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.

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.

I don’t understand your post. Even if all houses did have a fireplace it’s not enough to “ heat a home”. It literally just heats the room if that. Especially if you live rurally where temperatures drop more than the city.
If you only had your fire lit for an hour a day you’d be as cold as if you hadn’t bothered.

Whats wrong with being tough by the way?

@KweenieBeanz you realise that even if people had heating ie a fire it didn't mean they could afford to light it!! We had one small gas fire in the living room. It got put on occasionally when it was literally freezing. (Maybe 10 individual times ovef Nov/Dec/jan.) I remember me and my sisters pushing to sit in front of it. I remember burning my legs from being so close. I remember-
Ice on the windows
Damp sheets
Wearing a coat to bed

I'm in my early forties btw I'm talking about the eighties when yet another conservative government happily ignored the poor dying and suffering.

My dad is nearly 80 lives in the same house (which does now have radiators) this year he won't put the radiators on for fear of not being able to afford his bill (we would obviously pay it if he couldn't) so he still lights that little gas fire when he feels it's cold enough.

Stop trying to say peoples lives didn't happen because you can't imagine what it's like to be poor, cold and hungry. It's great that's not your experience but it happened, it's still happening and it's still abhorrent.

We had the coal lorry come round to deliver sacks!

Anyone else used to run round behind it collecting lumps which had fallen off?

Happy days!

In Shetlands we often had no heating but each house was allocated a polar bear which would lie on your bed as a blanket and for a cuddle.

We survived.

My husband didn't in the 80s when he was a kid he used to get dressed for school under the covers lol. I always had heating.

Don't re ridiculous @PAFMO Everyone obviously had an inside toilet. Probably with its own heat source.

For the council to have updated to put a back boiler on a fire, you must have had a fireplace/chimney to start with otherwise it wouldn't have been possible.

Some people clearly did live in homes where there was either poverty or neglect or some other issue such as living in a doer-upper, and no form of heating went on, and some have said how this did affect their health & wellbeing too. But it isn't the UK norm not have access to any heating at all given our climate, of course people have been using fires and fireplaces and stoves and the eqivalent of hot water bottles/stones and warmed blankets.

The OP is right that 'not using the heating at all' isn't a sensible solution for the population at large this winter and as a society we need better solutions and fast. At ours, we've not had the heating on much yet and we're not cold due to the location and the type of building we live in, but there is still a dampness about the place and it's going to have to go on more regularly now for that reason or we'll have more problems than we solve.

Regardless of what happened in the past, everyone should have the means to provide a basic level of warmth at their home. Its essential for health. If homes are well insulated, a little additional heat is needed and it is less expensive. The UK’s housing stock as a whole isn’t fit for purpose.

No one on this thread is saying that though, they are just pointing out that it is a thing that did happen.

The flat I grew up in didn’t have any heating, the pipes would regularly freeze in the winter, if you left a glass of water by your bed it wasn’t unusual for it to freeze on a cold night.

Why are some posters claiming houses without heating don’t have electricity? In what world do electric wires heat a building?

And whilst I agree most of us rely on central heating these days (I don't have a fire) which is problematic, houses are extremely better insulated these day. I've put my heating on three times so far this year.

And actually,the winters back then were a lot colder than now

I grew up in South Yorkshire. I remember snow like nothing I've seen since. Drifts up the door, school busses not turning up, not like the paltry inch or 2 we get now

Global 'warming' I suppose

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

Only if they could afford them @caroleanboneparte

We lived in a flat over a shop, early 80’s. No heating at all and an outdoor toilet. My parents did it up, but we didn’t have a source of heat for a while. It was freezing and miserable.

Mummyoflittledragon
Some people do genuinely live like this op. About 5 years ago, I bought a house in absolute squalor. The elderly owner had lived there until recently and I was gobsmacked at how she survived to a ripe old age. She had refused to move out apparently until she went into a care home. The open fires were unusable and the only source of electricity was a very old socket, the sort with with 3 prongs sticking out, in the kitchen. No other source of electricity or any lighting either. It had rising damp and the roof let in water.

I saw a documentary years ago about people moving into retirement homes. There was a lady who lived similarly to this. She was very hardy and proud that she was independent and had touched out so much and by the end she was showing off how warm she was in her new place, loving not having to clean or worry about anything and showing all the things she did (bingo, dancing, table quizzes). I was in a heap!!

Toughed not touched!!

To be honest at this point you're splitting hairs OP. No heat source whatsoever / one miserable little gas fire that you can only afford to put on for an hour a day - the point is it's a terrible state of affairs that in a developed nation in 2022 hundreds of thousand of people will not be able to afford to keep adequately warm this winter, which will not only be extremely unpleasant for them but could have severe health consequences for them / cause fatalities. Yes, we get it, it's shit, and appalling that this is where we're at.

I grew up in a Victorian house with no chimney, no fireplace - it had been rebuilt after ww2 damage so I presume that's why. We had bar heaters and storage heaters that rarely got put on, this was the 70's and work was sporadic. Not all houses have fireplaces.

Every house I've lived in has been within smokeless zones too

OP, remember all older people grew up in ice boxes & the snowflake generation just need to get on with it 🙄

I grew up in an Edwardian house with biggish rooms, one gas fire sitting room and one dining room, where the open fires were originally. Oil filled Dimplex radiator for the bedroom if you had measles or something. Ice inside the windows etc. It was quite usual for the time and place. Some people (like my grandparents) had a similar set up with coal fires, which they were very adept at running, having done it all their lives.

The difference is now that 50/60 years on, many, many people have got used to having central heating and being able to afford to run it. They will understandably be reluctant to step back in time and be cold, hence the worries now. This seems the crux of the issue to me and while turning the heating down a bit and putting more layers on is a good idea for the planet as much as anything, actually being cold and uncomfortable is not a desirable state. You can't blame anyone for not wanting to revert to a time when conditions for the majority were actually, quantifiably worse than they are now. The Dunkirk spirit is one thing but I can't see many embracing actual wartime rations.

Are you very young OP, as you don't appear to have much of an understanding if how people lived then?

We had one Super Ser calor gas heater in the living room, nothing else for the rest of our house.

The council houses in our village had one open fire in the living room, no other source of heating. They didn't have flushing toilets or a bathroom until the mid 70s.

We didn’t have central heating but we did have one gas fire in the front room which we’d all huddle round. Getting out of bed in the mornings for school was so hard as the bed was warm and cosy but it was teeth chatteringly cold out of it. Many years ago but the memories are vivid. 🥶

Said nobody.

I grew up in a 3 storey terraced house. The only heat source was a coal fire in the kitchen on the ground floor. rent we didn't have an indoor bathroom. The toilet was at the bottom of the yard and the bath was on a hook on the back of the pantry door. This was early 70's