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.

Contact'citizens advice'...have you ever tried to contact them?

'Seek extra benefits'.....omg did you actually mean to say that op???

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

Nottingham? Practically the tropics!

Have to say the cosiest place I’ve ever lived was a very small one bed council flat in inner London built around 1900! Single glazed but very thick solid brick walls. 4 flats built back to back around a central stairwell and we were on a south facing corner on one of the middle floors. We never used the night storage heater in the living room as we were out during the day but had a fan heater that we moved from living room to bedroom. This was 1980, so a lot of inflation since then, but our electric bill for the winter quarter was £65 which really wasn’t much for the time!

I also don’t believe anyone is advocating that homes should be without heating nor have I seen anyone advocating this 🤔

In my second house I had a park ray . Interest rates were through the roof and I was on maternity leave and we just couldn’t afford to use it . That winter we had NO heating and it was absolutely miserable.

What myth? Where are all these posters saying their houses were built without heat sources

We had electrical brackets to keep us warm at night.

But that's HEATING. It's just using the available fuel - electricity - to run the electric blankets rather than run some kind of electric room heater. It's more economical to do this. It's still keeping you and the bit of the room directly around you warm using fuel!

🙄

AS is useful if anyone wants to see the OP accusing other people of lying.
(I'll take the deletion for the team)

My dad calls me PollyFlinders due to a holiday we had together 25 years ago and a fire had to be lit where we were staying. I watched him doing it for a few days then one day decided to give it a go myself. Never again. I had to have a shower when I’d finished and the only thing that made the whole carry on worth while was him choking with laughter (like id never seen him laugh before) when he came downstairs and saw the state I was in. I’ve been PollyFlinders since that day - except when I’ve gained weight and he calls me slim.

We also used to pick the ice off windows as children late 70s/early 80s coal fire in living room but had to wait for it to be lit in mornings. It was horrible we had so many blankets you couldn’t move in bed - we wore coats to have breakfast. We should be going forward not backward - Now houses have heating people should be able to afford to use it.

What a bizarre thread. Yes YABU OP as you are just continually dismissing people's actual experience. I doubt people are saying they didn't have heating just for lolz.

I grew up in a house without heating. As in no heating. It was cold, I remember the frost on the inside of the windows and you could see your breath in front of you . I thought it was normal. I don’t remember being really cold, but I do remember when I went to my boarding school after an hour my feet would burn as the circulation came back into them and my face would go red.

We had an open fire in one room in the evening, but that was all. It was a massive house, stately home type place. Crumbling down. We just got through winter. We did have very hot water so we had a boiling hot bath each night. That was heated by an AGA boiler, not AGA oven/range. Was fuelled by coal.

I had lots of friends who lived in similar situations and it was the norm.

My parents still don’t have any form of heating and it’s Baltic. They can afford to, but just isn’t on their radar. They’ve never had heating so are used to it.

I am wondering the same. But it did keep people warm for a while when used. As a student, none of the houses had heating apart from gas or electric fires downstairs and the houses were all old, some stone built. It was bloody cold upstairs with ice on the inside of the windows. I couldn’t imagine living with no source of heat at all though.

pollyflinders!

I used to quite enjoy the process of setting the fire

Can't just be left either, you needed to be present to look after them. No losing yourself in a WFH job!

Thanks @PAFMO .... very enlightening

OK so the people who grew up with no heating sources, no fire, nothing. Ice on the windows, quick wash with a bowl of water because it was too cold.

Do you honestly think that in 2022 it is acceptable that people will end up like this again? It “did you no harm.”

I would argue that people who think this is acceptable because it “did no harm” have been affected more than they think. It is a rather bitter and twisted view to be gleefully pointing out that you grew up freezing and you were fine. Just admit it was fucking awful. But please don’t pretend it’s for this to happen to other families.

Did the coal for those open fireplaces come down the chimney delivered by a bloke in a red suit?

Or, y'know, did it cost money?

Because one of my (clearly, according to the OP and others) false memories involves my grandad (ex-miner, subsidised coal ) giving a bag to the old lady down the road every now and then. She only had an outside toilet as well which I expect I'm lying about.

I get you OP

Most houses were built with a fireplace and chimney. So if fire was lit, that room would be warmer than other rooms.

Not everyone could necessarily use their fire though, e.g too expensive to get fuel, dodgy chimneys etc, but it was still there and an option, albeit maybe not feasible for some people.

It is wrong to say every house had some heat... because they didn't. I'd have guessed most houses would have lit a fire, or had a plug in fire or something, but as demonstrated above lots of people didn't have access to it, for whatever reason.

So I think that insisting people are wrong about that is derailing your point, which I agree is important

Today, if your house is dependent on gas/electricity for heating, and so you don't have option to e.g. light a fire... it won't be the same as houses that had/have no central heating as most of them traditionally would have had some sort of "burner" in at least one room.

And while the rest of the rooms in those houses could be absolutely freezing, there was at least some heat, somewhere, which contributed to keeping damp out and warming the house a bit.

If people have to avoid turning on their heat at all this winter, houses will eventually start getting damp and they could have problems with pipes freezing etc. Outside will start feeling warmer than in

And it is a disaster that people have to live like that in 2022

I was replying to the OP in reference that she believe every home had a fire source, we did not.

I was privilege to have electrical blankets growing up many of our neighbours had nothing.

Jesus OP
stop picking apart posters stories of having no/ next to no heating. People who grew up in houses where fireplaces were ripped out, but replaced with a shitty electric bar heater were not toasty and warm .
You're being tedious now

Also, an open fire in one room DOES NOT heat the entire house. It would not make your bedroom and bathroom warm so unless you all live and bathe in that one room it's a moot point. You don't have heating.

Nobody, literally, has said that.
They've said it was an awful way to live and it's fucking inhuman that 50 years on, people are having to do it again.

In the 80s we had a house that had no CH. it had a working coal fireplace in the living room. The kitchen was heated by the oven/cooking heat.

The bedrooms would have a portable calor gas heater wheeled in if it was really cold.

I also think I remember free standing single bar electric fires that maybe my grandparents used?

I think people had heat sources just not fixed radiators on the walls?

Homes in the U.K. often only had one source of heat - the range in the kitchen. This was common until the 60's but even in the 70's they were building (council) homes with no heating upstairs, my ex grew up in a house with only one gas fire in the living room.

On a different topic has anyone seen information on the cost of running one radiator and the rest being off - so heating one room?