If I was rich I'd have a warm home

[spanieleyes22]

I hate the cold! Currently wfh with about 5 layers on and a hot water bottle and a blanket. Have a little electric heater on in this room but rest of the house is v v cold. Going to put oven on in a minute with the door open so I can do the dishes. If I am ever rich I will have a warm home and not be worrying about the cost of heating it! Went to bed at 6 pm last night to save money: feels like being in prison with the long evenings and trying to keep warm!!!

Not necessarily insane depending on how big the house is.
We're a fairly large 5 bed detached chalet bungalow and oil heating and electricity is approx £300 per month.

I’m 60. We had no central heating but we were not cold in the home as you describe. We had a fire and some background heating from a coal fired boiler. Ice on the inside of the windows in the morning, yes, but that’s largely due to single glazing. Yes, we were expected t9 wear warm clothes but what you describe was not normal in the last 60 years. (parents - one teacher, one SAHM who went back to teaching wen I was about 5 so not rolling in it)

@cardibach I agree…my house did have central heating, but we couldn’t afford to have it on much. We had a small electric heater for the front room, and the boiler was a huge old thing in the middle of the kitchen which kept the core of the house warm. I remember when my mum and dad invested in new double glazing … it was a revelation but I missed Jack Frost visiting on cold nights.

My mum talks about her childhood up north with coal fires that had to be put out at night. So it was bed sharing, woollen bed hats, flannel nightwear and hot water bottles. She survived it but yes, she complained a lot. There was always hot tea brewing and porridge for breakfast in my grans house, probably because she always felt cold!

My grand and grandpa had coal heating. She always complained out gas heating was too warm. My Grandpa loved it, that man could have the fire going strong in just a few minutes. He would get up early, get the fire on then go back to bed till the house and the water was warm. They wore layers though. My gran would have thick tights, trousers, socks, a vest, long sleeved top, t shirt and cardigan in winter.

Coal fires put out? Hadn’t they heard of banking them in up north? South Wales mining stock. Fire rarely went out in my gran’s house.

The fire was out overnight at my grans and my aunts houses too. Lit early to give time to warm up. West of Scotland mining stock

I can afford to put the heating on but I'm careful with it and I have always felt the cold so not a great combination. To manage it I always wear thermals under my clothes, Uniqlo are great, so thermal leggings and a thermal top. I also have a heated throw which I use all the time. I plug it in where ever I am. Thermals and my throw and I'm toasty. The house may be chilly but I am virtually thermo nuclear.

I feel you. We are in a large Victorian terrace and it’s a fortune to heat. It has been so, so cold the last the few days I have had no choice but to have it on most of the day because I have toddler DS home with me but I can’t keep this up. I was thinking about going to the library with him tomorrow morning for some free warmth!

Are you me? It's 12Cin my sitting room this afternoon and I'm dressed pretty much as you are!

My oil fired CH has just come on but it will be struggling to get the room to 18 in this weather. I'm going to be lighting the fire shortly although the fake coal we have to use nowadays is nowhere near as good as the real type and we get through far more.

The problem in the UK is that options for heating our homes have been removed. We don't have coal fires because they're polluting, ditto log burners. Gas central heating is not available to everyone because there isn't the infrastructure to supply to all homes. Coal fired and oil fired CH are also classed as 'polluting' and there's talk of them being phased out. That leaves us with various types of electric heating. Whatever the arguments about how that is provided, electric heating whether storage or CH or wall panels is hugely expensive to run. We didn't have CH until 1997 but we did have gas fires, calor gas and the option of a coal fire before then. It was horrendous in a house full of asthmatics, 2 of my children got pneumonia and we all had chilblains at one point.

My current flat is all electric and I bloody hate it. It's not cosy like gas CH but there's no fireplace and we're not allowed portable gas fires. Electric heating just doesn't heat properly and costs a fortune. Yes, I do the woolies, mittens, scarf indoors but FFS, this is the 21st century, I'm in my 60's and disabled, why the hell do we have to live like this?

Pensioner couple here, lowish income, but above Pension Credit level, so no winter fuel allowance. We overpay all year so we can heat our semi in the winter. DH is at home most of the time and he has poor circulation so needs to be warm. He wears an ‘oodie’ quite a lot and we have throws/blankets if necessary. Brushed cotton bedding and hot water bottles are cosy. We use a slow cooker for lots of our meals when it’s cold, more economic than the oven.

TBH we see warmth as a priority, there are other things we don’t need to spend money on. I feel so sorry for people who genuinely can’t afford to heat their homes, we’ve been there in our younger days.

@talkingdeadscot Gas fired central heating is also being phased out! It's absolutely ridiculous, ASHPs are simply not suitable for so much of the housing in this country.

I’m in Ireland where most of the time it’s freezing and/or wet. I’m in rented accommodation thank God has central heating but it is oil fuelled. I spend approximately €500 on heating oil for winter months. I rarely use it in the summer. So for me turning on the heating is a necessity
1.to keep the house warm.

1. I can dry clothes on the radiators.
2. It heats up my water at the same time and I can have a nice big bath.

I try to plan it so that I do everything at once. I put on a wash and then turn on the heating put the clothes on the radiators, but I don’t overload them. And I usually do that for about 4 o’clock. Then I go collect my kids, knowing I will be coming back to my house. I leave the heating on until about seven and that does the job. I also like a log burner in the sitting room where we hang out for the evening. I don’t turn the heating on every evening only on the evenings it’s really cold. But like I said, if I have laundry that I need, I will turn it on for an hour. I work from home today and I didn’t turn the heating on at all…Until 4 o’clock. I can manage with that, but I wouldn’t make my kids do it.

Same same same. Can't afford more than an hr boost in kids rooms and can see our breath in the others 🥶

I hear you OP, no mains gas in our area, and my only source of heating in the whole house is a small wood burner in the sitting room.

My Raynauds has already kicked in (early this year for my fingers to swell) and im sitting with a scarf, 5 layers of clothes and a heated throw on my legs. I can see my breath even with the log burner going.

Our energy rating is F, but although we qualify we cant get help under the Eco 4 scheme... even though theres no insulation in the roof at all!

I hate Winter, its such a bloody struggle

Uniqlo should pay me, honestly!

I think we've achieved 18.5 this week. I haven't had the chimney swept/checked in this house yet so no fire. Oh, I forgot about fake coal... :(

Many of these are really bad. How can this be ok?
Admittedly I've never lived in a house that was cold. I just refuse. Even in freezing Russia their houses are warm enough. Even as a student I kept my room warm. With a health condition i wouldn't have even gone to look at renting a cold room.
I hope posters find a way to make this better.

OP I could have written this! I'm generally ok until I have to actually do something in the flat and leave the bed. I find those little fan heaters good, I blast the hot hair at myself while getting dressed or doing the dishes. I've moved my telly into the bedroom for the winter and get into the bed with electric blanket, 2 hot water bottles, a weighted blanket, layers of clothes and a wooly hat 😂 No central heating, old sash windows and tall ceilings so I don't bother turning on the little freestanding radiators because any heat just leaks out immediately. I literally hibernate. Lots of hot drinks! It's tough.

There is a desperate housing crisis where I live though, and there are a lot of people sleeping rough in my city which is hard to see everyday. It does make me grateful I have a roof over my head and I can keep my cat toasty at least. I also magically forget how bad it was once it's over, until the next winter, so I tell myself it must be semi tolerable and it will pass!

Lots of good suggestions.

I don't think it's been mentioned, but what's the insulation in the house like? Often there are grants to bring insulation up to standard, but I'm not sure how it works if you're renting. My sister got free cavity wall insulation and my friend got her attic done free as their income was below a certain threshold.

If drafts are a problem you can get draft excusing tape to go over gaps in windows and things.

I know neither of my suggestions are a complete solution, but maybe they could improve things a bit for you.

At least you had electricity, imagine what UK winters were like before that! 😱