Cheaper ways to keep a home warm this winter

[Griselinia]

Currently on oil, prices of which are already crazy.
Looking for ideas for safe, effective cheaper ways to heat the house this winter.
DH wants oil heaters in every room. I'm concerned about the smell and the DC burning themselves on them.
Infra red panels? Splash out on a Dyson? Get over my fear of electric blankets?

@NotMeNoNoyou could buy a single electric blanket for your side of the bed and/or add an extra single duvet for your side. You can get dual control electric blankets.

electric throws are single size too.

I think if you use lots of electric radiators you may as well just use your oil heating anyway as electric is not much better than oil and oil heating is very efficient. It's hard seeing it in a lump sum, but I'd probabl focus on just using that wisely and working out the best schedule for it.
Also the usual things blankets, thick socks, warm pyjamas, oodies or equivalent (online home shop does a good and much cheaper version). Candles and warm lighting can also just make a room feel warmer generally I feel, we do also have a new log burner so can keep the lounge cosy easily with that.

Is that not a carbon monoxide risk?

I put in a log burner and it paid for itself in 5 years.

These are all good ^^

We do not have "non dishwasher stuff" I get up in the middle of the night and put everything in the dishwasher because we are on economy 7. I need the loo anyway and the cat gets up and goes out about 1am.

Keep looking for draughts and blocking them - they are the reason your house goes cold.

Don't work from home... have long showers at the gym?

Insulate your roof space.

We have a battery but no solar panels, this is the only way it makes financial sense.

El Nino will bail us out this year, global warming is good.

I've no idea! We've had it for years and there is a carbon monoxide monitor in the next room which I think would pick it up.

Its only used during the day by DH in his study and we used it in the sitting room years ago.

Its an indoor heater. Made by calor gas. We love it.

We try to keep ourselves warm (rather than have the heating on all the time) by wearing warm clothes and thick socks and moving about. Star jumps and doing the hoovering is very effective at making me warm!! I try to go into the office as much as I can during the week. We have a little plug in heater which is good for heating my home office if I'm home alone, instead of heating the whole house.

Some good ideas thanks everyone and haha yes @CapitolBell come on el nino!

I would have a google. CO monitor would need to be in the same room to be effective. Repeated exposure can still be harmful, although not as deadly as say falling asleep with CO being produced.

I spent the first year in my rented house with ridiculously patchy heating and hot water, due to poor gas pressure. It was freezing that first winter! I spent a lot of time in Aran jumpers and thermal leggings under duvets and blankets, occasionally with a hat on when it snowed.

It was an expensive outlay, but shutters over the windows helped to keep the heat in. You can really feel the difference in temperature when you open them in the mornings. If left shut in high summer when I'm at work, they keep the worst of the heat out, too. Thankfully, the boiler system has since been rectified... but I'm still looking to make my house much more efficient, and bills cheaper.

Do you have access to Channel 4 online? Guy Martin did a programme called House Without Bills, which looked at Passivhaus building and how to make your house much more efficient (including insulating, blocking draughts, triple-glazing and so on... anything to keep it warmer!).

@HikingHippo i never thought about it before. Thanks for the tip

I run a humidifier near me while I’m working at home alone, it throws off a lot of heat. Also wear boot slippers, fingerless mittens, many layers.

No worries, I presume you like your husband and aren't trying to finish him off 😆 Im a bit paranoid because our boiler is in our bedroom and I hate it! And hear every year about someone dying by cooking on a butane stove in a tent/caravan etc. Moving the CO monitor should be sufficient 😊

@HikingHippo 😂

Dehumidifier? A humidifier would make the room harder to heat.

that’s the one.

Whatever you plan to buy, do it right away. As soon as the first cold spell kicks in, things will start selling out and you will be left with the less good/more expensive alternatives until new stock arrives. Buying now, you will have your pick.

Ditto if you have been putting off having your heating serviced. Test it now, don't wait till it is actually cold.

(I am a huge fan of portable oil rads - very efficient, cheap and effective. I have one under my desk and I can be snug as a bug all day working with a few short blasts of that. Also "heat the person not the house" to an extent - you need to do enough to not harm any central heating or fabric of the building)

My percentage of hot water bottles that have scalded me or leaked is 0%

The percentage of electric blankets that have ended their days with a burn out hole in the fabric 100%

It your really worried use a microwave one, but water ones stay warm much longer

Definitely don’t splash out on a Dyson if your goal is saving money! A Dyson hot+cool is essentially just an expensive 2,000W fan heater in fancy packaging. Running one still costs around 52p every single hour under standard electricity rates.

Putting oil radiators in every room will also make your electricity bill spiral, especially with little ones touching them.

Regarding electric blankets / heated throws: Modern ones are genuinely fantastic and very safe. Look for ones with:

• Automatic shut-off timers (usually 1, 2, or 3 hours)
• Overheat protection
• Detachable controllers so they can be machine washed

The math is honestly what won me over:
• Running a typical 2,000W space/fan heater: ~52p per hour (adds ~£180+ over 90 days if used 4 hrs a day).
• Running a 100W heated throw on the sofa: ~2.6p per hour (under £10 for the entire winter).

Heating the body directly while watching TV or working from home instead of warming empty room air saves an absolute fortune.

If you want to check the exact running costs of your specific heaters, oil radiators, or other appliances under current Ofgem price caps, there is a handy free tool here:
👉 voltmetricpro.com

It gives you the exact cost per hour and per month so you can plan before winter kicks in. Hope that helps!

Lakeland electric blankets and throws feel pretty safe to me - I don’t buy them from anywhere else though.

I had thermostatic radiator valves and changed them to Hive thermostatic radiator valves. I can programme the Hive valves to only heat that radiator part of the day

You can get rechargeable hot water bottles now

Thank you for this. Very useful.

https://www.boots.com/silentnight-comfort-control-heated-throw-9-heat-settings-natural-10351899?traffic=paid.shopping

Looking forward to hot DW!

Those saying only heat the rooms you use. I did this and the backs of my curtains had mould marks on them.