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.

He never ate school dinners, his parents just never thought to give lunch money

I believe teachers would have been very aware of that and done something about it. Unless he had a packed lunch or went home to dinner.

Nonsense
I was talking to my friends lunchtime we were all born early 60s North London terraced houses. we all were the same , no heating upstairs and a fire or gas fire downstairs you had to be sitting on top of to get any heat. Winter was very cold, but then i was a tiny baby when the Big Freeze happened.
Just because there was a fire in one or two rooms, doesnt mean it was a warm and cosy house. I bought a purpose built flat in mid 80s and had to have storage heaters installed there was no heating in that at all

again how do you know what went on?

Google tells me that in the UK almost 60% of homes were fitted with central heating by 1980. Most other homes would have had some other heat source- whether that was gas fires, open fires or stoves.

This thread is ridiculous!

Most homes in the UK, within the lifetime of the posters on MN, would have had some form of heating. Just because some posters didn't have heating, doesn't mean the OP is wrong and that the majority didn't. There is historical evidence which proves people had heating!

Your post just contradricts yourself- so he DID have heating!

And it's highly unlikely that any primary school let a child sit there every day without lunch. And if that was at secondary school- was he not able to ask for lunch money from his parents if they had just 'not thought' to give him money themselves?

Do you actually believe your DH's stories of childhood?

YABU. My partner grew up in a council house with a three bar electric fire in the front room as the only heating. I stayed the night once and my head froze. It was a bloody awful way for his mum to live and to raise a family. We should be warm and dry, and going back to the past isn't as great as people make out now that we know and have better.

A lot of posts seem to say ‘YABU’ and then talking about the heating their homes did/ do have. It may not have been central heating, but isn’t that the OPs point. There was a heat source in the house? Why do people think things like gas fires don’t count?

op is very disingenuous making out that if you had a fire the whole house was warm and cosy and doesnt comprehend how cold the rest of the house was, how cold it was before you put the fire on in the morning, how cold it was coming home from school or work.

But the OP has said nothing of the sort- she's acknowledged how cold it still was with just a gas fire or just a coal fire in the main room, so is saying we shouldn't be expecting anyone to live without any heating this winter!

I went to boarding school and our house didn't get central heating until I was in the sixth form. We had wooden floorboards and ice on the inside of the windows. We cuddled our hot water bottles in the evenings and got dressed under our duvets in the mornings.
There was a small gas fire in the common room that didn't work.
Main school did have heating so we were warm in lessons!

op is very disingenuous making out that if you had a fire the whole house was warm and cosy and doesnt comprehend how cold the rest of the house was, how cold it was before you put the fire on in the morning, how cold it was coming home from school or work.

Are they? I thought the OP’s post was more in relation to people saying things like ‘well back in the day we managed without heating’ when actually that isn’t the case. I’ve certainly come across this on MN and social media. Living with just a fire in one room is tough enough, but that one fire was pretty essential. And most houses at at least that or something similar - there would have been at least one heat source. To have no heating in the house at all in a Northern European country is just not really feasible. There seem to be people who think they can simply avoid the rising cost of energy by keeping the heating off, or are hopeful they will manage without heating, or are unsympathetic to those who will have no heating because they are harking back to imaginary days where they had ‘no heating’. That’s what I thought the OP was getting at. Which is why I think these contradictory answers of ‘YABU we had a gas fire in the living room’ are confusing.

op is very disingenuous making out that if you had a fire the whole house was warm and cosy and doesnt comprehend how cold the rest of the house was, how cold it was before you put the fire on in the morning, how cold it was coming home from school or work.

Im not aware that OP said the whole house was warm and cosy; just that people had some form of heating. Obviously if you have heating only in one room, the rest of the house will not be warm. It would have been cold before putting the fire on especially with a coal fire, whereas with a 2 bar electric it was just a flick of a switch. I do however notice that my current house is warm enough in the morning without putting the heating on as better insulation means I still benefit from residual heat from the previous night.

With the net curtains stuck to the window with the ice! So many torn nets.

Some people seem to be planning to have no heating this winter though. Like nada. As shite as a single gas heater or coal fire or what is, its better than nothing at all.

Our Edwardian house still has the original fireplaces and when we use them it is a completely different heat to using a gas fire. Because the heat from a coal fire is very dry it doesn't cause damp or condensation like gas heating; it also heats the whole chimney breast as the heat rises up inside it, so even though fire is lit in the downstairs room, the bedroom above is also slightly warmer because the chimney breast passes through it. If we have had the fire lit in the evening, and then go to bed leaving the fire to die out naturally it takes a very long time for it to cool, so the morning after the coals can still be very slightly glowing and the room is still retaining the heat because the actual bricks of the walls retain the heat.

I do not understand how anyone can claim that open coal or log fires do not heat the room well- they certainly do! Our room is large with high ceilings and there really is nothing cosier for us than lighting our fire. We rarely light it because unless it is very cold it makes the room just too hot. Most victorian and older houses had open fireplaces in bedrooms too.

I went to uni in the 90s and didn't have central heating.. frozen washing up liquid on the window ledge kind of cold... however we had heating. Each room had a gas fire, agreeably pretty useless most of the time, but still a source of heating. As so many have said heating doesn't have to be central heating, but some form of heat. It saddens me that people can't afford to put any heat on this winter, even for a short amount of time each day.

when I was a child there was a fire but no central heating. The fire was in the lounge and the rest of the house was freezing in winter, some bedrooms had fireplaces but they were never ever used. The fire was only lit for a couple of hours in the evening and there was ice inside the windows by morning.

so house may have had a source of heat but that doesn’t mean it was used.

Which seems totally pointless and extreme unless you're literally struggling to afford food and essentials (I know some people are, but lots aren't). For most people there are much easier ways of saving money than pointlessly sitting in a cold house all winter ...

Just for info on heaters and heating. Quite interesting to hear what's 'best'

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dxtx?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

This is what I remember from coal fires in my grandparents' house too. The room with the actual fire could get extremely warm. Other rooms were colder and you might get changed downstairs or whatever, but I don't remember ice on the windows.
There was one bedroom that would occasionally get smoky though because something went wrong occasionally with the fire in the room below.

"And if that was at secondary school- was he not able to ask for lunch money from his parents if they had just 'not thought' to give him money themselves?"

In some families, parents make the decision and that's it. The children aren't allowed to question it.
I think it's a bit shit of you to automatically think her DH is lying. There are some shit parents out there, as this thread shows very well.

Don't really know why people are arguing with you @KweenieBeanz. Sure, @KangarooKenny says she had no heating whatsoever, and I don't disbelieve her - but let's face it, that would have been rare.

And the point is - it's 2022. Should we really be going back to conditions seen in early Call the Midwife? Maybe we should all be knocking our bathrooms out for storage and just using a communal outhouse as well - after all, people survived just fine, and then we would all save on water!