Cutting down on the number of rooms being used this Winter

[dottypotter]

Are you asking the family etc, to go in one or two rooms this winter instead of all being in separate rooms with heating and lighting on.
Having to think more now.
Is it necessary for everyone to be on different rooms using energy especially if say the TV is on in the main room?

I don’t normally put the heating on and if the rooms have a screen in there would normally not be a light on except maybe a lamp. If they’re in their rooms they’re probably in their beds even if gaming or watching something

What's with all this smarmy "East Wing" shit? We live in a badly-designed single-wall 100 year old detached house. It's a bugger to heat. But we're not millionaires. Everyone is feeling the pinch. Stop being nobs.

Do you also have a mortgage on a sense of humour? Can recommend a broker if not.

Heating is only on upstairs morning and evening for an hour before bed. We have always heated one room properly downstairs with a fire. The back boiler airs the radiators downstairs too. We have oil central heating and it’s always been too expensive to heat the whole house. The kids have oddies if they want to watch tv in another room or go to their bedrooms.

The radiators are on low in rarely used rooms.

Hmm not sure really. The cellar did used to be damp before we had some work done on it and new central heating system put in. It smelled damp too. Maybe I'll put them on low and see how it goes. We do use that space for laundry and storage so wouldn't want it to get mouldy again.

Our house is tiny. Each floor (ha!) is 35 m2. We have the ground floor (living room and dining kitchen) and the first floor. 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. That's it. Tiny. Cheap to heat though. Timber frame house built 1989. Quite well insulated and we added to the attic when we moved in.

Exposed in a windy, coastal area Scotland but house still 19°c today without the heating being on.

Forgot to say, we can't cut down on the rooms being used but are careful with when and for how long we heat.

Same! I deliberately bought a house I could afford to do up and furnish nicely, and am I glad I did?!

@INeverSawAPurpleCow @LoveBluey
Same here! 3 bed 2006 town house. Glad I moved from a big stone built place.. my teeth chatter just thinking about it now!

What are people doing who have open plan? I've been house hunting and every other house , including all new builds, is open plan.
I'd have to move in and build walls even if it wasn't for the heating issue.

I have open plan and it's absolutely fine. Even with 2 big windows and french door.
Properly sized radiators, floor insulation and draught control is the key

@mountainsunsets what happened in your house pre-central-heating though? I'm not being snarky, I can see that some modern houses aren't well ventilated and constant heating has been needed to compensate but surely older houses were built before constant warmth was a thing? My house is very old but it managed not to rot away for 150 years before it got central heating. I remember not having central heating: one or two rooms had open fires and were warm and the rest of the house was like the Arctic in winter, but it didn't rot...

It struggled (badly) with damp - we're still dealing with the affects of it now.

It's a cheap, 1920's terrace in a damp, coastal town in Cumbria. If we don't heat and air it properly, we get mould on pretty much all the outside walls, in the bathroom and in the bedroom where we sleep.

When we re-plastered, the walls were awful - full of damp. We had to knock everything back and start again from scratch. We're now in the middle of renovating the bathroom and under the paint, the damp is really bad. Luckily DH can knock it all off and re-do it himself or it would cost us a fortune.

@Baystard Open fires kept houses heated & aired before central heating, the chimneys went through the house & helped.

Its also true that a lot of housing was cold, mouldy and damp before central heating. Esp the housing for the poor which was often overcrowded to boot.

No I'm not cutting down to just one room.

I don't have spare rooms to close off!

This is what my parents did last winter. (I have tried to convince them to downsize but...). Radiators turned off in every room apart from living room, kitchen & bedroom; doors closed. It was a bit claustrophobic, but it worked for them...

Nope, I've already stopped using the dryer and most of us are sitting around with lights off because we prefer it

The heating was on 2 hours a day if that last year so I'm not cutting that down anymore and it's not a big house