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!

She was a post war child so I think that's part of it

I'm a post war child (1954) and grew up in a house where we had radiators in hall, bedroom and kitchen and a gas fire in the sitting room, and we sprinted up to bed clutching HWB to sleep in cold bedrooms. The hell with that. I'm cold, the heating goes on.

I do switch off all unnecessary lights, though.

So many people died of consumption, pneumonia and flu before central heating. Small coal or wood fireplaces were used in the 4 main rooms in 2 bed terraces like mine - the indoor smoke pollution must have been terrible. It was rare to live to old age if you were poor with little heating or fuel.

We can't harp back to those days as if they were somehow ok. They were really difficult times to live in. People would go to their local public house to have a drink and keep warm in the olden day version of the 'community warm space'.

There was an initiative proposed by doctors a few years back to prescribe a new boiler on the NHS for patients that they knew would have huge benefits from heating their homes properly. They trialled it for a few patients and their health improvements saved the NHS literally thousand of pounds. Sadly it didn't catch on but it was a brilliant solution and I really wish this kind of social prescribing was the norm.

So many people died of consumption, pneumonia and flu before central heating.

In fairness that was in large part due to no antibiotics.

The NHS did trial prescribing a heated home recently for financially strapped patients whose illness was exacerbated by a cold home. I'll see if I can find a link.

Here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63707689

Not so long ago, everyone did. Central heating is relatively new. I didn’t have any until I left the family home and bought a new flat, in the 80s.

My boiler costs the same to run for 1 or 10 radiators! It's on for an hour in the morning 2 hours in the evening and maintains 18 degrees, fine if you wear a light jumper.

I don't understand why you would turn off the other radiators, it's a circuit? And running my boiler is cheaper per hour than one electric heater!

Fantastic news, thank you for the link - I'm so glad this is being expanded, it makes so much sense. That's cheered me today.

The reason many people's conditions improve in hospital is because they are warm and well fed. Like the article says, heating their homes improves certain health conditions much more effectively than with medicine alone.

Hospital is expensive, disruptive, lonely and unnecessary for certain conditions that just need tlc, warmth and good food, and like the woman in the article says - it meant she could be a mum again.

Brilliant.

@gogohmm
I’m interested in this question. Not sure if turning off a few radiators actually saves much? Maybe you’re losing less heat through radiators overall so less hot water needs to be heated.

I grew up in a house with gas fires in most rooms, the sitting room had a real fire. We only ever heated the room we were in as we don't have central heating and it wasn't put in until after I left home.

The house was built in 1870 and didn't have damp from not being heated with central heating and there wasn't mould on the walls. Being old it wasn't insulated with cavity wall and the roof had been replaced. It had drafts and I guess this ventilated the building.

We kept doors shut and the rooms we were heating were warm and you could feel a difference between the temperature int he room and the hallway outside.

For all this staying the house structure will suffer, how does it suffer and why had this house after 130 years not suffered from not having CH?

I work for a charity for the elderly. We are having numerous calls on our helpline daily from people sitting in cold houses because they are so worried about bills. We are giving out heat packs - wooley hats, hot water bottles, gloves etc. Yet some of these pensioners ( not all ) have had or expecting to have £1600 in extra payments from the government ( cost of living payments, money credited to electricity account, winter fuel payments etc), plus many of them on £93 disability payments a week. What is the money going on?I do understand that some can't get the house warm, I have one client whose house is so poorly insulated that he just can't get it above a certain temperature. We also have a team of people who are going round checking insulation, applying for insulation to be sorted quickly for people, giving out low energy lightbulbs etc to help older folk. There is a lot of help there. It's the working age people surviving on a very low amount of benefits that are worrying me more.

My BIL has just had his £500 winter fuel allowance as a pensioner - I know bills are expensive but the elderly have less reason to not have the heating on than lots of younger working people who don’t get govt handouts .

I grew up in the 80s and 90s we didn’t have central heating. We had storage shitty heaters and ice on the windows in bedrooms in very cold winter. we had hot water bottles.

BUT we had two bloody fires on all the time downstairs.

Just because people didn’t have central heating. They didn’t go without heating their homes and sucking it up. Fire and being warm has been around forever.

Iirr after reading:

Excess death in the winter was greater
House mould and damp was more common.

I grew up without central heating and it was often miserably cold. Ice inside the window in a morning, black mound was a fighting battle for my parents.

I remember the house being modernised and getting central heating. It was initially only downstairs and everyone spent their whole time in winter downstairs, only venturing upstairs for bed.

When we got CH upstairs it felt amazing!

So yes, people did cope but it didn't mean it was also pleasant.

For all this staying the house structure will suffer, how does it suffer and why had this house after 130 years not suffered from not having CH?

I wonder about this too. The house I grew up in only had one room heated. It wasn’t damp or mouldy. The house I live in now existed for 300 years before central heating was installed.

I heat the house when it is cold. Otherwise if nippy I use a gas flame heater in the kitchen area where I spend most of my time anyway! The heat those heaters throw out is incredible, and a bottle of gas is not expensive. Handy back up for power cuts also.

I do NOT EVER heat my bedroom though. Even in this cold weather I just do not like sleeping in an overheated/hot room. Far healthier for the breathing pipes too I think. Anyway, getting into a lovely warm bed (electric blanket) while the room is very cool is delicious. But I suppose the rest of the house is warm enough having had the heating on in the other rooms earlier. I would not scrimp on heating, there is nothing more miserable than feeling cold indoors.

I'm 66,grew up with no central heating and a freezing cold house, the bathroom was like an ice box. I've kept the heating on at 18c these last few days as quite frankly I'm more worried about the pipes freezing than the cost of heating the house. I also just find it miserable and soul destroying to be shivering in my own home.

I love sleeping in a cold room with lots of blankets and a hot water bottle😍
I remember having an electric blanket back in the 70's as a small child, I remember leaving it on by mistake quite a lot and than waking up roasting😬 I know they are popular & safer now but I love my hot water bottle😍

has she looked at her actual consumption and costs?. I was worried about my elderly parents and costs as they like the house pretty warm. With the winter fuel allowance plus extra payments they’re saying they have plenty this year to cover rising costs. I’m not sure if it actually will be the elderly by and large that struggle this year.

@Georgeskitchen they also didn't live as long....my DH (early 40s) has scared lungs from constant bronchitis through Winter in his early years living in a damp house with no central heating and black mould on the walls. Yes there are possibly ways to stay warmer but it isn't good for you and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

I'm not so sure about this mouldy business. My house is 300 years old and is so bloody leaky that there's no point putting the heating on as it goes straight out again. There's no sign of mould, though, and it hasn't fallen down yet.

Just as well, as I can't afford to heat it. I can see my breath now!

OP, I suspect your mum is being far more cautious than she needs to be, but it's probably so ingrained that you can't do anything about it.

This is nonsense. Rooms don’t fill with damp and mould because they don’t have radiators on. I’ve only ever heated the rooms that are being used and in 40 years on this planet have never experienced damp or mould. My parents are exactly the same and also have no issues with damp and mould.

inews.co.uk/news/mould-worse-heating-cost-of-living-crisis-1897148

Hmm, interesting.

I'm going to experiment tonight. Just turned every radiator on the house on. Will see if it costs more tomorrow than when the unused rooms are off.

I'm going to experiment tonight. Just turned every radiator on the house on. Will see if it costs more tomorrow than when the unused rooms are off.

be interesting 🧐

I had 3 rads turned off but now just the one turned off and don’t know if it makes a difference

60s child, grew up in a house with sizeable rooms and a long Minton tiled hall. The only heating were gas fires in the sitting room and dining room and a Dimplex radiator for the bedroom should you be unfortunate enough to have measles in midwinter. I remember the frost ferns inside the windows.

Still can't sleep in a heated room and menopause seemed to make me fairly impervious to cold permanently, but have had to edge the heating up this week. My grandmother (b 19th century) was also fitted for an ice flow. I'm not sure if it's genetic or just what you grew up with, but it isn't a sign of specialness and wanting to be warm is not a character flaw.