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.

Exactly. My Nanna had no central heating but she had 2 coal fires downstairs and also a little heater that used the bottled gas. Plus heaters upstairs. She certainly didn’t have no heating atall

A neighbour did have an "outdoor toilet", but it wasn't really outdoors, it was at the back of the house & the door was only accessible by going outside.

Outside toilets weren’t that rare even into the 1970s. Quite a few of my relatives had them. Some even flushed. The hut in the garden over an earth pit was a marginally better experience than the simple bucket under a seat.

But even if fires were on, it was still damn cold unless you were sitting next to it.
There are posters on here who just don't understand we were cold most of the time

I think it was typical of the poor, if your parents managed to buy a house when they came to the UK and are now only in their 70s they were very priviledged to do so

My parents grew up in the 30s to 50s, my partner in the 60s. Most people of my background and my family's background rented rooms, with shared amenities. My parents managed to buy a house in the 70s although without heating initially. I think they had to put the fireplace back in but later we had central heating put in

However the issue for me is that people are assuming that everyone comes from a house or flat, there are millions of people who didnt live in accommodation like that

"I preferred going from cold to warm to cold rooms."

I hated that change. When we visited grandparents they had an open fire and the room with the fire would get really hot, but then the moment I changed rooms I'd start sneezing and my dgm would ask me if I was ill.
It was also enforced family time as everyone had to stay in the same room.

Central heating is much better, but even in my flat now the hallway doesn't have a radiator so I'm cold every time I open the living room door.

My mothers first married home (house not flat ) had no bathroom at all, this was in the 1960’s and only an outside toilet ( in a built room outside in the back yard) . North East. And this was very commonplace.
It did have a fireplace though.

Our house has no gas, we have two storage heaters. We turned one on about a week ago and then had to turn it off a couple of days later as even on minimum it was making the room too hot.

We are currently running electrical heaters for perhaps two hours a day plus a dehumidifier.

They aren't as bad as people make out, and could be very useful in reducing our reliance upon imported gas. You just need to understand how they work and have a suitable tariff.

Yeah a house that gets the sun really does make a difference! Even during a Scottish winter! The ice on the window flat I lived in in the 80s got very little sun, was poorly insulated and cost a fortune to heat whilst at the same time being freezing cold. Luckily I have had sunnier homes since!

There are posters on here who just don't understand we were cold most of the time

The funny thing is that I can only remember being cold on one occasion. I think our metabolisms adjusted to cope. Perhaps that is why fewer people were overweight.

"But even if fires were on, it was still damn cold unless you were sitting next to it."

I remember fires too and the room it was in would get warm. You must have had a less efficient one.
I remember going to visit elderly relatives who'd had the fire on all day and my cheeks would be red it was so warm.
Of course, other rooms would be cold so you had to stay in that one room all the time.
Central heating changed family life in that it allowed children and teenagers to spend more time in their bedrooms.

BS. Many millions of people around the world do exactly that

Yes in warm countries.
The country I'm from is very hot in summer and has freezing overnight winter temperatures. As low as -15 during a cold spell. A high proportion of people are in extreme poverty. And yes they heat in winter. The ones with a little bit of money will buy paraffin, and otherwise people burn animal dung and wood. The smoke exits via the thatch, it's absolutely choking and horrible for lungs obviously but considered better than being freezing cold.

And this is a country where the cold is far more manageable than the UK as it's bone-dry and daytime winter temperatures are also significantly higher.

I literally can't imagine getting through a UK winter with zero heating source. The damp would be unbearable. I'm so sorry for anyone that grew up like that, it's what I would class as extreme deprivation.

Or maybe you've got rose tinted glasses on.
You hear so much "we were poor, but we were happy" and "we walked 15 miles to school and didn't mind it" that I think people's memories sometimes play tricks on them.

Inevitably there will be some people who grew up with strange parents who, for some reason, not always poverty, refused to heat their homes.

But it is almost unknown for a home to have no heating source in the UK.

We were by no means rich but there was always coal for the fire, my dad got up half an hour before the rest of us to light it, so the living room was warm when we got up. There was a 2 bar electric fire for when they didn't want to light a fire.

You paid shillings into the meter, so if you ran out, you cut yourself off, but you never received a huge bill, you paid as you went along. Energy cost were still a big chunk of household expenditure.

Hot water was the immersion heater, but we only had one bath a week, Sunday night. My dad would avoid that if he thought he could get away with it!

We had a coal house ( big cupboard really) attached to the kitchen which got filled a couple of times a year.

There was no expectation of being able to wander about the house in a T shirt in the winter.

We had fire places in the bedrooms but they were never lit, if you wanted warmth in the winter you stayed in the living room. On reflection it would have made the bedrooms too stuffy, coal gives out an amazing amount of heat.

I can remember the council fitting central heating, made life easier for my dad but other than that, I never really noticed, I was either outside, in the living room or asleep in bed.

Perhaps that is why fewer people were overweight.

You've cracked it! 🙄

We had a gas fire, so downstairs would be warm when it was used, but it certainly didn't warm the house like a coal fire would. I remember layers of blankets, coats on beds and ice on the inside of the bedroom windows.

I grew up in the 60's.
We had one open fire in the living room. The water heater was built into the chimney breast, so when the fire was lit, we had hot water.

We had Lino on the floors, upstairs and downstairs. The living room had a square of carpet.

Upstairs was freezing in winter. A hot water bottle was a must. There is a sketch that Billy Connolly does about his sibling 'putting his legs through the eiderdown' which were actual coats. We had our coats on the bed to keep warm at night.

In the morning, the inside of the windows would be covered in ice patterns. They all looked the same,in the shape of a fan. They were quite pretty to look at!
The bedroom was so cold you could see your breath when you spoke.

We didn't think anything of it. Everyone was the same.

Oh the luxury of central heating!

People use the gas bottle fires which take up space, aren't always safe and tend to add to damp problems.

We had one of these and the gas bottles are also ridiculously expensive- cost far more than mains gas even taking into account recent price rises.

@CecilyP my next home will definitely take aspect into account

I grew up in a house with a coal fire in the living room and that was it. My parents put a paraffin heater at the top of the stairs to try and warm upstairs at night in the winter. The smell still takes me back! 😁 incidentally that was why many bathrooms had carpet - we cringe now but a tiled bathroom floor in a house with no heating was an ice box!

my friends house in portugal has no heating source other than an open fire because it’s 40 degrees in the summer. However I’m always far colder there in winter than here even though the temperature is still 19/20 during the day because all the floors are wood or stone. The temperature drops at night & It’s bloody freezing 😆

Oh yes @RoseOud coats on the beds 😁😁

Shame. I used to live in a Victorian semi and loved the bedroom fireplace feature (obviously no longer in use). I didn't actually realise they weren't a feature of all Victorian semis when built! Are you sure it hasn't just been plasterboarded over?

Yes they had been boarded over in the bedrooms so there was no heating in any of them.

I am getting a bit tired of the drama of it all tbh. I am a member of a couple of money-saving Facebook pages and it's been building up for months. Now that we're in November, regardless of the fact that it is incredibly mild, people are already worrying about their kids freezing to death (yes, really) and are parading in their Oodies, heated throws, hats & gloves inside and declaring 'I refuse to let my children get hypothermia' as if it were -10 degrees outside. Some are hand-wringing about not being able to afford to heat the house overnight, now.
I know different parts of the UK are colder than others (I live in one of them!) and some houses are better insulated than others, but I struggle to believe there is anyone who really needs heating on 24/7 and two winter duvets with Teddy bedding right now. It's almost as if they have been waiting for the drama and have decided to get on with it regardless
Remember, energy wasn't free last year...

"Outside toilets weren’t that rare even into the 1970s. Quite a few of my relatives had them. Some even flushed. The hut in the garden over an earth pit was a marginally better experience than the simple bucket under a seat."

This is what I used at my paternal grandparents' home until the last time I went there a few years ago. They did have an indoor bathroom, but visitors used the outside! My DF grew up without a bathroom and just the outside toilet.

Or maybe you've got rose tinted glasses on.

Possibly. However, there are an awful lot of posters on here basing their opinions on what they imagine life without central heating was like. I experienced it first hand and the reality is that it isn’t (or wasn’t) necessarily as bad as they presume.

Our current home has no heating upstairs and the immersion heater, which is in the bathroom, gives no warmth off it. We have 2 ancient night storage heaters downstairs that are not safe to run with toddlers in the house and, based on where they’re placed (dining room and hall), they would do little to heat the house if we could afford to run them. We have invested in a heated blanket for our bed and have got a couple of oil filled radiators but even they will be prohibitively expensive to run to keep the house ‘warm’.

The house is a 1907’s built, ex council house on an estate with no gas; there are no chimneys or fireplaces in any of the properties (though some owners have put log burners in during renovations so some have a glue). We have been here since mid February and I’m dreading the winter as I know we will not be able to afford to heat the house adequately so, instead, we will aim to heat the person.