How to not have the heating on all day?

[Hello113]

It's freezing where I live. But I am worried about the cost of having the heating on all day when I'm at home. I've bought a heated throw and I wear lots of layers.

turned out cheaper to heat the house for me.

Oil heater at 60-80p per hour, on for 5 hours a day, x30 days is nearing 100 a month,

far exceeds central heating costs.

I wear Uniqlo thermal under-layers, especially the polo neck ones as you don’t want a cold neck.

Sometimes I wear a thermal sleeveless vest, a thermal polo neck base layer, a warm real wool jumper. I am considering one of Uniqlos lightweight down tops.

I wear wool socks and fake Ugg slippers that come half way up my calf.

I have fingerless gloves for reading or working in computer.

The heating comes on for an hour in the morning as I wake up, to take the edge off the overnight drop in temperature.

Then another hour in the evening, more if I can’t stand it and the temperature outdoors has really dropped.

I am quite happy watching TV beneath a blanket over my legs and middle and another round my shoulders.

You know it's out of some people's hands, right? Some actually can't afford to heat their whole home the whole time.

my dm swears by layers,
thermal vests, wool jumpers
she is 89

It depends on your housing stock. If you live somewhere damp and where merely breathing causes rivers of condensation, you need some heating of the home beyond just heating the individual.

I second everyone who mentions the menace of condensation and mould. My neighbours stopped heating their home for much of the year and ended up with wet rot on some window and door frames.

You need to make sure that nothing backs onto the wall without a decent airflow or things can develop mustiness and mould in no time.

You need to be checking round on a very regular basis if you restrict the heating.

I’ve got a thick warm dressing gown I literally wear like an indoor coat. I only put the heating on very sparingly and only if it’s really unbearably cold. Thankfully it’s not been too bad so far (but dreading proper winter).

We all have an oodie and our own hot water bottle. Make sure to turn off radiators in rooms that aren't being used when the heating is on to save money. Hot drinks can help to warm you up too. Thick curtains can help keep the heat in.

The strange thing is we grew up in a freezing house, no central heating and just one gas fire in the sitting room). This was the 70s and we never got mould or frozen pipes. My house does get condensation and mould and it drives me mad.

Move more. Stand up as much as possible.

I teach and am hardly ever cold at work as I am standing up, moving around, walking fast up and down stairs.

Meanwhile my students are swathed in padded coats and have the approx circulation of lizards!

I can't afford to run my heating very often, but I live in a mid terrace house and can only conclude, from the temperature of my home, that my neighbours run their heating 24/7 at nuclear temperatures.

We've only got electric radiator heating, no central heating, and a log burner, but my living room is warm enough as long as I don't sit still for too long. The dog gets me out for a walk every hour or so, and it feels toastie warm when I come back in, but I am thinking of investing in a heated throw for days when I have to sit and work downstairs (normally I work in my bed under the duvet!).

It is reliably 20 degrees in my classroom and not draughfty.

This seems a bit counterintuitive but go out for a walk , it's cold outside and will feel much warmer when you come in. If you stay relatively still all day you will feel colder. Hot drinks, layers. Work out what your heating budget is and what that gets you over the year. Have a direct debit rather than bills that vary, winter you will thank summer you.

If you have a condensing boiler it's actually a false economy to turn off radiators. The system works by reusing heat, your boiler is having to work harder if it's not going through the whole system. And when you do turn the radiators back on, the boiler has to work harder to get the heat through the system. So, it's actually more economical to leave them on.

Just me at home. Have the heating on low in the evening only. When it was really cold the other day had a huge fleece dressing gown under a full length Oodie like fleece, and a fleece throw around my feet as I watched tv. Was warm as toast! So was the cat!

How does that work? Genuinely? If I have the rads off then surely the boiler is heating less water from the start? Currently my upstairs rads are off - very occasionally one bedroom will be put on for a hour or so around bathtime for the kids.

What a load of absolute rubbish. The 'reusing heat' part of a condensing boiler is a secondary heat exchanger in the exhaust which is why you get big clouds of condensed steam in the exhaust - it's cold as all the heat has been extracted.

If radiators are turned off the return heating circuit is hotter than it would be if all the radiators are turned on - so the boiler has to work less hard to get it back up to the output temperature.

I try not to have it on until mid-afternoon at the earliest. Before then it's jumpers, blankets and a hot water bottle if really arctic.

Heating then goes off around 8pm, as we're usually heading to bed around 9ish.

We don't have it on at all in the morning, as we're usually up and out of the house pretty quickly.

Same here. No central heating, metal window frames and no double glazing, ice inside the bedroom windows in the morning and no mould or damp.

I have a heated clothes horse, so try to do my laundry on days i wfh, I keep the drier in the room I work in and if i close the door it keeps the room nice and warm

Heated throws when needing to sit still but as others have said take opportunities to get outside for a walk and warm up your body that way. A run is even better, toasty warm for ages after that and good for fitness.

I suggest you read the Whch reports on this, turning them to low is better than turning them off.

Former v expensive vs central heating... i'm all about hot water bottles though!

I just put the heating on and dry the washing Infront of the radiators, it's cheaper to do that all day rather than have the tumble dryer going.

I have the heating on 6.30am to 9pm, set at 16 degrees, then overnight set to 13 degrees, so the house does not get bitterly cold. I use a heated throw and multiple wool layers in the day while I am WFH, the heating boosts up to 18 degrees at 3pm-9pm ready for kids home from school. My gas usage is around 10,000kwh a year which I can afford, thankfully.

If I'm WFH then it's a big oodie and big fluffy socks, plus lots of cups of tea to warm my hands on. Sometimes a hot water bottle. There's no sense heating the whole house when it's just me here. I try and go for a walk at lunch or do some housework throughout the day too to move myself around a bit.