To wonder how long the no heating brigade will last when it turns cold?

[womaninatightspot]

I’ve been contemplating how much I can reduce the heating and electric throws. It’s chilly here today, sixteen degrees, but grey and drizzly. I’ve lit the wood stove, I do have a cold so maybe I feel more susceptible to chills.

I feel like I’ve fallen at first hurdle. Definitely going to be keeping one warm room in the house so it’s not just really unpleasant for the dc. I’ve recently paid 365 for four cubic metres kiln dried wood but it’s going to cost 1K to fill the oil tank for 1000 litres. Was a third of that last year.

Saturday in the infamous middle aisle. I think they started off at 24.99 or 19.99 so had been substantially reduced. I think it’ll be hit and miss as to where has leftover stock though.

I thought about buying one as a gift but didn’t.

I have only ever heated my home for 3 hours each evening. I’ve done that forever and I’ll just continue to do that as anything less is too unpleasant.

I have literally never heated my house before 5pm ever. It’s a cold house too. I reflected on this and we were quite poor as kids and never had that much heating. So the thought of turning it on the day was always too indulgent for me.

We're starting to use the heating now the sun isn't shining enough to get hot water and that the weather has turned colder.

Dh and I are making do with a HWB and blankets during the day when WFH (we both do some at home, some office, every week).

But we are having an hour or 2 in the evening. I had the fire on Tuesday night (used 2 logs) instead. Heating is on a thermostat and set to drop from 18 to 16 at 9pm, and 12 overnight. We also keep it at 16 in daytime (but as I said earlier, haven't needed rads on yet, just about).

So we will continue to be sensible with it. And wear plenty of layers etc before hitting the switch. We haven't yet turned it on for the half hour in the mornings we usually have in winter.

My thermostat is set at 15 during the day, today was the first time it kicked in during the day as the temperature dropped lower.

Gas for last week was £18 Wednesday to Wednesday, next week I expect it'll be more if the temperature is dropping and the heating kicks in. just have it on 30 minute in the morning and 90 minutes in the evening to 17

Using hot water bottles, throws and candles, the later just gives a cosy affect

Our front room was 13.8° earlier on! 🥶 I put the heating on for an hour and adjusted the times for later to try to not use too much gas today.

The room I'm working in was about 16.5°, so I have a blanket, fingerless gloves and a hot water bottle.

Looking at the weather, it doesn't seem to (here) be rising above single digits on the weekend - so that will be when I'll need to test how well we can cope.

My kind-of-half-a-plan is to one day use the gas fire for a set amount of time (which is obviously more intense but heats a smaller area), and then another day use the CH for a set amount of time (whole house but lower intensity), and see what the difference is.

I have tried to investigate the gas fire vs. the central heating.

My gas fire is about 40p and hour on low and 80p on max. The CH is about £1.30. I get about 3 degrees C temperature rise across most of the house from the CH on for one hour (and a tank of hot water), but from the gas fire on low I am lucky to get 1 degree C in the lounge only. I haven't measured the temp rise on high yet.

I think this is because my gas fire is very inefficient. A lot of the heat goes into the outer wall and up the flue, and it isn't one of the new modern ones with the glass front.

Succumbed !

Cost us £8 to have heating on 19 degrees for nine hours 😳

What!? 😱

My dp won’t have the heating on, I actually didn’t want it on either because I have eczema and it makes my skin flare up but now my house is getting mouldy 😠 which I will have to bleach tomorrow.

I prefer wearing thermal clothes/socks and getting under the covers. I’d recommend eBay/Amazon for thermal clothes they are amazing.

It would cost me about double that.

Wow that’s shocking, I had no idea (I haven’t been heating house yet but was thinking about it - definitely won’t now)!

@Miss03852 same here. Cost double rang at just over £2ph heating

That’s cheap @CrispsnDips

how did you work that out or are you on a low rate

but at 10p per kWh and for us 32kwh equals 1 metre reading and using last month 1 a day roughly heating for us 30am and 60pm so 1.5 hrs is about £3.20 so about £1.06per 30m and £2.13 for an hour

I was visiting my parents this week. Thermometer said 11 degrees inside the house at 8am.

11 degrees is freezing, well not really but you know what I mean. I have succumbed to some sort of back to school lurgy and I can't shake off a cold, blocked sinuses, head full of cotton wool wfh yesterday (15 degrees in the house) and I felt dreadful and had to put it on for an hour. Working from work today and it'll be toastie so that'll be nice but petrol costs...

Not on a low rate

Our home costs us £2.50 per day when we’re not here : fridges, freezers, wine cooler

I have been experimenting with running the dehumidifier instead of putting the heating on, except for half an hour or so in the evening.

The house is chilly, but because the air is dry it isn't too bad. The dehumidifier costs around 22p per hour to run (and only runs intermittently so overall cost is less than that) the CH somewhere between £1.20 and £1.50.

@ClaudineClare

I’m desperate to get a dehumidifier as my house is getting mould, I saw one on Amazon though for £50 and it said in the description that it had to be ideally above 15 degrees in home to work, are they all like this? What brand do you have?

it said in the description that it had to be ideally above 15 degrees in home to work

They are heat pumps and get less efficient as the temperature drops. They still work to a degree.

@Miss03852 I have a Meaco Zambezi that I bought a few years ago. My house is currently 14.8 degrees in coldest part and it still seems to work. But I will check the manual as I didn't know there might need to be a minimum temperature.

Just checked, operating temp is between 1 and 37 degrees C.

Ok thanks, I think the minimum temperature just means it doesn’t work aswell not that it doesn’t work at all

Then @CrispsnDips how can it cost you £8 for 9 hrs of heating

Still have no used any heating in London. I usually only turn it on once or twice a year on the rare occasions that it snows.

Have done that for years.

Maybe I am my own micro-climate but I literally am wearing tee-shirt indoors and often outdoors at the moment.

Maybe she has a smaller home and fewer radiators?