Am I wildly unrealistic to think I can avoid huge fuel bills this winter?

[Walnutwhipplease]

We have lots of fleece blankets, hot water bottles, electric blanket for bed in coldest room, sherpa lined hoodie blanket things, thermal socks. Only drafty part of the house is the front door and I'm going to hang a heavy curtain over it this autumn. My current gas usage is £25 a month which is morning showers.

Am I forgetting how cold it gets? We didn't have central heating as a child.

Also houses need to have some heat to prevent damp etc so need to bare that in mind so I will be having mine on and keeping the temp regular at least

You forget how cold an unheated house is in winter - at 6.30 this morning my conservatory was 15 degrees as the windows were all open, it felt lovely, I sat there in my little tshirt nightie and drank my tea.
In the winter, if my living room was down to 15 degrees it would feel freezing and I would be in fleecy jamas and dressing gown plus sheepskin slippers.

@ivykaty44 my standing charge alone for a week is more than £3
What is your unit rate as that seems very low , as assume you wash your hands etc as well using hot water as well as the showers
Is your shower of mains or electric ?

My company went burst last year and I was moved to a non fixed tariff elsewhere straight away. I spent las winter in woolly jumpers, with the central heating off most of the time and 30% lower when on. Although I was spending far less fuel than before my bill was still 80% higher.

The main problem is not how much energy you use, it is that the standing daily charge it is ridiculously high so even if you don’t spend ANY energy during the day you are still paying for it.

I work from home too in a freezing office. I do a hot water bottle for my feet, and my sister in law just told me she has a fleece which u can charge and then turn it on an it literally warms you up - I’ll be looking in to getting one! I also have (and this may be too far for some lol - fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm when typing etc) I never have the heating on when it’s just me at home because even when I can afford it I am too tight fisted lol

blacknorway.com/products/new-9-places-heated-vest-men-women-usb-heated-jacket-heating-thermal-clothing-hunting-winter-fashion-heat-jacket-black-5xl-6xl?currency=GBP&variant=40756464091311&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoceCuKbb-QIVBu3tCh3c6goOEAQYCSABEgK2P_D_BwE

My gas bill is around £25 and electric £20. I work long hours in the NHS full time. My cats have heat pads and each other and I live alone in a 3 bed terraced house with good insulation. It just doesn't get cold really. I'm in Somerset.

I feel like my poverty stricken 90's upbringing in the Welsh valleys, with nothing but a coal fire in the living room and a hot water bottle at bed time has prepared me for this.

I remember waking up with ice on the inside of a single glazed sash window. I remember everyone huddled in the one front room with a heat source.

It's just me and DS in a small 2 bed property, I'll put lots of blankets on the bed, fluffy PJ's, dressing gowns, slipper socks and slippers for winters. I have heavy curtains on the front door and the back door. Draught excluder cushions at the bottom of doors, hot water bottles for the beds.

I'll be working from home, but I'm refusing to put the heating on. I'll just wrap myself up in more layers. I'm desperately going to stick to 6:30am till 7:30am heating on 19 degrees and then 5:30 till 7:30 heating on.

We will both be in bed by 8pm cuddled up warm with hot water bottles.

Ahh yes the good old 1970's
Ice on the inside of my bedroom windows
Beds that feel damp, and are so cold you curl up in a tight ball all night.
Mould and woodlice.
Powercuts
Chesty coughs and chilblains.
Can't wait 😂

I'm a doomed 90s child

Well it's still august and I'm under my 15 tog duvet wearing 3 layers on top, dog cuddled in and I'm cold all over but with extra cold nose. I do have a circulation condition but I've made it to nearly 43 un medicated for it. Didn't like the side affects but probably going to have to go with the medication now because I can't afford to make my house warm enough now let alone in winter

Honestly you'll be fine, but start like some weird form of acclimatisation.

Basically we are all used to houses heated up to 25+. But all you have to do is reduce the temperature of your house, so for a week do 24 then 23 and so on till your down to 19/20 and it feels warm to you still.

When DS was born and I was paranoid and kept all rooms at that 18-19 degree sweet spot, I eventually got used to the temperature, and he's 8 now and the thermostat still doesn't go above 19 🤣😳 I can't sit in rooms that are above 20ish degrees I feel boiling hot.

I heard recently that the average thermostat is set at 24. I have never had my house that hot in my life. I couldn’t bear it. It isn’t necessary at any time of year and I’m not in favour of “support” to allow people to keep behaving so wastefully.

Jumping in with a question of my own - sorry OP!
We live in a rented house. Old crappy boiler but does it's job, even more old crappy gas fire in the living room (hideous looking, to boot).

The gas fire heats the living room rapidly (unlike the radiators), but then cools fairly quickly too. We have most of our radiators switched off all year round as they're naff too, despite bleeding them. But at least the ones that are on take the 'exhaling visible breath' away.

Sensible thing would be for the landlord to upgrade us but it won't happen as they're a lovely aging couple with just this one house that they rent out. Been here 11 years and they've never ever put the rent up so we're very lucky.

Realistically though - will we be better off (financially) by running the central heating for an hour or so in the AM and PM, or only switching the fire on in the living room when it's unbearable and setting the boiler to hot water only?

We have wearable blankets, throws all over the place that can be used, hot water bottles too.

I'm late 30s and grew up in a couciil house with no heating except for gas fire in living room and single pane windows throughout. Used to love picking the ice off the inside of my bedroom windows... memories!

Would appreciate any thoughts if anyone has any. Radiators or fire?

You'd have to try and figure out how many KWh of gas the fire uses , then multiply that by your unit price, this will then give you how much per hour the gas fire costs to run.

Do the same for the boiler then.

But for you, I'd do the central heating an hour before you wake up and go off, just enough to take the chill out of the house, then in the evening run the gas fire in the living room from like 6-8 and then the central heating again 8-9 to take the chil out of the bedrooms.

@ObjectionHearsay thank you 😊

Yes I just knew that would be the only real way of figuring it out - why I hope for an easy answer, I don't know 😕 Wouldn't that be great though... if you could get a standard manual for the home. The typical X will use Y and the dodgy A will use B.

If you're in fantasy land then so am I, because this is also my plan

I plan not to have the heating on at all but we are cheats in that we have a wood burner

But what to do about mornings?

You could try and Google the old manuals for each appliance and you may get lucky and find them. But it's doubtful 🤣 to be honest I wish life came with a manual!!

@Walnutwhipplease

we don’t turn the heating on, haven’t in the year we’ve lived in our flat. We use hot water for taps and the bath (shower electric). Our gas bill has been ~£50 per quarter for all of our bills so far.
we are lucky in an upper flat that we will be somewhat heated by below. We wear dressing gowns and sit with blankets on when it’s cold. We are tight and begrudge paying for things like heating. We do pay more for electricity but still relatively cheap ~£25 a month.

It can be done, I suffer when visiting family who whack the heating up.

Look into panel heaters - if you move you can take them with you.

Barnacles can you just do a test using your meter? Not working out the conversion but run your heating for 2 hours and record the numbers before and after then run your gas fire for 2 hours and work out which one used less gas?

We just got the kuddlys. Buy one get one free. Cheaper than to oodie if you need two but very similar if you read the reviews. Not as many patterns.
You can buy cheaper versions that are diff material from Primark and Amazon.
I am planning to wear mine over my thermals and body warmer!

@MnPrem Good idea. But I'll wait until we need that 'test heat' in the house. I'm going to try and get to to November. We shall see! Doesn't help that we have gas and electric prepayment meters so it's harder to do these tests and absorb the cost without taking the hit.

@EmptshelvesUK thanks for the tip!

You're on to a winner there @ObjectionHearsay ...wont be scrimping for much longer if you can find that golden nugget 🤣