Heating

[forwhatitsworth22]

Im fed up of washing away black mould because my heating isn't on enough to warm my house through. So sod it it's going on and it will be on so my house is warm and dry. I'll over deal with the debt over spring and summer and keep my payments same all year round.

I think a lot of people will come to the same conclusion that keeping the heating off is going to cause more damage to properties and health than sucking up the cost, especially when the weather recently has been so wet and damp and with global warming is highly likely to continue to be. A lot of people on other threads are saying dehumidifiers are working well in warming the air a little and soaking up condensation. We are just having ours on between about 6pm and 10pm and not at all in the mornings yet.

Ours is on, slightly lower and shorter times then last year, but it's enough for us and will go up if it needs to. Yes it's more expensive then it used to be, but there are many other things I'd rather cut back on then be cold and miserable for months on end.

I think it also depends on the house. Mine is terraced but 200 years old.

I am trying to balance our heating. Never going above 18.5 degrees.

I have bought a dehumidifier to tackle a back bedroom with two outer walls and an intermittent leak in the corner no one can locate

I'm obsessed with the amount of water it sucks out of the air. Litres of it. I'm carrying it around the house to help dry out laundry faster and dry the bathroom after showers.

The air seems to smell fresher and I'm hoping when we get another summer heat wave it will make it more bearable.

If I had a large 200 Yr old detached house I'd have to keep the heating on more otherwise there would possibly be mould or damp all over the place

The back bedroom has seen a significant difference with the dehumidifier and it no longer has a musty smell

Yes, it definitely does depend on the type of house you live in. There have been threads where people people who live in new, very well insulated houses express surprise that people in period properties might be cold…

I am in an old terrace and it does need heating. I am just being a lot more careful with it. Putting it in for fewer hours and at a lower temperature. And I also use a dehumidifier.

Mine is 1920s built semi, as have found if I don't have it on I'm cleaning up black mould, I'm not living like that so it's going on

First thing to try to figure out is whether you have a heating problem or a humidity problem.

The answer (and most cost effective solution) is probably a bit of both.

I've recently bought a dehumidifier. I am lucky that the house isn't particularly humid anyway (no condensation), but I did find that the mini humidity meters I was using were on 70% which is about the maximum reasonable value the humidity should be (I actually think they read high but that's another story).

What I've found is that the dehumidifier not only removes water but also slightly heats the room - all the power it uses ends up as heat. It also makes colder temperatures feel better - before when the house got down to really low temperatures the air felt cold and clammy, but with the dehumidifier that's no longer the case and i can keep the temperature lower than it would have been before without it feeling too bad. A dehumidified lounge at 15C feels a lot better than a non dehumidified one at 17C to me.

Of course you have to match up the cost of the dehumidifier vs the heating. My dehumidifier is about 5p an hour. But a lot of that 5p ends up as heat as well as dehumidification.

If I had a large 200 Yr old detached house I'd have to keep the heating on more otherwise there would possibly be mould or damp all over the place

My house is older but mould and damp weren’t the reason we turned the central heating on last week. Internal humidity was around 45%. It was because I was cold.

From what I have read on here, much modern houses are just as (perhaps more) susceptible to high humidity issues.

We are at home 24/7 as I am a sahp of a toddler and hubby works from home. We have come to the same conclusion that we just need to keep warm (esp as of toddler), so will deal with it in the summer. We downloaded the hive app and it is telling me we have the heating on between 3.5-5.5 hours a day, costing between 5-10 pounds a day. So far this month it's cost us 118.00.

Not sure how that is working out compared to a general household. Our house is a late 1920s with a raised wooden floor over a void.

Only been a couple days and my house is already warmer and feels a lot less damp.
Ours is also over a void so there's always been damp spots but not as many as there has been whilst heating has been off

I've started using the heating for short periods now, and I'm using a dehumidifier if there's washing drying. I'm also more diligent about opening windows when I can to air rooms.

I am still determined to use MUCH LESS energy this winter, but I can afford to turn it on when I need to, but dehumidifier is more useful at the moment.

We haven't had heating on yet - we're running a dehumidifier 24/7 for a few weeks until we can get humidity down from 70% - 55% - can't afford to run both! It does slightly warm up the house but I must say.. I have started to use hot water bottles if I'm particularly cold.

Next time you redecorate factor in the price for insulated lining paper. I can feel a big difference between my walls that have it and those that don't.