do laundry?

I love the cold of winter - being warm in bed with windows open and fresh air. Beds are piled with blankets for a reason. Getting up to go to the bathroom and being cold for a few minutes shouldn't hurt anyone in reasonable health. Small babies would be an exception, because we now know they shouldn't have blankets. But the rest is fine - have heat kick in before you get up if you like, but I don't bother since I'm out fast. Heat on if the house feels cold in the evening, but off before bed

I presume it all comes from growing up without central heating, but it's a preference, not a sacrifice, and really might be worth trying - using electric blankets too - if you haven't been used to it. You might end by enjoying it.

Cold bathrooms are miserable.
That was my childhood and I will never have that again.

Cold bathrooms are miserable.
That was my childhood and I will never have that again.

We had the luxury of an Aladdin paraffin heater lit in the bathroom on bath night.

Luxury! Tepid bath once a week in a cold bathroom. Towels always cold and damp. Awful.

If I didn't have hot water I can see it would be miserable, but if I'm stepping into a hot bath or shower I don't see the problem with a cold bathroom at all. It's another health related one for me - if you have limited mobility or poor health and were spending lots of time in there, I suppose you'd need heat, but I never heat mine.

We usually have the heating on a steady 18 during the day and then about an hour before bed we turn it down to 10ish

We have hot water bottles and warm socks and the kids have fluffy blankets as well as their duvets but they practically live in just their pants year round and never seem to feel the cold 😂

This year we're going to see if we can keep it at a steady 15 and will probably turn it lower than 10 at night, maybe 6 or something just for those extra chilly nights.

I'd love to sleep with windows open but my kids freak out if even the smallest flying bug enters the house and then won't sleep until it's caught so it's a no 😩

I agree. Just can't snuggle up with a blanket to stay warm when you are constantly up and down seeing to this and that, washing to do etc. Just impossible.

Thin thermals or a jumper?
I feel like Ive entered a parallel universe !

How do people not know this ?

Nope. Don't want to step out of a warm shower into the cold.
As soon as I could afford central heating, I got it. Plus heated towel rails. Plus a tumble dryer. Warm fluffy towels and a warm bathroom. Bliss.

I think it's terrible that people are fearful of fuel bills this winter, and sharing tips to help is great. But some people obviously like living in cold houses more than others.

Definitely need heat in a bathroom especially in winter. I would think it would be miserable stepping out of hot shower into the cold.

Please quote posts properly.

Well, you’re either defying the laws of thermodynamics, or doing it at such a leisurely rate that I ponder how long it takes you. The very act of moving warms you. That’s just a fact. Sitting still has a lower metabolic load and so you then need blankets and hot water bottles.

I would add, that even doing housework in thermals can be hard in a really, really cold house. I had that in one house I lived in when DD was v little, boiler went during a v cold and snowy winter, house was old (a fixer upper we’d just moved into) and half the windows were single glazed, holes in walls etc. Took about a month to get the boiler sorted, ran a small plug in heater in DD’s bedroom (so we were both ok at night as we still bedshared at that point), but even wearing thermals and thick woolies, the cold in the rest of the house HURT. It made it really hard to do anything. I’d be trying to unpack in the living room and have to stop to go and huddle in DD’s room to thaw out. I was grateful that much of the time I was in the office and she was at nursery!