For those who can't afford to use central heating this year - How are you going to cope?

[mama2moo]

We have 2 dd's - 3yo and 20mo and already owe money to our suppliers. We are going to have to be careful with not using the heating too much but our house is feeling cold already!

We have bought thermal vests, fleece pjs, fleece tops and extra duvets.

What else can we do?

TBH Im dreading it. By the 3rd week of every month we are skint at the moment.

The French governement provide us with a wonderful website where you can look at the evolution of the price of domestic heating oil since the 80's.

We need a minimum of 2000l to get comfortably through the winter, this year we're aiming to use half that. For the sake of argument, I'll give you the price for 1000l each time.

In 1985: ?460 (330 without tax)
In 1988: ?28

Then it rises steadily to ?330 in 1999 and jumps to ?460 the following year.

The taxes increase heavily at around the same time.

In 2010 it was around the ?700 mark.

I called last week to see how much it's at right now: ?900 (?700 without tax, now tell me the gvmt can't do more to help).

HumanCatapault I know that. :) And the house I grew up in (in northern Minnesota, no less, where -40 is the norm in deep winter) had no central heating, just a woodstove. I just meant that the heat I have now is not legally allowed to be turned off between October and April. It used to be turned off in April of every year and then we got our taxes back we'd use them to pay the massive heating bill. Last year we managed to keep up with the payments for the first time and felt quite posh.

Ormirian c'mon over! :o

Oh dear god, HumanCatapault, is the oil still not sorted. Good grief, I was thinking about you only the other day and hoping you'd now got a supplier who would deliver or a landlord who'd meet his legal obligations to provide a safe tank.

By the way, do you know about wheelchair cosies? Though for indoors a fully zipped sleeping bag might be as good. I don't know if you feel the cold much in your legs, but keeping them toasty might help keep your core temperature up.

That was a very self-pitying post of mine earlier ...sorry 'bout that.

Right, Lemsip has kicked in, the house is now lovely and warm, and I am resolved to carry on...We get our log-burning stove in two weeks

I have co-opted DS2's fluffy toys into the austerity drive. We have 2 giant snakes, a dragon and a crocodile, all of which are perfect as draught excluders. I'm avoiding the temptation to nail them to the bottom of the door, as advised by MIL.

X-boxes chuck out an amazing amount of heat. DS1 is in an insulated log cabin at the bottom of the garden. He hasn't has to switch his radiator on yet, as the x-box is such an effective space heater.

Haven't got time to read all the thread now so apologies if already answered.

How do you stop draughts at the external doors? Our doors are crap and the air just rushes through them, we even get rain and snow through the gaps. It needs to be easy and cheap to do as I'm not very DIY good and we are hoping to move next year so can't spend a fortune on something we won't use for long

we have only just put the CH on, that is all we have as well. I am loathe to mess with ity but even though it can be freezing in here it only comes on at 22-23 . My mum has hers set at 16 all winter but if we did that it would nevr come on.
We don't have it on overnight either just between 6am and 11pm. In the night we have dc's in our bed and lots of blankets.
Was brought up in very draughty wooden house with just 2 coal fires so have been there with no heating through blizzardy winters. I know we can survive but I always make sure we are warm, I hate the cold

Debs you can duct tape blankets over them. Or use rolled towels, etc, along the bottom.

Already have my heating on
need advice. Live in a georgian flat with venetian windows like <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.maintainyourchurch.org.uk/Portals/0/Glossary7/Imj822.jpg&imgrefurl=www.maintainyourchurch.org.uk/Toolkits/Toolkit1Glossary/tabid/54/Filter/V/Default.aspx&h=657&w=717&sz=112&tbnid=3RpoXePU8w-knM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=129&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dvenetian%2Bwindow%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=venetian+window&docid=h1bBqmkyke2_IM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_jWgTsOQLMWa8QPg7aD1BQ&ved=0CE4Q9QEwAw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this but have no idea what window dressing to use in lieu of curtains. We rent the flat and when we moved in there was nothing on the window other than shutters on the rectange part of the windows. Any ideas? I can feel huge draughts coming from there already and would like to make it a little cosier in here as it a big old room.
Also apologirs if already answered up thread, i have a boiler which has no time on it, what is most cost effective way of me using the heating as it is always freezing around 5 am but don't want to have to hAve it on all night, nor do I want to get uo at 5 to switch it on.
Thanks

Sorry for typos, cold fingers

debs draught excluders at the opening (bottom, letterbox and side) also perhaps a curtain which you cam drae. Think it has been mentioned up thread

cam drae can draw!

If there are holes actually through the door panels, fill them with Ronseal wood filler or cover the whole inside of the door with the clingfilm stuff for windows.

Or if you don't mind an ugly solution which will be hard to reverse, go to B&Q, buy some Gripfill glue and a sheet of rigid insulation board eg Celotex, and glue the board to the inside of the door. It's easy to cut with a sharp knife, so you could cut round letterbox, etc.

If there are draughts round the door, then glue or nail on draught excluder strips (B&Q, Homebase or Stormguard) and then put up a portiere rod or swinging curtain, as linked upthread.

Btw, the only skills need to put one of those up are
a) holding it straight
b) wielding a screwdriver
c) if you really, really can't find space to screw it into the wooden doorframe, using a drill to make a hole in the wall to stick a rawlplug in.

This blog post on top tips for preparing for a cold winter might be useful for you

aah - you can screw into the door frame !
i can manage that .

Big fan of electric blankets here, very cheap to run, modern ones can be left on all night if necessary and so good to get into a toasty bed. (live in Victorian flat
with sash windows and high ceilings).

For anyone who has to order oil, try boilerjuice.com. There's a poster further up the thread saying that 1000l of oil costs over £800 whereas I've just checked and for delivery in the next 10 days to our area is £608. I think it does depend on where you live though and the number of deliveries that they're doing in your area - if more people order at the same time then the price goes down further.

Hayley can you not get some material on the cheap and run up up some basic curtains for yourself? Perhaps with a cheap fleecy liner? If you have them open during the day, no one will see/care. Also, you can tape up the edges of the windows with plumbing tape to stop major draughts. If you've got no timer on your boiler, there's not a lot you can do I don't think. I would turn it on about 8pm, off at about 10:30pm or before you go to bed and pile up the blankets as others have suggested. Or, just keep it on over night but keep it low and just in in yours and the DC's room?

If I have to tumble dry, I put my clothes horse packed with clothes in front of it and close the door to keep in the residual heat.

If cooking in the kitchen with the oven on, shut the door, and sit with Dc's in the kitchen as long as you can after with the oven door open, keeps you nice and warm, try and spend time out in the library, shopping centre, wherever you can effectively "steal" heat for free or visit family

I think, i prefer if i need to, to put it on for maybe a couple of hours before the lead up to bed. So maybe 6-8 or something, leaving it still warm for you going to bed later on.

I've just put some stick-on draught excluder at the bottom of my front door. It cost about £2 from Aldi and I noticed the reduction in draft with immediate effect :)

Reading this thread with interest, its brilliant

My house is fffffffffffffffreezing at the moment. Luckily i'm at work tonight but my poor kids are left in the cold

The last couple of winters have been a problem, i still owe all of the last quaters fuel bill and not sure how i'll be paying that yet....

We have stupid storage heaters which eat money and give out hardly no heat. I haven't used my tumble dryer for two years and i do all the tricks you've mentioned. Apart from going down to 30 degree wash and making flasks of drinks so i'm not always boiling kettle, i will be doing these two things now.

I also wear my dressing gown over my clothes in the house, a cheap fleecy one and it works wonders. Can't insulate my walls as its wood framed so no cavities but need to look into insulating the loft at some point.

I've got one of those heaters you put on the wall, electric and i'm sure it said it only costs a few pennies an hour to use it....i use that everynow and then, like when its snowing!!

I don't know how much it does cost to run an oil radiator, but wouldn't take notjustme's figures as representitive. They work on a thermostat - click on and off to keep a room constant temp - if two are being used in a shed, ie very draughty and uninsulated, they would be on full tilt all the time so using much more power than they would in your home.
My boiler is broken, wont be fixed for weeks as needs to be replaced (eeek!) and probs with water main needs doing first. I have just borrowed an electric heater to take the edge off bedroom for getting up/going to bed times. I have always been a fan of jumpers and blankets having grown up in a house with no heating and damp.
Key is to get one room warm in the morning and whole family gets dressed in there.

If you want to add more loft insulation you can buy it on offer through npower at the moment. Don't think you have to be an npower customer. Here's the link:

www.npower.com/Home/Energy-efficiency/Home-insulation/DIY-loft-insulation/index.htm

Regarding storage heaters and those who are scared to turn them on. Sympathies! But I would suggest that you bite the bullet and put them on BEFORE it gets too too cold. If your houses are anything like ours, once they get really really cold it takes weeks to warm up again. I put our storage heaters on very low a couple of days ago - good thing too as it's been sub zero overnight already and we had snow yesterday.

Also I highly recommend getting a halogen heater. They heat up a room really quickly and because they glow they make you FEEL warm which is half the battle.

My DD is currently wearing 2 pairs of pyjamas and we're sitting under the sofa duvet. I have a big fleecy dressing gown, and a nice cup of tea.
I like the magnet over the keyhole idea, my door handle is unfortunately not magnetic, I have a curtain over the front door, and stacks of insulation.

Apologies if already been said as havent got time to read whole thread but I always use water left in kettle after making a drink for washing up/washing hands/cleaning whatever. Before I run hot tap I always check first theres no hot water in kettle I can use up. Logic is you've already paid to boil that water and then its going to stand there going cold (unless you brew up every ten mins like my dad ) whereas if you run the hot your paying for boiler to heat more water. Also probably been covered but if you have electric cooker boil up veg potatoes etc an hour before meal then turn off at boiling point and leave on element. They will continue to cook till element cools and then till water cools then just bring back to boil later in day. Saves about ten minutes of having ring on full. Great thread got some good tips on here.

Sorry - if you run the hot tap. Also above tip also works on gas cookers just without the element of the element staying hot.