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.

Go out for a brisk walk or run at lunchtime. It gets your blood pumping and the house feels much warmer when you come back in.

I think you can wear as many layer as you can but if the air is cold it still feels uncomfortable. I'm with all the PP's who suggested heating one room and staying in there.
What are you doing all day? If it's working from home a heated throw could work? Lots of cups of tea and soup

mould is due to houses these days having better insulation.

back in the days of no mould and no heating there was also single glazing, windows weren’t sealed units, no foam insulation in the roof and no mounds of the loft insulation. No cavity wall insulation (which can additionally add to damp as it wicks through the cavity)

so much better airflow, less humidity, and no mould.

modern insulation turns houses into sealed boxes so damp air can’t escape. If you don’t heat it up to dry it out or open the windows for airflow that’s when you get damp, condensation on walls and mould.

had my windows replaced recently and the fitter was complaining that technology means we can have complete sealed units to keep in heat and sound out, but then to stop the mould you have to bang a hole in the frame and fit vents, so these top of the range units aren’t really worth the money as all their qualities are compromised.

@OnNaturesCourse
And you know if you read my post correctly I wasn't referring to those who cannot afford.

I'm guessing you've got a boiler rather than an air source heat pump? If it's an air source heat pump it's better to have it on low for longer rather than letting your house get really cold and then be trying to heat it up quickly.

Maybe, but if you can't afford the heating, you can't afford it. I had central heating installed via a government scheme and can now afford to keep the house warm, but before that the storage heaters stopped working at 9am and I could only afford to have the lounge heated when the kids were home. If it was just me, I dealt with being cold, and the house had to deal with being damp.

Insulate your home. Get rolls of the stuff to put in the loft. Put thick curtains at every window and make sure they go down over the sill.

Move more/sit less.

Wear proper layers/thermals.

Slippers & a woolly hat if needed

I did it once when a friend visited and she literally wouldn’t stop complaining about the cold - cost me £90 for three days. I was only on mat pay and I cried when the bill came .

@IMBCRound2 That's insane! I honestly don't know how it can be that expensive. I've moved around quite a bit (was renting before buying house) and have always had the heating on all day, everyday during winter and it's never been anywhere near that expensive. Do you live in a barn?!

That said, my heating is always off at night.

Am going to buy a balaclava tomorrow to keep my head warm at night when the heating is off.

Very helpful, thanks.

I wear a base layer when it gets cold (I'm doing it now), as well as all the other layers (trouser, top, jumper, coat/oodie, hat) - the base layer really helps. I also sit under a duvet in the evening.

Normally I layer up as much as possible and go for a walk at lunchtime to get my blood flowing. Plus I have a long hot water bottle and hot drinks. Today though I will have the heating set to 16 degrees all day as we've had thick snow here and ds is off school so I need to take the chill out of the air for him x

A damp house will feel colder.
A damp house will cost in others ways (mould cleaning, repainting or worse).
Heating comes before most other costs in our priorities.
A dehumidifier really helps too.

I've lived in this house for 18 years, have never had the heating on all day and there is no damp or mould. It didn't happen in my childhood home with no central heating in the 60s or any house I have ever owned. It did happen in a council bedsit in the 70s which only had a 2 bar electric heater and I found mould in the back of a built in cupboard but that's it. Ventilation is important but it doesn't have to be heated as much as people seem to think.

It depends on many factors such as the location and construction of the property, insulation, and so on.
My childhood home looks similar to the house I live in now, we heated the childhood one much less and also got much less (no) damp compared to our current house. The actual construction of the houses is different, the location is different, we cook more, we wash more clothes and so on. Some houses really do need more heat and/or dehumidifying.

I think the number of people living in the house is a big factor too. When all the kids were at home, with associated washing and cooking, we had terrible condensation constantly. Now there's only 2 of us the humidity goes down to <40% when it's cold and the heating is on a lot.

Definitely - the amount of people, and animals, breathing will affect it. 👍

Humidity generated by living is a big issue.

People breath out water vapour. Boiling pans. Drying clothes. Showers and baths.

If you work hard you can minimise a lot of it. Apart from breathing.

But basically if you have a lot of people in a small space you are going to have to remove the water somehow. Either via ventilation or dehumidifiers.

I have lots of warm clothes including thermal layers and I wear sheepskin-lined slippers. When I'm working at the computer, I wear a hat, scarf and those gloves that just cover your wrists as I get really cold sitting still. I drink a lot of herbal tea to keep warm. If it's really cold then I have a hot water bottle on my lap. If it's really, really cold then I have an oil-filled radiator that I can put on to just heat one room. If I need to do stuff in the rest of the house then sometimes I put the central heating on for 15 minutes. I find that the warm air coming from the radiators makes the house feel much warmer than it actually is.