To say turning heating “off” will make the house unbearably freezing?

[HairyKitty]

I can’t afford the fuel bills with the price rises. But we are at home full time in an old poorly insulated terrace.
But surely, whether the heatings is hard off (or set at a low temp so it doesn’t come on) after 2 or 3 days of this in winter the house would be very very cold for us to live in full time, most likely about 14/15 degrees?
How do people cope in winter who actually have the heating off in old houses and are home full time?

You say you are in a terrace, are your neighbours likely to use heating? I'm wondering how much heat we get from attached houses? My neighbours have a young child so I'm wondering if they keep their house warmer than mine if some of that heat will come through the wall? Or does that only work if you are in an upstairs flat? My neighbours have two incomes and are better off than us so I don't feel bad about any potential free heat.

I’ve done it in a terrace years ago. The good thing about a poorly insulated terrace was if my neighbours had their heating on I could steal their heat.

Other than that everything moved to my bedroom. I would eat dinner early and then have a bath as hot as I could bear. Leave the water in the bath (the heat warmed the bathroom) and decamp to bed. Lots of thick clothes on in bed, a ton of blankets and quilts and laptop/TV to entertain me in there. I lived alone so being sociable or entertaining kids wasn’t an issue. I already pretty much hibernate in winter so it was tolerable.

My house however had issues with damp afterwards.

The flat I'm in is on the top corner, it's old with high ceilings and only has wall heaters which cost a fortune to use, so I don't unless my daughter or husband are home. I use a small economical heater in front of the sofa. I wear warm clothes and have a fleecy blanket on the sofa to snuggle under. I dry clothes on a heated clothes airer and I have an electric blanket that I put on for about 15 minutes before I get into bed. I also bought some fleecy sheets in the sale which have been a lovely game-changer! I have a heated towel rail in the bathroom, so do put that on for a bit before and after my shower as I hate being wet and cold and it helps to keep the damp away in there. It ranges between about 8 and 12 degrees in the flat most of the winter.

I grew up without central heating - fires only - and I could say it was fine but actually our lives were almost ruled by keeping warm. It’s not something I want to repeat. This was in the last 20-25 years so it’s not me harking back to the 60s. I wouldn’t say it’s ‘fine’ to be preoccupied with being warm enough every evening and bracing yourself for a face wash with cold water every morning. You can get used to it but it’s not ‘fine’.

That’s just it when people say we had no central heating when they were younger(neither did I)everyone had either a coal or gas fire so there was some for of heat!

I haven't used my heating for a few years and the coldest the house got down to was 8 degrees. It usually hovers closer to 12. I'm still alive.

There are definitely ways to cope with and adapt to partially heating your home, but having NO source of heating at all in a cold damp climate is unhealthy for humans and buildings.

Also, air temperature alone is not enough to decide how healthy or comfortable a space is. 18 degrees will feel cold in a damp and draughty house, whereas with the correct clothing 16 degrees can actually feel fairly comfortable in a house without damp or draughts.

I managed one winter in a big draughty house with two pre-school children and non-working CH. However, I had a working fireplace and a plug-in oil fired radiator which I used for 3 or 4 hours a day. It wasn't too bad, but that's because we had one room that was comfortably warm for most of the day and the ability to pre-heat rooms like the bathroom before bath time and the children's rooms before putting them to bed. I did things like using the hairdryer to quickly take the chill off bedding and the children's clothes in the morning and putting pyjamas in front of the fire before bedtime. We wore lots of layers and the children were allowed to come into my bed in the night if they woke cold. I'd go down at 6, get a cup of tea and get the fire going, then go back to bed with the children and read/watch cartoon on the laptop for an hour or so until the sitting room had warmed a bit.

During one particularly cold snap we 'camped' in the sitting room and I kept the fire going all night, but mostly it wasn't as bad as you might think.

Skip forward to now and I have full CH but will let the temperature drop inside the house when it's just me WFH. Hot water bottle under feet, oodie, fingerless gloves and frequent breaks for hot drinks and movement. Keeping the door of my tiny office closed helps keep in the heat generated by my body and computer.

HOWEVER THESE SITUATIONS ARE IN NO WAY COMPARABLE TO LIVING WITHOUT HEATING. In both situations there were either rooms that were warm for most of the day or times of day when the house was normally heated. The air was not damp.

We will definitely cut back on our oil CH and our electricity use this winter, but I would cut back on food before I considered not heating our home at all. Unfortunately in our case this will mean keeping our wood burner going (something I've previously tried to avoid using too much from an environmental/health perspective) I feel very grateful that we can afford to get away with this, I know others will not be in so fortunate a position.

I also think your actual house will dictate how much you can get away with no heating - I used to live in various Scottish tennement flats and one of the Glasgow ones (not known for being cosy) had no central heating but was bizarrely warm and only needed a small electric heater to get comfortable (not the case in all of them by any means). My current house ought to be fairly standard but the kitchen has no heating (tacked on the back) and my god it is absolutely freezing in the mornings. I think without heating this house gets colder than my old student Edinburgh flats which is saying something. I don’t think ‘no heating’ is an option for me where’s my friend in a modern city centre flat probably can keep his more or less off most of the winter.

We had no heating last year (bought a house that needed renovating and then the renovations got delayed!).

We bought electric blankets and were fine but last winter wasn't that cold.

I think it will depend how cold the winter is.

This.

Though some of it will depend on location and how well insulated houses are.

We are actually already well below usual gas usage with gas central heating and gas hobs and mold and ventilation are something to be very aware of every winter and often have to deal with.

We already have thermal thick window coverings and draught excluders radiators have foil stuff behind - there's no fire place in any room so it's all central heating.

However there comes a point where heating has to go on to warm the house - less than hour in mornings - couple of hours at most in evenings. I suspect many people will try and put it on later use less but will find not having any at all is very miserable and temps can quickly get be,ow 16 degrees which is nippy but bearable.

@BeanieTeen not at all. The house is well ventilated and well maintained, hot and dry all summer even in the cold North. It’s been standing for almost 200 years (mostly without central heating or double glazing) so I’m sure it’s seen much colder and wetter times. It’ll still be standing long after I’m gone!

I think it depends on if you are in a house or a flat. We are in a flat and apart from the coldest days or if one of the DC is poorly, we just stick the heating on for half an hour in the morning when we wake up. The rest of the time it's off but it feels fine as long as you are wearing a jumper and slippers.

Yes this is true I think. Unless you have a medical reason to feel the cold more, I think it’s mostly what you are used to.

Often the weather seems to drop quite suddenly in autumn even though it’s objectively still not that cold and you suddenly feel like you need the heating.
Conversely, when it starts to feel a little warmer in spring I usually just switch the heating off altogether (barely had on since Feb this year) because it feels relatively warm when it actually fact it’s so warmer than autumn when I felt it more having just come out of summer.

As well as cutting an hour or two of heating a day compared to last year, delaying putting it on for a couple of weeks will help total utilisation. And then when it’s really, really cold feel no guilt for using what you need.

14 C is 57 F, a perfectly safe and survivable indoor temperature.

Pipes won't freeze or burst. If you were a healthy mobile person indoors, even stark naked there's zero threat of chilblains let alone hypothermia or frostbite. Dressed and fed, you'll be fine.

During a four-day winter snowstorm powercut in Scotland, our home had absolutely no heating whatever The indoor temp never dropped below 12 C/ 55 F. We wore a thin extra layer of clothes and never shivered.

What is the min temp fo preventing damp please

I don't think most people talking about not putting their heating on aren't going to follow through,at least not for long.
We went without heating for a week when our boiler broke last winter. Luckily we have a log burner but even so it was all we could think about as most of the house was so cold.

I’d be surprised if there is one. The issue isn’t just temperature it’s humidity.

I have one room that I have to work very hard to keep damp-free. It’s the same temperature as the one next to it. In the spring through autumn I just keep windows open throughout the day and when I can’t, I use a dehumidifier. I have quite a good one and it tells me the humidity level of the room. It can get as high as 80%+ in that room although generally it’s around 60% these days as I’m good at ventilating consistently now and I don’t have a problem at all anymore.

When we had a significant issue in that room about 2 years a go it wasn’t because of lack of heating (the radiator went on as much as the others did) it was because we rarely used the room, the door was mostly shut and I didn’t open the windows.

Yep, not only has our Victorian house had one chimney breast removed and the other boarded up, but it's in our rental contract that we're not allowed to use the two remaining fireplaces (even if we unblocked them) AND we live in an area where there is a ban on burning solid fuel. So fires are not an option for a lot of people now, even in old houses that were built with fireplaces.

Just need to call a local chimney sweep

Thermals, thin cotton socks under thick fleecy ones, layers, regular hot drinks, regular movement, hats, scarves/polo necks and fingerless gloves on in the house, duvets and fleecy throws on the sofa, electric blankets and hot water bottles...

These are things I've done when I've lived in a very cold house with not much money.

However if you don't have the heating on at all ever, it will become damp and damp is more of an issue than cold.

You'll need a dehumidifier, as PPs have said.

Open fires will pollute your household air, and logs cost just as much as heating

Thank you @@Wishyfishy windows opened a crack and doors open in unused rooms it is!

Yes back in the day most of us grew up in houses without central heating and had frost on the inside of windows - but what we did have was a fireplace and that would be lit all evening, eventually dying down towards bedtime.

How many hard-up people have working fireplaces today?

There was also a small one-bar electric fire which could be taken between rooms; and in the morning mother would light the gas oven and have its door open. These two options are no longer financially possible for many people.

And I remember burst pipes with the water leaking from the attic and causing the lights to fuse - our mother must have been frantic with worry at the thought of the expense. Oh, the bleakness at the memory of it all!

God, I hate the thought that all these years later people are having to worry so much about heating their homes - I feel sick and angry for them.

What is the min temp fo preventing damp please

I don't think there is one. The main thing to avoid damp is ventilation.
Blocking all gaps with draught excluders and tape will mena that there is no ventilation. Warm air holds more moisture. When it comes into contact with a cold surface - a cold wall or window, the moisture condenses. If there is no ventilation where the moisture can disperse the wall will become damp and mould may form.

It is very important that you don't hermetically seal the entire house.

Our boiler permanently broke down early October and we had to wait until early November. Frosts had set in, but days were around 6-8c from memory. House was 11-13c depending on what room you were in. We had the benefit of some heat from cooking and a working shower, got by, but I wouldn't want it any lower.

My BIL only had his gas fire on for years (they were extremely poor with so little in fridge I wondered by they bothered having fridge on). Parts of the house were extremely cold, children didn't notice as they were brought up in a cold house. Having said that, I think it helped that they had one room were they could get some warmth.

If you can afford some level of heating, could you set it to say 17c. When it's really cold, I have heating on for an hour or so in morning and set ours to that temperature in the day - it just helps take the edge of things. If you take a break while working, a frisk walk, skipping or star jumps can help warm you up a bit and get circulation going.