To explain to people that UK homes have never 'not had heating'

[KweenieBeanz]

People keep responding to those worrying about energy costs, don't worry, homes never used to have heating, people survived, just don't put your heating on!
Home did not have central heating. Instead, they had fires and heated individual homes. People did not live in homes with no heating in the UK.

In the UK during the winter if a home is never heated even by late November /December temperatures inside will have gradually dropped to a temperature that's too low.
See the info here: www.cse.org.uk/advice/advice-and-support/heat-and-health#:~:text=Below%2013%C2%B0%20%2D%20If%20your,recommended%20night%20time%20bedroom%20temperature.

There is a huge difference if you even use your heating for just 1hr a day, topping up the temperature to stop it dropping so rapidly.

People need to stop acting as though those struggling just need to toughen up, 'wear more layers' and cope with the heating off this winter as a solution to energy costs, as it's simply not feasible, and it would be better for people to take action now to let their energy provider know they are in fuel poverty and need to access help.

And it was miserable with no ch, chilblains, ice on inside of window, condensation and damp. Gas fires and a coal fire downstairs.

We were lucky because some of the men in the family worked down the pit and got a coal allowance. I remember as an 8 year old, my father was in hospital for 6 months after an accident at work, family members would take it in turns to bring a sack of coal each week to keep us going. My mother, who had 4 children under 10 had to get a job in a local textile mill with a 7am start. It was my job to make the younger ones breakfast and make sure they got to school. This wasn't unusual in the 70's in Yorkshire. There were many latch key kids because women had to work and there was no such thing as childcare unless you could get a family member or neighbour to help.
I remember her going to visit my father once per week on a saturday. We went once the whole time he was in hospital because we couldn't afford the bus fare.

Until I was eight years old, I lived in a house with no central heating. Wd had an open fire in the lounge and a paraffin heater in the kitchen. There was no bathroom - a toilet down the bottom of the garden that my father had to empty weekly!!! And a China potty kept under my parents’ bed for use during the night. We had a tin bath that hung on outside wall of the house, that we used once a week in the kitchen. As the youngest, I was allowed to bath first. I still remember the humiliation of getting into the bath with my socks on once!!! My brother cruelly teased me for ages about that.

There was ice inside the windows in winter. Our clothes were put on the huge fire guard in the lounge to warm before we got dressed after running downstairs as quickly as possible.

I HATE the cold! Despite the cost, I intend to stay warm this winter and try to economise in other ways.

My Nan’s bungalow had one single open fire in the lounge (1930s - 2000). No other heating.

Calling everyone (on this thread and the other one she's on) liars simply for having an experience of which she is ignorant, isn't "arguing the little points".
It's being a nasty goader and very belittling. She's also invented her own narrative implying that people ARE saying that in the past they lived with no heating SOURCES. Nobody has said that, on this thread, or the other. They have said they may have had the SOURCES but they didn't have the MONEY to make them function.

Because heaters and the power to use them are free?

Oh it bloody was. Before the radiators were installed when I was a teenager and we just had the fire (when we had coal) upstairs was fucking freezing. We had metal framed windows and those fuckers went the extra mile when it came to freezing us half to death. Ice on the inside of the bloody windows.

You realise people were unable to afford to heat their houses when there was no central heating too right? And are you just going to ignore the fact that there are still people unable to heat their houses with central heating? Don’t understand why you’d bring it up at all tbh.

Nowhere. It's part of the OP's invented narrative.

Many homes had no heating that included no fire places, no radiators, no gas no central heating, we had literally NO source of energy to provide out home with heat.

Bloody hell it’s not rocket science to understand some homes had no heating at all!

But fire places only tended to be ripped out after electricity had been put in. Very few houses had neither electricity nor open fires. Then there’s portable sources of heating like parrafin stoves and Calor gas heaters.

The point is really that in general, there has never been a time when houses were routinely run without any source of heat without this having ill effects.

Exactly!

This is exactly what I've been thinking reading the thread. To, apparently, attempt to survive British winters with zero heat sources is not casting these householders in a good light...
The least educated populations on earth know to light a fire in winter to prevent dying from exposure. There's always something to burn.

The price of electricity per kWh is 3.5 times the price of gas per unit and the standing charge more than double.

In 2010? Besides I did say if you can afford it. Plus poverty is higher today for working families than the noughties.

Well, people ARE saying "we lived with no heating at all" all over net and on some threads on MN. Apparently peoppe now just need toughening up. That can be very understandably considered "source".
"Nobody has said that, on this thread, or the other.*
You literally have on this thread people saying they had no source?

Well, people ARE saying "we lived with no heating at all" all over net and on some threads on MN.

And plenty are saying we had no heating just a fire or used an electric blanket 😆

I know... That's the point!

And where will you burn this free stuff?

Suddenly lighting a fire and burning your books and your coffee table in a fireplace that's been boarded up for years and you've not had it swept before chopping your table to bits because you can't afford a chimney sweep is a house fire waiting to happen.

On the plus side, you'll be really warm for a while outside as you watch your house burn down.

My house has heating, but we haven't used it for 3 years. Nothing terrible has happened. The house is still standing, we aren't always ill.

We had a coal fire downstairs that my dad stoked up at night . That “ heated a 3 bedroom house.
we had many duvets and blankets ,hot water bottle and yes I remember scraping the ice from the inside of my bedroom window often.
in a morning my mum would make the fire again and put our top blankets on a clothes horse round the fire to dry out.

I agree with you @BosaNova

We clearly should have just burned the furniture in our third floor flat that didn’t have a fireplace, I mean it would have very swiftly made the entire building very very warm!

Sorry🙈

My house has heating, but we haven't used it for 3 years. Nothing terrible has happened. The house is still standing, we aren't always ill.

your point is?

One of the differences is that the one open fire was on for most of the day. Or it was in our house growing up. So there was only one warm room but it was warm and aired all day. Whereas central heating is often on eg morning and evening for a few hours. Never run all day as considered too expensive.

our family victorian home had fires places in every room, the sitting room fire was used, the rest boarded up
i remember a couple coming round to buy the house, in the early 80s, he talked about ripping out the fire and putting in central heating.

actually i couldnt believe a friend in the late 90s ripping out her fire, thinking how backward thinking she was.