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.

I'm not suggesting it is desirable to return to how we loved in the 70s/80s.... But here we are, and so it's helpful (to me) to feel it's manageable.

A few of my radiators don't work well hence having hot water bottles etc.

For a couple of years on very low income I rarely put the heating on when DC were at their Dads. So perhaps already used to managing a bit. I used to set the heating to come on an hour before we got up but the boiler is so noisy it would wake us up so we preferred to be a bit cold and get extra sleep.

I guess in the frosty weather we will want some heating though.

I bought fake oodies from Amazon (Sienna) Much cheaper. Quality doesn't look amazing but they look very warm.

@Walnutwhipplease 80% of our bills are the standing charge (ours is twice as high as London!) we do live in a modern house but so far there's been no dramatic increase in electricity cost it seems, minimal gas as summer

No, I wouldn’t be worried as I’m all about fleece blankets and hot water bottles.

However we’re having a baby in Oct and I know I’m supposed to keep the room at a certain temperature, so it’s unfortunate timing for us.

All the wfh ers will want to go to work to get warm.

Nope. The cost of travel is far more expensive!

So are you planning to not have your heating on at all?

Surely a house will get damp? If constantly freezing?

I'm worried as our fuel bills were higher than an average given for last year, and I didn't think we were that extravagant. We don't have the heating up high neither do I do 10 loads of washing a week like most MN , or have 3 showers a day!!

Almost every visitor that comes to our house complains it's cold and one babysitter had their coat on when we arrived home once!

I haven't really figured it out but I guess the £60 a month subsidy (or however it should be referred to) covers at least a bit of heating each day.

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.

Ours is usually on around 20°, my neighbours is 26° and it feels like a sauna in there. They are elderly though, so I think would need it warmer.

Good grief. Ours is set at 18, 19 if it’s very cold. I wouldn’t be able to breathe if much higher. It’s currently 23 indoors and it’s a lot too hot for me.

I thought this would be possible and then my mum reminded me that the standing charge is going to be higher.

Don't bother with fleece blankets, you need wool. Fleece isn't actually that warm.

I'm really worried about the heating this winter. Our bills went to £265 this month, more than double what it was, and it could go up again easily. I can't afford what I usually use and I am average (pretty much bang on average). I keep thinking I will stop using this, and then realising it's not that easy. So far this week it's been my hairdryer, only keeping one lamp on in the living room... timers for showers that kind of thing, I will keep going but feeling quite despondent about it, how much difference will that really make? I only use the oven if I am cooking for the entire family now, only boil the kettle if it's for more than one person.... already getting one more use out that pair of jeans to cut down on laundry. I was born in the 80s and brought up poor, in a cold damp house with asthma, it was bleak. I have a DC with type 1 diabetes and a cold house just isn't an option. I don't know what we are going to do really!

Anyway sorry for going on so much! I didn't realise how long that would be. I think the cold is hard but you sound prepared. It's just about lasting as long as you possibly can, but if it gets really bad, you've got no choice have you?

Although I'm in North of Scotland so maybe colder here? Hopefully easier where you are?

I never heat my house to more than about 19 or 20; I don't like the stuffiness of a really warm home... but I think people are forgetting just how cold it gets in the winter!

If you've not had the heating on all day and it's only 6degrees outside and it's been under 6 all week, the house might be 11 or 12 inside and that's cold! It's cold enough for washing and damp towels to never dry, for your bed to feel icy when you get into it, for every item in your house to feel cold to the touch when you get it out to use it. It's cold enough for fingers and toes to go numb and for noses to be icy.

And it's pretty miserable living like that, especially in a damp climate. Mould grows, condensation forms, it's not good for houses not to be heated a bit, esp when they're sealed air-tight, with modern insulation and glazing,

We are fortunate / unfortunate that the people we night our house off were preppers / end of world people. They moved to a bigger house because they needed more storage for their stock?!

The basement is set up so the walls are 12 inches thick,
There's a weird ventilation system where a flap at the top of the window flaps open when you open the main door, don't really understand that, he also designed a kind of nuclear bunker within the basement so you open a door behind the sofa and it's all lead lined. Cba dealing with that so we'll leave it.

There's a well that feeds the house so we pay a kind of standing charge to the utilities company but it's ours and not theirs so I don't get that. There's a uv water treatment filtration that works weirdly!

Anyway! I'm getting to it. He was convinced the gas and electric companies were all going to go bust and they would cut us all off so The wood burners in the living room and the dining room are set up to heat the radiators and a separate hot water tank that you can switch on or off, and the boiler in the loft is a combi one so we can have hot water without the fires on but in the winter it's designed to be turned off completely and everything is heated by the stoves.

The gas bill is negligible and they left a generator because the village gets a lot of power cuts. I do worry about his mental health a bit to do all this to his house but it's saving us a small fortune!

When we came to view the house the wood burner in the bedroom was on because it was January and I've got to say I've never had the balls to use that one but I might this year.

We've also got a solid fuel Aga so we might let that go out / cook on the living room wood burner like spaghetti or something. But I haven't decided yet about that.

British Gas told us that we were costing them money because we use our gas so little.

We just had our latest gas and electric bill. 81 days between may and august. Gas was £73 and electric £210. There are only 2 of us, 1 WFH and fans and an occasional air con unit running when it was really hot.

Gas is only used to heat the hot water at this time of year and enough for 2 showers in the morning.

On the really hot days my DH was running the air con unit which cost £5 a day extra to run.

I'm dreading him wfh in the winter. We've already had rows about it as he refuses to wear a jumper at home. He is only comfortable if he's wearing a t shirt.

I was wfh last winter and just wore a pair of thick slippers, a lovely warm wrap and turtledove fingerless gloves if it was really cold. I didn't turn the heating on at all during the day.

He honestly won't comprehend how much the bill is going to be until it actually happens. He has said he'll pay more of the bill but I really don't think he realises how much it'll cost.

@User45446 that's really high and I can hear how worried you are. It's really difficult to understand the huge difference in household bills.

@Suzy14837 I do think you are right about forgetting how cold it gets. My house gets really damp and mouldy.

@fannyfan your house sounds interesting!!! I don't know whether the previous owner was exhibiting extreme anxiety or was ahead of the game!

All round to @fannyfan ’s then!

fannyfan, refrain from cooking dishes involving boiling liquids or sauces on your burner in the livingroom unless you have good ventilation. You'll create a lot of condensation and humidity, which may turn into a mould problem.
The modifications to your house sound like the workings of an inspired, yet troubled man.

Me and my parents are going to alternate spending the day at each others houses each Saturday/Sunday so we can each turn our heating off and not cook much for 4 days per month. Perhaps people have nearby friends/neighbours they can double up with to do some thing similar?

I'm a doomed 90s child

^

I bet you have Spotify and like a Starbucks, dontcha

I agree fleeces aren’t terribly warm. Wool is where it’s at - and forget the £2 acrylic hats from primark - worse than a paper bag. Forget pretty slippers, if you can get sheepskin great - if not, get a proper pair of granny slippers with a thick sole.

iMO damp is an issue if you DONT open the windows. My ex is equally “frugal” (heats one room on a timer), but his house stinks of damp and has mildew because he just won’t crack a window. Doesn’t need to be all day - even 10 minutes when you’re having your morning coffee.

my big money-Saving job will be to shrink my fingers to the size of a child to adjust the thermometer on the hot water tank as it comes out too hot to use. Otoh you don’t want it too low or you risk legionnaires.

for those of you with crap central heating and ineffective radiators - portable oil radiators are your friend and very cheap to run.

@Walnutwhipplease I think it was paranoia l

I'm buying some thermals, I've already got a couple of heated blankets. If it gets too cold I'm going to go back to bed, I'm disabled & housebound. I'm going to buy a thermal cooker, you cook your ingredients on the hob until they are simmering, then put the metal inner in the thermal outer, seal & leave for up to 8 hours & your food is cooked, hardly any gas & no electric.

OP
My gas bill is £15pcm in the summer and £120 in the winter on a December 2021 tariff. This means my summer bill on current variable rates would be about £27 (similar to yours) and my winter bill (excluding the Jan 2023 rise) would be about £400pcm - and often we feel cold at home in the winter.
We absolutely can’t budget based on summer bills if you’ve got gas central heating.