Do you sometimes just heat the living room?

[roisin]

I'm just asking because my mum's house doesn't have central heating, but does have a few radiators heated by back boilers behind the two fireplaces.

The result is in winter most of the house is very cold, but the living room is snug and cosy with a roaring fire.

One consequence is people are more community minded, rather than separating off into different rooms all over the house, which is nice.

But another great thing was that when ds2 went to bed (with a hot water bottle) he stayed there [rather than getting up and playing with toys and so on or generally mucking about] and so went to sleep much earlier, and so was more pleasant for the whole of the following day(s).

We do have a nice flame-effect gas fire thing in the living room, but in practice never use it, but instead heat the whole house all the time.

We heat the whole house, but sometimes in winter after the heating has gone off in the evening, we will put the fire on the in living room.

We heat the whole house too. But we don't have a fire. One of the radiotors upstairs needs bleeding and isn't getting to the temperature it should, boy is it cold BBRRRR.

just reread my post fire on in the living room

So what time does your heating go off in the evening?

around 8.30 ish

We have a multifuel stove in the living room and we burn mostly wood. It's so cosy. We do have the heating on in the other rooms at key times, but for most of the day the rest of the house is like a fridge. Getting the stove is the best thing we've done to the house. It feels much nicer than central heating, has saved us a lot of money, and we're spending much more time together than before.

We only heat the living room and dp study, we just cant afford to do the whole house. The rest of the house is freezing though

Depends, I heat the rooms the mindees use during the day, but in the evenings, only the living Room and Bathroom and that is only because the bathroom radiator is gravity filled.

I quite like this idea. I tend to be the coldest person in the house anyway, but am happy to cuddle up with a hot water bottle and a blanket!

I will need to get the gas fire checked first though, as we haven't used it in ages and I'll have to work out how to re-programme the central heating.

We have no heating in the sitting room and use a halogen heater there, but it's still freeeeeeezing. The bedrooms have huge radiators which are turned off, but the rooms are somehow quite warm anyway; too hot in fact and I have to have the window open! Even last night, I was sweating in bed with the summer duvet, so I opened the window, which dh closed later because he was too cold. We can't get it right at the moment. But we all huddle in the sitting room, swathed in airline blankets/sleeping bags and it's nice.