House temperature during the day

[settlethisone]

Currently our thermostat is set so that the heating comes on and warms to 19 degrees for two hours 6pm-8pm and an hour in the morning 5-6am.

Our house loses heat quite quickly. We rent so not interested in fixing it for now. No kids yet.

Thermostat had dropped to as low as 14 so I have just had to put it on, because it feels freezing. I’m working from home today and feel chilly.

DH thinks it’s more normal to have heating off entirely in the day. I’d agree but I thought room temp is minimum 17-18 otherwise there’s health repercussions. what do you think?

YABU - team DH
YANBU - nooo that’s freezing

If you just need to heat yourself when WFH you could have a little blow heater and heated blanket. Heated slippers are amazing too. But you’ll need to put the heating on around 2 hours before 6pm anyway to get the house up to 19 degrees if it’s 14 in the day (unless your system is one that “preheats”)

This sounds utterly miserable. Who told you that you aren’t allowed?

Ours is on for an hour in the morning and an hour late afternoon. We sometimes put it on for an extra hour in the early afternoon if it's dropped. During the day it tends to stay around 15 which is chilly but ok for just me at home if I keep busy and moving. We have it warmer when the kids are at home.

I put our (ugly but fab) oil lamp on 30 minutes ago. The temp was 16.8 (according to the Hive display), it’ll be 18/19 within the hour. A litre of the lamp oil lasts 3 days and costs £4. Bargain. It only heats our sitting room but it’s fine when I keep the door closed.

They can't just increase it to whatever they like though. The price they charge is based on wholesale energy prices and is capped by Ofgem.

I live in a rented home and it's like a tent. It doesn't hold heat at all. I also have a pay as you go gas meter. I've turned off the radiators in most rooms (except for the bathroom and living room, I'll turn on the bedroom and kitchen if I'm using the rooms). I turned the boiler down and the water temperature. It's costing me £15 roughly a week. Sometimes a bit more. I can't stand the cold. On my bed I've got fluffy bedsheets which really helps. I also wear a jumper etc all the time.

when wfh just heat the room you are in with a small convection heater.

they cost about £25 for a 2kw one. If you are in a small room this will probably cost far less than running the central heating.

For example in my house gas CH is about £1 an hour. To keep my 3mx3m home office at 20 takes about 1kW continuous, which is about 30p an hour.

The gas CH is better value for money (more kw per £) but you end up heating the whole house rather than the little bit you need.

Sometimes I also put my Aldi heated dryer on, minus washing, £1.50 per day it costs me. It’s like a mini radiator!

That's not a bargain.

A litre of lamp oil is about 10 kwh, so you are paying 40p per kwh.

Electricity is about 27p per kwh.

Plus it is less likely to emit nasty smoke and burn your house down.

If your oil lasts 4 days, then you are using 2.5 kwh per day. So you lose 2.5x(40-27) p per day = 32.5 p.

An electric convector heater would cost about £20, so would pay for itself in two months.

Our CH was out of action for 3 days last week. When I woke up on the morning of the last day it was 12ºC, which was pretty grim. Thanks goodness it's now fixed.

My house is bloody freezing downstairs (open plan, loads of windows, shit insulation) and it would literally cost me about £500 a month to heat it all day.

I had it on timer (6.30-8.30am, 6.30-9.30pm) to heat the house to 19 and it was costing me £10 a day.

So now it's set to heat to 16 in the morning and 17 in the evening. It's chilly but bearable in oodies and slippers.

I do similar when it's just me and maybe DH. It stays at 18 during the day and very rarely kicks in but I've just knocked it up to 18.5 because the air is damp, my nose is running, my fingers are getting stiff and the room that DH is working in, which is always a couple of degrees colder than the rest of the house, feels like a fridge.

We have ours set to 22. Any lower, and me and DP feel cold. Life's too short for that. I don't care what it ends up costing. Our solar panels offset the bills in the summer months anyway, by the vast majority of the winter increase.

@GasPanic I don’t really understand your reasoning tbh, all I’d say is I can heat the main room in my home all day for three days for £4, it would cost far more to put my heating on. Plus the oil is odourless.