only heat the room you are in

[Willmafrockfit]

this is my dm
i think she has read this
she is in her late 80s, she is getting help from the government, being a pensioner
for gods sake heat your house!

i think she loves being a martyr but it is driving me mad!

My mum is similar age and has always done this. Maybe it is also a generational thing. Central heating was not always around.

but it is dangerous in old age.

Is it if they are staying warm in the room?

It's more dangerous for the house itself at these temperatures. Increased damp, mould, doors can swell, moisture in the walls. She could cause some serious long term damage to the structure of the house.

I have always only heated the room that I'm in?

regardless of the cost ? @Soothsayer1

I've never had problems with damp or warped doors etc if that's what you mean Wilma?
It just seems wasteful to heat rooms if there's no one in them, just like I wouldn't deliberately leave the tap running or go out and leave all the lights on, no matter how much money I've got I still don't like waste, probably to do with my upbringing 🤷

i guess my dm is just having a competition with herself!

I think this is what people used to do. I remember being in my Grandfather's house in winter - we would all be in the kitchen, which was warm. I used to dread going out into the rest of the house which was dark and cold, to get to the toilet, which was arctic.

It didn't do him any harm - he lived to be 97.

It might piss your boiler off? I don’t know, but I vaguely remember us breaking one a while ago by turning radiators down too much, and leaving just one on.

My mum is the same. Her house has always been below 10 degrees in the winter..she never has any light on either. She has lots of money and I think she shorten life with her frugal lifestyle but that's her choice really. She only eats the cheapest ready meals now too. It's not because she can't afford it. She was a post war child so I think that's part of it.

Ironically she sleeps in her coat at 8 degrees buy won't come to me for Christmas as she can't stand being cold. She's never visited my house to see if it's cold!

same with no lights on
post war, or war time child i agree

Oh yes I remember a plumber warning me about that, he said it's very important to have at least one radiator which cannot be turned off because if you turn them all off it will damage the boiler in a very bad way.
My place is small and well insulated, I only put the heating on for about an hour and a half a day in total probably if it's cold, I turn it on and five minutes later im too hot and I have to go and turn it off. I wear a hat indoors from October to march generally, I'm sure it's good for your hair follicles 😁

I'm old. I have the gas fire on in my living room AND the central heating. I buy my ready-meals and booze from Waitrose. I see no point in being a martyr for no good cause. I also remember the war and the hideous winter of 1947 with power-cuts and snow lingering all spring.

I do this. Same with lights. If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to eat. It's just the facts for my situation.

My parents are the opposite, it’s like the Bahamas at theirs!
I only heat rooms I’m using, it’s seems wasteful to heat rooms I’m not going to use. I also only put lights on when it’s going dark. Ex used to drive me insane with turning lights on all the time.

Im definitely not a war time child, I’m 50.

To be fair I grew up without central heating. A lot of countries don't have it including where I am from. It's perfectly fine to heat a single room.

Obviously this doesn't work in families where people are in different rooms. For us, teens in bedrooms and us in lounge of an evening, so the heating goes on then.

We both wfh in the day in separate rooms, and do not have heating on though in the day, just of a morning and night. We wear Oodies, fingerless gloves etc.

Yes. If the money is there to protect the fabric of your home from the effects of cold and damp, including the spread of health hazardous mould - and allows people to freely potter around their homes rather than being more sedentary and confined in one single room, then heating the home reduces a number of risk factors dangerous to health, physical and mental wellbeing.

I just heat downstairs and the heat rises, taking the edge off the cold upstairs and stopping it from getting damp. I do have a small house though.

My DM doesn't even heat the room she's in 🙄

Good grief how did we ever survive before central heating was invented?
People used their initiative, that's how!! They didn't just sit there and slowly freeze to death.
Who would have thought they knew about hot water bottles, hot bricks, draught excluders, heavy curtains , layers of blankets, eiderdowns?

My late dad used to be tight with his heating. He turned the central heating off and had just an oil-filled radiator in his living room. I got fed up using an icy toilet. It reminded me of my childhood when we had an outside loo. In the end I told him I refused to visit any more unless it was warm enough that I didn’t have to keep my coat on. He had more than enough money to pay for his heating. Mind you, there were times when he argued the toss when I said ‘fine, keep it off. I don’t want you spending my inheritance. More for me when you go’. 😂

i might try that tack @AppleDumplingWithCustard

Excess winter death was huge despite the smaller population size.