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.

Ive lived in 2 houses without central heating, open plan as is the norm in australia and one gas fire. Bloody miserable

I grew up like that because we had no CENTRAL heating but we had a fire downstairs and, occasionally, an electric fire in the bedroom for half an hour. The OP is making the point that when people (you) say no heating they mean no CENTRAL heating with radiators in every room and not no source of heat at all anywhere.

My first flat where I had two children only had a gas fire in the living room until i saved to get central heating. Ice on windows inside and I remember frozen face flannels.

You should have popped down to Nottingham and slummed it with us for a bit.

We had no heating growing up in Northumberland in the late 70s.

We also had to scrape ice from the inside of the windows.

There was an outside toilet too.

Grew up in a house with only a coal fire in the living room and one in my parents' bedroom until I was 12. Then moved to a house with night storage heaters - pure luxury. This was in Scotland and yes we got frozen windows. I would often get dressed in bed for school.

My first house, built in the 1980s, had no central heating, no fireplace, no electric storage heaters, and was also single glazed. I had no heating at all for the first year I lived in it, other than a hot water bottle.I couldn’t afford an oven so got by with just a microwave and a kettle for ages It was absolutely miserable in the winter, and I was constantly ill. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

You surely mean ‘central heating’ unless you’re another one with no electricity!

It's not bloody ageism 🤦🏼‍♀️ it's just that the vast vast majority of homes ever in the UK have built with some source of heat. Stone age remains of homes are found with fireplaces etc.
My mum pointed out to be the other day that when I was little we had an electric fire in the living room that was occasionally put on. I'd completely forgotten it, would have sworn we never had one. I am not old 😂

Our no heating ( at all) house as a child was in Kent, not Scotland. The water in the toilet still frozen every winter at some point

To clarify on the heater above - I said storage heater. In both houses Bristol and London I mean a gas bottle fired heater. It didn’t hold the heat so maybe wasn’t storage. It could kill you though with CO poisoning so ironically you had to have a window open.
Houses can have things like fireplaces and them be completely non-functioning. Fireplaces have to be lined and swept every year, in itself an expense.
My parents home was incredibly cold. I now maintain a relatively cold home, not to save but more because it’s what I got used to

We had no heating upstairs when growing up. It was very cold and very damp. My bed would feel damp, and when it was very cold there would be ice on the inside of the windows.
I used to get terrible chest infections, and I had pneumonia once. It was because of the cold and damp. Once we had central heating I didn’t get ill like that again.

I can recall when my parents were the first people in our Scottish council housing scheme to put some central heating in. It was called storage heating and the neighbours would nip in just to see it and see how good it was at heating up. We still had ice on the inside of the bedroom windows in the winter even though the lobby was quite warm.

Maybe everyone needs their morning coffee.

Op is trying to fight against the myth that it's fine to not put your heating on because UK houses didn't ever have heating sources until central heating was invented. Houses have always been designed to have heat sources eg an open fire. A few posters who lived in houses where these were deliberately removed doesn't change the point

I get your point and agree.

Living with no heating is impossible to do without triggering illness, living with minimal heating is just as hellish.

No/low heating is not the solution. It's cruel.

Thankyou arctic skewer you have understood what I'm trying to see. There was never a time in the UK when living with no source of heat in your home was acceptable.

Yes a tiny tiny few people in extreme poverty might have but if posters are to be believed it was the norm to not only have no central heating, but also no other source of heat, no gas fires, no fireplace, no stove.

This winter it won't just be a tiny few, so many posters plan for the cost of living crisis is to not switch on their heating.... Except lots of people now live in homes with no fireplace or gas fire etc.

What is nonsense OP, is that you cannot understand that homes did not have any source of heating!

Hot water was boiled for us to have a bath using the electrical cooker, when we were late teens our parents got an electrical shower installed and then the council updated my parents to a coal fire in the mid 90’s with an immersion heater.

We had electrical brackets to keep us warm at night.

op why are you trying to say poster are lying? You weren’t there so you have no idea if they had heating or not in their homes. Some houses didn’t, not even fires. It’s wrong to try and make out people have it worse now and is minimising peoples struggles in the past. In some cases it might be true but not in all. There’s more help around now and houses are often better insulated.

I think some people would have been too poor to fuel thrir open fires but i agree that most homes would have had a fire at least at the weekends. Or those oil stove things.

I also grew up with ice on windows, but i think its a single glazing thing. We had central heating, it just didnt come on at that time of day.

My 1930s bedrooms have/had fireplaces. Other older properties had the chimneys running through the bedrooms to the roof even if there was no open fireplace.
I visited a reconstructed stone cottage from the 1600s with just one room. It had a fireplace and a permanent fire from a roll of turf.
I'm not sure if 1940s prefabs had open fires though?

But surely the point is, it doesn’t matter if you house was built with 10 fireplaces. If they weren’t ever lit, then you didn’t have heating. We had two fireplace, but the chimney stacks damaged so the fireplace never used

People today with fireplace can’t just light them for free suddenly. They probably haven’t had the chimney swept for decades, they aren’t safe. And people need to buy in dried wood or coal, which isn’t cheap. You can’t forage for wood in a city.

Also just because gas and electric fires were available, how do you know how affordable they were to buy or use?

Numerous posters, myself included, are saying that they have lived in houses with NO HEATING. Not no central heating.

@ArcticSkewer

What 'myth'?? It might be common to hear it on mumsnet but out in the real world I'm not hearing this.....op is just using her thread as a chance to be rude to people really.

If people are saying they had no heating growing up then believe them, just because there was a fireplace available does not mean the gatekeepers of it had resources to use it!

I did answer in another post 🙄