Heating homes

[Willowsodyssey]

Rather bemused by the woman on the news asking how people would ‘survive’ without heating errr…. We didn’t have central heating installed until I was 16yrs old in 1983 and we all ‘survived ‘ pretty well. I’m all in favour of extra financial help for the vulnerable but everyone else can just PUT A JUMPER ON!

Did your house not have a gas fire or a coal fire in it though. My house without cebtral heating had a fire and one electric bar heater.
Im not suggesting that extra jumpers arent necessary, but a lot of newer houses have no other heat source than central heating as it is so effective.

I definately won't be putting the heating on this winter. Extra jumpers, thermal underwear and one of those heated throws if it's really cold.

I didn't have central heating when I was young, but we had gas fires in the main rooms downstairs, so those rooms were warm. We would only retreat upstairs at bedtime in winter because it was too cold to sit in bedrooms!

You had no form of heating in your home at all?

We didn’t have central heating until I was 13 but we had a back boiler on our coal fire in the lounge which heated the water.

Where are you op?

My parents never got central heating in our family house.

But DF lit a fire every morning in winter in the 'living room' (where the dining table was but also a couple of comfy chairs) then brought us all tea and turned on the electric convector heater in my bedroom before I got out of bed.
The 'sitting room' where the TV was had a gas fire. Electric radiators in all the other rooms.

We did wear woolies and slippers, but had quite a lot of heating of various forms.

I grew up in a house with no form of heating except a woodburner, (and we had no main electricity until 1975 either! Just gas lights downstairs and paraffin lamps upstairs), and live in a similar house now myself - in fact, I have absolutely no desire to have central heating, I can live quite happily without it, everybody did until relatively recently. But I don't like being in an artificially warm environment anyway, so it suits me.

So, yes, of course people can survive quite happily without central heating.

Doesn't heating maintain the property preventing damp and stuff like that. And I am sure a warm home is beneficial to your health. It reduces chest infections and increases your blood pressure which I'm sure would be even more detrimental to a lot of people with long term conditions. There's a reason grants are given to some older people. So quite literally some people wouldn't survive without heating.

It's quite rose tinted saying not so long ago people survived without heating (or running water or electricity) but a lot of people didn't and if they did winter could be very miserable for others. Imagine being killed off because you caught the flu, but are usually very healthy, and refused to put your hearing on, so got a bad chest infection that determinate because someone told you just put a jumper on. Might be more sensible to tell people to conserve energy where they can using their own risk assessment. I'll be reducing the amount we use out heating this year but not at the expense of our health or living a decent quality of life

Yes, so live in South UK and winters in 60’ and 70’s seemed colder to me, definitely had snow every winter and one year it lasted 6 weeks! We had a back boiler in the kitchen that heated the hot water and an electric fire in the sitting room. No ‘central’ heating -meaning no heating to other rooms at all. I had 6 blankets on my bed and in winter put my school uniform on under the covers🤣 . We had ice on inside of the windows before we had double glazing installed! So NOT rise tinted! We wore more clothes, gathered in sitting room and went to bedrooms only to sleep.
I used to be an air leakage technician working on new homes. If houses are built well heat loss is minimised and so you don’t need as much heating-unfortunately most of UK housing is old stock and the govt need to ramp up the grant situation to enable people to better insulate their homes.
Im not suggesting ‘ no heat’ is a good idea that’s why I mentioned ‘vulnerable’ people needing more resources and obviously if you’re sick you wrap up warm and use more heating, but I actually know people who pad around their houses in the depths of winter in shorts and t shirts with the heating on full blast. The cost of fuel is going to really focus peoples attention on saving energy.

I'm not on a low income therefore won't be eligible for financial help.

I have health conditions that mean I can't just put on a jumper. I already look like the Michelin man in the winter.

It's not that simple.

Also. Lack of heat in your home contributes to damp issues.

But most houses today don't have a back boiler in the kitchen or electric fire in the living room, and even if they did, if your prepayment meter is empty it means no heating would work, in any room. So not really comparable to your childhood home, where you got temporarily cold upstairs but could go down and warm up. What people are worried about is having no where to warm up for several months.

Even hundreds (or thousands) of years ago people could gather wood and light a fire for warmth. Whereas the woods are gone/ to far away for most city dwellers and you can't light a fire in a rented flat, that doesn't have a chimney.

Good points Sprogonthetyne but don’t most homes have an electric /gas heater in the sitting room? If you can’t load the meter that’s a problem I agree ( been there myself when renting years ago with young kids). So if you have no meter money what happens these days?

Well, I was born in the 70s in Eastern Europe and we always had heating. I can assure you, I would get very ill without it. House heated to 21 C during the day and when I'm working at the computer, I'm still shaky in tracksuits, 2/3 jumpers, 2 socks and a onsie all over this. So my house WILL be heated.

I grew up in the 70's with no central heating. But we had a coal fire in the living room and a back boiler in the kitchen which kept the downstairs at least reasonably warm.

Today I live in an all electric house [ storage heating ] , no gas to the house. No fire in the house at all. I am not going to be able to use my heating at all this coming winter [ very low income from working, no benefits ] , I have no back up like we did in the 70's of a fire or back boiler, so will be layering up as much as possible, but I am still expecting to be really cold.

Sounds like a nightmare.

I don’t think most houses have fires in the living room now. We don’t another source of heat. We have gas central heating. If we turned that off completely in the winter, the house would go mouldy with the washing hanging on airers.

Just because the could doesn't mean they should

I'd like to think we have evolved as a society and can provide basic comforts for our people

Also. Lack of heat in your home contributes to damp issues.

This. Having grown up in the tropics and never having to deal with heating, this was a revelation to me, I lost a few pairs of shoes to mould

Many houses don't have a separate heating source. I don't.

So it was a golden age before central heating? What tripe. We survived on drip-feed paraffin heaters (a real fire risk and fumes bad for the chest), a coal fire in one room and a single bar fire. Hot water had to be boiled on the stove. The Tories, especially Truss, don't care about the poor and disabled. Tax cuts will not help them. And the rest of us are paying to support energy and water companies shovelling vast profits. We are fast approaching Poll Tax territory.

So it was a golden age before central heating? What tripe. We survived on drip-feed paraffin heaters (a real fire risk and fumes bad for the chest), a coal fire in one room and a single bar fire. Hot water had to be boiled on the stove. The Tories, especially Truss, don't care about the poor and disabled. Tax cuts will not help them. And the rest of us are paying to support energy and water companies shovelling vast profits. We are fast approaching Poll Tax territory.

I don't think most homes do have secondary heat sources, my current house doesn't and out of the 6 places I've previously lived, only 1 did. Anywhere built after central heating was the norm won't, some older properties will have kept fires after they had central heating installed, but many had it removed as otherwise it's another thing to maintain. Obviously people could buy portable heaters, but they're usually not that efficient plus people who don't have the money to run the heating, also don't have money to invest in more heaters.

As for what happens when the prepayment meter runs out, you sit in the cold/dark and light candles. It let's you go into emergency credit for a day or so (which is more expensive, and takes a chunk when you next top up), then once that's gone the power cuts off.

Our home was built in the 70s. Only central heating here, if we didn't turn it on there would be absolutely no heat at all in the property.

However, as someone who grew up with only a fire in the living room as a way of being warm I'm a massive advocate of no heating unless socks/jumpers are on. No one wanders around our home in a T-shirt in December.

I agree with your point that most people can sensibly cut back on how they heat their homes...however I do think you're naive in believing that there are easy and affordable alternatives for those who need heating.

Sorry didn't mean for that to sound so snarky. Layering up and only heating one room will definitely help middle income family who are trying to make strech there money a bit further. So isn't bad advice. The concern is for the people at the very bottom, who don't have the money to stretch.