To be a bit pissed off that having our heating on is a luxury we just can't afford...?

[theSuburbanDryad]

I know we're not the only family in this position, far from it, and I should be grateful that I can at least afford to feed us adequately and keep ds in nursery so I can work, but still.

ARGH - just want to rant really. I'm cold and pissed off! I don't see where else we can economise - we have a condenser boiler but the insulation in this house is a bit shite. Nothing we can do about that as it's rented - but our new house is poorly insulated as well, and bigger so will be even colder. Ah well, i suppose it's character building, or something.

£25 Argos heated blanket apparently costs only 3p a night to run

It actually pees me off that having young children in the house is no grounds for getting any assistance at all with heating costs.

That's what child benefit is for isn't it ?
What about single people or couples, it's not ok for them to be cold either is it ?

I agree an electric blanket is a brilliant thing. We don't leave ours on - we just use it to warm up the bed and it makes such a difference. I'd go as far as to say it makes life in a cold house bearable - there is nothing worse than getting into a freezing cold bed.

That figure of 50p to 75p to leave central heating on all night puts it into context. Compare cost of storage heaters. 15 units on average per small heater, say - two downstairs and two upstairs. That's 60 units, which on our (cheap!!) tarriff would be £4.80 per night!! Even just one would be £1.20 and you might just as well not bother.

Hence storage heaters are off!

Did I say it was, Katie? Come off it. Just look at my latest post, and tell me how far £80 a month will go towards that when there is food and clothes to buy as well.

I was merely commenting that whereas there is all kinds of help for the over 60s in terms of insulating the house etc., there is no help if you have children (if you don't qualify for WTC). It just seems strange as being too cold is dangerous for them too.

With respect you are meant to pay for your children's food/clothing and heating not the government. The elderly getting the heating costs covered will be the ones receiving the income support and anyone on income support receives additional payment in cold weather.

oil filled radiator from 1p per hour

I do appreciate that Katie. I was simply making a general point that babies and young children need warmth the same as the elderly do. And it is not their fault if their parents can't afford the heating bills - nor can they do anything about it.

"anyone on income support receives additional payment in cold weather"

Do they really?

Do they? I didn't know that.

Actually, I stand corrected. I was thinking of Warm Front grants for help with insultation/central heating, and having checked the website I see that having children under 16 is a criterion as well as being over 60. So that's fair and equitable - I have no problem with that (other than not being eligible ).

I think I must have been thinking of something else - a local scheme or something.

Yes they do, it's called cold weather payments and is automatically generated if the weather dips below a certain temperature for a few days in a row.

www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/008270.xml.html

KatieDD - Is that anyone on IS or just the elderly on IS?

This is where I'm confused.

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I wonder how they determine those temperature criteria. Up here the glens can be seriously seriously cold, yet the nearest town might not get down to zero. Here for example, we'd meet those criteria for probably 5 or 6 weeks of winter - I bet no one is getting those payments though as I should think the weather stations they use are in milder parts. Call me a cynic if you like.

The benefits system doesn't pay as few people as possible, pop over to the USA and see how many payments you'd get over there in sub zero temperatures.
The fact is people, mums, babies, pensioners do get given extra money when it's deemed necessary and the rest of us have to put on more jumpers, it's not going to kill us is it ?
And might save the polar bears.

I think possibly that the Delonghi oil filled radiator in the link would cost me 4.5p per hour on my tariff using the Eco 400 watt setting that they claim to be from 1p per hour, guess it depends whether it would stay on the entire time or would go off when it reached whatever setting the thermostat is on. You can buy thermostatic plugs which you can plug heaters into where you set it to whatever temperature you want it and it will just come on when it needs to, was great when DS was a baby.

I read somewhere recently suggesting that it wasn't completely true about it being cheaper to have your heating on low rather than turning it off, but not sure how true that is as people seem a bit divided on it. I might try both ways and compare. Am really shocked at how much electricity a storage heater uses, a far bit more than we use for the entire house in a day including our cooking.

We all now have Ebay memory foam toppers on our beds which I am sure make them a fair bit warmer and I got some flanel sheets (to my Mum's amusement) which are cosy.

We're lucky and have a woodburner which is great so haven't been using much gas, to the point where Eon's website queries the readings as being too low when I put them in. But my Mum came round one day last week and I had the heating on for most of the day and evening set on 20. Was really shocked to see that we'd used loads more gas last week than usual which was a bit of an eye opener.

Friendlypizzaeater where did you read about central heating on all night being about 50p? I've just been working ours out today and it costs us 85p per hour to have it on low (17). We are in a draughty (sp?) Victorian terrace but still - don't think we can afford more than a couple of hours a day. Why are we paying so much more than 50 - 75p/hour then? YANBU!

Well, day 1 of having no heating and it's ok so far. The worst was getting out of bed into a really cold room and having a shower (our bathroom is right out the back of our house in an extension and is single skin brick - so no insulation At All!!) but it's not too bad. Ds was running around like a loon giggling his head off (possibly trying to keep warm? ) but otherwise doesn't seem to be adversely affected! It's only dh who's grumbling, but as I've forbidden him to put the heating on, and pointed out that he has the most blubber padding out of all of us, he can stop blardy whingeing!

We're going to try and brave it out here for the rest of the month, hopefully we'll be moving into our new house by end of Nov, and we'll insulate it properly and look into cheaper rates.

I guess I'm just still shocked that heating (which I saw as a basic necessity) can be so expensive - I mean, petrol has come down in price now, so why haven't fuel bills? It's all linked in to the price of oil, isn't it?

But think of all the polar bears you're saving SGM!

Wish I could get ds to keep a fleece on indoors. It's all I can do to get him to keep clothes on indoors (or outdoors, for that matter).

Any pensioner gets the heating payment in winter though, including my parents in their large 5-bedroom house who have just got back from a nice trip to America and are heading off on their fourth holiday of the year soon It's not means-tested.