To ask what's your heating situation?

[sadsufferer2023]

Is it on? How long do you have it on, and what temperature?

I've turned mine on to come on a timer for 2.5 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening at 18c. Maybe that's a lot but I'm home most of the day and I feel the cold, plus the morning heating keeps the house warm most of the day. Last year I had it on for only a few hours at 15c and it was miserable. I have a nice amount of credit in the energy account so I'll see how November goes.

I am really sorry to read that you are living in such a cold state. You need to get your heating replaced and to get some form of grant or assistance for this. It is extremely bad for your health quite apart from being a miserable way to live, to be sitting in the cold. Please contact your local council. They have a household support budget for people who need a hand and there may also be other forms of grant or subsidy they would know about. Please don't continue like this but seek out help and support right away. You don't need to suffer such awful misery.

I live in a newbuild insulated building. The building stays warm enough not to need the heating on. Most homes here get way too hot in the summer.

My flat has radiators if I need them. We have some bizarre heating system where every single block in the newly developed area is piped with boiling hot water. So that keeps the (entire post code and) buildings warm in and of itself but it's meant to be low cost if used. I never use it.

I have a small portable halogen heater just to take the edge off on very cold days. I like the orange colour.

At the moment ours is set to 16 10.30am-6pm, then the log burner is lit. We're happy with that at the moment and us more economical than using two oil-filled radiators like we did last year (both home workers) during the day with the bonus that the whole house is warm

22 degrees, I tend to pop it on if the thermostat goes below 18. I use it as and when needed.

Ours was set to come on below 18 (hive) but have had to turn it down to 17 as it had been coming on 5/6 hours a day this week. I tried turning it off and the indoor temperature went down to 12! (We're up north!)
I used to just use my headed throw but need to keep the toddler warm now too!

We won’t put ours on for a few weeks yet. Thermostat currently says 15*. We wear lots of jumpers and dressing gowns, and sit under blankets in the evenings. Nothing to do with cost of living, we’ve always been too broke to put the heating on.

19 in the morning at for 1.5 hour (wake up times stagger between 5:30 and 9) 8am, 19 in the afternoon (3pm) for 1.5 hour. 17 in between. We have a small child in the house though and hos room gets extra chilly (working to insulate now).

We're only heating one room at the moment, with the log burner. However, if I leave the living room door open, the warm air does drift upstairs too.

Not on here yet either. Still seems to be roughly 18/19 degrees . Am sometimes putting extra jumper on and blanket at night if watching tv. Will probably need to start putting on in the evening for an hour or so soon.

Yeah I pay £100pm, I could go over that and be in debt but it'll have to be paid back at some point

Last winter while thinking I was saving on heating I nevertheless managed to use more gas than the previous year; and this was despite not turning it on until around 17th November. Was it a colder winter or was I not paying sufficient attention to how long I had it on for every day? I don't know. This year I'm trying to be more aware and so far have had it on for only a couple of cold days in October and an hour last evening but am struggling to hold out.

I'm hardly in a position to give advice but I am surprised that so many people have theirs set to be on during the night at temperatures in the 60s.

Is this a serious thread? I've still got my windows open 😂😅

If anyone in your home is disabled and you’re on a low household income, you’ll almost certainly qualify for a grant to get the whole thing done for free.

I know this because we went through the process to find we don’t qualify as both DH and I work so we have two full time incomes which puts us over the income threshold. But if you do qualify, it’s definitely worth pursuing.

the grants are managed by your local authority.

Ironically, you're likely using more resources by not having it set to maintain a steady temp.

Set at 18.5 for a few hours early morning and the same for most of the evening. We're home a lot and just then turn it up/on outside of that as needed (most days we would either turn it on for an hour or two mid day, or raise it to 20 or light the fire).

I haven't got a thermostat on my old system, so it's either on or off. When I have dd5, I put it on for an hour in the morning and 1.5-2hrs in the evening before she goes to bed. When she's not here, I just have it on for 1-2hrs when I get home from work. Weekends, when I'm home, may put it on for a couple of hours in the morning and at night. If it gets cold in the day, I put an extra layer on or snuggle under a thick blanket.

We don't put the heating on much, but for some reason it never gets super super cold in our house. All radiators are switched off except the living room and bathroom, then we have some heat from cooking dinner, plus the dehumidifier is a desiccant type so warms whichever room it's in - it's on drying laundry for some three hours a day, and it does 5-10 minutes daily mould prevention duty in each bedroom instead of opening windows.

The heating is typically on for just a few hours about three times a week, set to 18-20 degrees. It's a ventilated 1930s house, so you'd think it would be very cold. But through the winter it's usually about 15 degrees in the living room and 13 elsewhere.

I can't say I like this, but I don't hate it either, which is a big surprise to me. Until a year ago, I used to have the heating on at 20-22 most of the time! 😳

Apparently that's an old wives' tale, and you will save money by only having the heating on when you are cold: Energy mythbusting: Should you leave your heating on all day? - MSE (moneysavingexpert.com)

I'm not good with heat generally so the heating was on for 30 mins yesterday while I had a bath. It seemed really chilly yesterday.

The thermostat was on 14 when I switched it off.

I use heated throws.

In summer I have portable aircon and pay more for that than heat.

We do have central heating (albeit no thermostat and no timer on the boiler. I just manually switch it on when we seem to really need it. It’s not a terribly old system either) but in my Georgian house I wholeheartedly agree, it’s not about the heating, it’s the dehumidifier!

Ours is at 16 from 5 to 7pm

Damp is caused by keeping the house too cold. Have you ever tested keeping the house warm instead of running a dehumidifier?

We live in a very old house that was recently renovated. It was insulated well, but obviously there's a limit to how energy efficient it can become.

We have had the central heating on for one hour this autumn so far. We have started to run the woodburner and/or the fire more frequently over the last two weeks though, and if I'm sitting down working on my laptop I tend to use a heated throw over my legs. Without the logburner or fire our inside temperature is about 14/15, I probably prefer it at about 18. Houses at 20+ feel very stuffy for me and give me a headache and I like a nice cool bedroom to sleep in. I appreciate that we are all different though.

I ordered a dehumidifier yesterday as moist air takes more energy to heat and we are a family of 6 plus pets all showering, cooking, breathing out water vapour.... my neighbour ordered one and it took their humidity levels down by 30% and raised the temp of the room by 2/3 degrees too.

Damp can be caused by excess moisture in the air that can't escape.

Warm air hitting cold glass will form condensation, for example. When we breathe, boil a kettle or a pot, take a bath or a shower or dry clothes over radiators, all of that is releasing more moisture into the air inside of our house, if it can't escape it can cause damp.

If you have high humidity inside your house it will take more energy to raise the temp one degree via central heating or whatever than it would If you wanted to make a house with low humidity one degree warmer, because you have to heat all the water vapour in the air, IYSWIM.

A lot of older houses, like mine, were originally built with lots of ventilation provided by the natural materials used, chimneys and draughts etc. When we modernise and insulate older houses we tend to use man-made materials that don't allow the house to breathe and so we trap the moisture inside and can cause damp.

Heating the house can be helpful, but getting rid of any excess moisture in the air makes heating it far more efficient.

@AlmostAJillSandwich Some big energy companies have trusts that can give grants to help people in situations like yours. You don't need to be a customer to use them.