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.

Quick tip re drying washing for wet and cold weather. I do two lots of washing at home (slow cycle, low temp if possible). I use Nappisan to deal with germ issue on work clothes. I then take the washing to local laundrette where for anything between £1 and £1.40 both lots get dried (ont tumble dryer load). I usually just go for £1 and anything still a bit damp gets dried at home. Works well if you have a washing machine that spins fast (at least 1200 rpm, 1400rpm or more is fab).

All the time your hot water tank is above room temperature, it is losing heat to that surrounding air (nice and slowly, if it's well insulated).

If you just switch the tank on when you need it, then after your bath/shower the tank will contain a little left over hot water and all the new cold water. It will slowly lose any remaining heat to the room, but that amount will be small.

So you've only expended Energy-to-Heat-One-Tankful-From-Cold.

If you leave your tank on all the time, it will be losing heat all the time. So it will expend Energy-to-Heat-One-Tankful-From-Cold + Energy-Lost-to-Room.

Ie use more energy.

If you don't mind having your hot water tank double up as a slow radiator 24/7, eg to create an airing cupboard, by all means leave it on. But this certainly uses more energy than to heat from cold each time.

For pasta and rice I boil a kettle, put boiling water and pasta in a saucepan, bring to the boil again and then turn off the electric ring. With the lid on the pan, it generally cooks with no more heat.

Thank you Tianc. I think I will start to turn mine off every second day. For one thing, because i can't control the heat, it's generally plenty hot the second day if I do.

I am another one who cant afford to put the heating on much. I have a fleecy blanket, curtains are closed and I have a door curtain. I am a single parent on a low wage and not eligible for any help, I have asthma and the cold air makes me wheeze sometimes but I cant afford the high bills.
I really believe that the government is out of touch with real life and they have no idea whatsoever how hard it is.

after putting 30 pound on my prepayment gas meter this week i am going to try some of these ideas, have stopped putting heating on during the day, left oven door open earlier kitchen was lovely and warm. We have all the insulation cavity and loft,loads of blankets and fleece pjs and socks, i have used tumble dryer but i am trying to cut down. Have programmed heating timer for an hour in morning and 40 mins on a night and see how that goes. I am going to try only washing up twice a day to stop running water as much, lots of use full tips on this thread to try. We both work but are a low income family we do not get any help, im with you sockmunkee lots of people are suffering this year nothing seems to be getting any better.

Love the ideas on this thread!

This is what I did last winter, on tiny budget, which made huge difference to a very cold and draughty front room, and hall, in 100 year old terrace. House is sooo much warmer and cosier now

• put newpaper then an old pillow up the chimney ( can't afford to line chimney/buy log burning stove - tis on my Wish List!) stopped howling gales coming down Santa's Special Passage.

• papered the front wall (only outside wall in this room) with that thick polystyrene wallpaper. As only have single thickness of brick because it's an old house, this made big, big difference. Before this there always seemed to be a dampish coldness coming from this wall, now it's almost warm to touch even on a cold day.

• used that wonderful plastic film on the draughty bay window. What a difference! I am a hopeless DIY-er but this was incredibly easy to stick on, followed by a fabulous magic transformation when you heat up the crinkly plastic with a hairdryer and it flattens out so it's clear like glass. Loved it! I bought 2 packs from Wickes for only £13 total bargain.

• put up curtains at front and back doors, another huge difference. Used 2 very cheap black metal poles (from Ikea), easy to put up above the door frame, and you can carefully pull them into place when you leave the house. Bought the curtains from charity shop for £20: a pair of lined and interlined velvet curtains: one curtain per door. An ugly brown, but fantastically cheap, and what a change to the warmth in the house.

• used rolled up elderly towels across the bottoms of the outside doors.

Am going to try the velcro'd on letterbox cover. Can I suggest weighting your cover fabric at the lower edge? Maybe make a simple folded channel and put something heavyish into it? - eg, a metal rod of some sort, or coins, anything with a bit of weight to stop your fabric blowing up and not settling back down.

Off for warming - tis nearly the season to mull - how warming is that!

superdragonmama, that's interesting about the polystyrene wallpaper. I was just discussing with dh whether it would help if we papered the corner of our hall with it as its forever getting condensated and damp. Where did you get it from, if you don't mind me asking? Oh - and does it get dented easily?

We have a roll-end of wadding left over from insulating our campervan stuffed up our living room chimney!

Someone asked about minimum acceptable temperature. I would say 15-16 degrees is the minimum required for comfort, with jumpers and slippers thrown in. We used to struggle to heat our house to 14 degrees and when you get below that level you find you're shivering all the time and it is plain uncomfortable - also very tiring. If others are more hardy respect to you.

Re oil radiators - ALL electric heaters are expensive to run if your rooms are not well insulated. I can't sing the praises of good insulation enough. We used to find the heat leaked out of the bedroom as quickly as it was generated so of course it was really expensive. You would literally have a 2kW heater on full power almost continually trying to keep the temperature at an acceptable level. Since having extra roof insulation the heat builds up instead and after the initial warming up phase we can turn the heater down to absolute minimum and it keeps the room toasty with minimal use of power.

Hi Moose,

I bought the polystyrene wallpaper from local diy place, but have seen it in big chains too. Also, someone further up the thread gave a link to an online supplier, if you fancy a search

Don't know if this would tackle a damp corner though; guess it depends on why that corner is getting damp? (not a diy'er at all! sorry)

Ours is behind a sofa so can't be seen - doesn't appear dented yet though. I papered over the top of it with lining paper and it looks fine so far. And sooo warm

I feel the cold, especially when I'm tired, and buckle at 16'C. The DC, though can take it a lot colder. I've known them wander around the house in nothing but a t-shirt on top, when I can see their breath.

gaelicsheep, agree totally re insulating, makes such a big difference.

Also find that good draughtproofing makes huge difference to how comfortable you feel when you're sitting quietly - nothing like a chilly wind round your nethers to make you feel uncomfortable!

But you know, this is what makes my blood boil. Insulating is absolutely the key. But much of the housing stock in this country - including ours - has solid walls. And there are no grants available for insultation to solid walls despite the huge benefits it brings. We are trying to insulate our place bit by bit when we can afford it. Basically whenever the plasterboard comes off it doesn't go back without rockwool behind it. The roof was done when we scraped together the money to get habitable bedrooms upstairs (before that we were all sleeping in one room downstairs).

I gather the reason that there are no grants for insulating solid walled houses is because it's expensive, but that's why people need help even more! It's like living in topsy turvy world in this country sometimes!

Our living room was 13-14 degrees this evening and my 22 m.o. was running round with bare legs. I didn't find it too cold but I'd been cooking. The dehumidifier had been going though and we don't have many draughts.

A few more tips occurred to me:

• if you get cold arms at night (esp if you co-sleep / bf at night) then wrist warmers made from knee high socks with the toes cut out are brilliant if you tuck the ends of your PJ sleeves into them. I was so much warmer last night after doing that! :)

• plan activities for the right time. So do your washing before you start cooking so you can hang it up around the cooking heat. Put out the bins & recycling before putting on the heating on, rather than opening the door once things have got a bit warmer.

• try using a shorter washing machine cycle to freshen up not-too-dirty clothes to save energy.

• hang used but not-too-dirty clothes in a draught so they air off - means you don't have to wash them again so quickly and you don't have so much drying to do.

• irrespective of potty training status, fleece trousers are great for DC - keeps them warm and they're really quick to dry after washing, saving on heating then. There are patterns on the web if you google - I think they're pretty easy to make.

Anyone got ideas as to how to insulate the cupboard in the eaves of the loft bedroom? The door opens right onto the bed where my toddler sleeps. It was only put in 3 years ago but there seems to be quite a draught.

With regards to the acceptable temperature of a room in the dark corner of my memory I recall at school we had a classroom that had very little heating and three outside walls. The temperature regularly dropped to 12,degrees c. At the time it was illegal for classroom temperatures to drop below 14 degrees c and we weren't supposed to have lessons in there.

Totally agree gaelicsheep.

DH is v disabled and we applied for grants last year to insulate our house. Solid walls, v v cold to touch, heat flows straight out through them in the cold weather. We were offered draughtproofing for 2 external doors - already draughtproofed! - and loft insulation - loft already insulated. But nothing for the major problem: the cold walls. Ridiculous.

I think the minimum acceptable temperature varies hugely, not only according to the individual, but also what you're doing. The temperature downstairs today was 16, and that was ok (plenty of layers, lots of moving about, plus a 'how many times can you hop, mummy?' session, which worked wonders ). And during the night I'm happy for it to go as low as 12-14 in the bedroom, as long as I'm under the winter weight duvet in warm PJs. But sitting here now, with the living room at 18.5 (thanks to the woodburner), I'm freezing, because I've been sitting still all evening.

Finally cracked and set the heating to come on tomorrow morning. It's mainly the washing that's done it - I've got piles of the stuff (two children under 5!), and it's taking about 3 days to dry ATM. Also, I just hate wrapping the kids in damp towels after their baths.

Random question for those with logburners - what do you do with the ash? I've heard you can put it on the garden, but I've only got one patch of actual flowerbed, about 8 feet square, and I'm not sure how much ash it can take!! Do I just bin the rest?

Also, thanks for the letterbox cover suggestions. I shall get myself some fleecy stuff, velcro and a couple of weights - I'm officially the worst sewer in the world, but I'm sure even I can cobble something together!

Thanks superdragonmama. I will have a quick search of the thread and see if I can find the link. I reckon its worth a try, at least we can remove it again if it doesn't work.

As far as we can tell, the only reason it gets damp/mouldy is because of the condensation caused by it being an outer corner with single rather than cavity walls.

Annoyingly we have an unusual shaped roof with two peaks that aren't accessible for insulation purposes. Both are above the two biggest bedrooms and as a result we get condensation on the ceiling directly under both areas and again the black mould. We can't manage without the dehumidfier in winter or the mould just takes over. Not sure we could use the polystyrene stuff there though, as the ceiling is curved and had corner beams.

Also regarding minimum temperature, I think it also depends on how sustained it is. 13-14 degrees is fine if you eventually get a chance to warm up. But if you are in that temperature all day long, can't get warmer and it only gets colder at night, then you're in trouble.

Our old house was freezing. It cost us a fortune running storage heaters to achieve double figures in temperature. DH ended up going out for the day with DS - to libraries, shops, anywhere free that was warm. For an entire winter that is a miserable existence and I really feel for anyone in that position today.

Also, some people are far more vulnerable to very cold temperatures than others - small children, older people, some disabled people; for instance, DH has severe emphysema and needs a stable, reasonably warm background temperature, which takes a huge proportion of our small budget.

13-14 degrees would be far too cold for DH, for instance. We need to maintain around 19-20 degrees, hence great need for good insulation and draughtproofing, etc. to keep our bills as low as poss by losing as little heat as poss.

I think it's sad that so many people, including us, are having to struggle to achieve what I'd consider to be one of the basics of life, ie a reasonably warm house to live in.

what is the recommended temperature for people with asthma?

Thank you, schoolhelp. xx

AngelDog, treat the cupboard door as an external door and stick draught-stripping round it.

Also consider putting insulation on the back of the door (could be proper Celotex rigid board, loft insulation in a bin bag or just an old quilt). You might also want to check the quality of the insulation of the walls/ceiling of the loft bedroom, if you can see into the eaves.

im taking note can not do anything with this house as rented .no storage tank for hotwater infact you need run hot tap for 5 minutes to get hotwater !!

but will be doing alot of these in my new house .

Though hmm anyone ideas how to deal with the fact i will have a big hole in my frontroom up going to my bedroom( lift shaft) or am i just going have to put up with it .

cold emotion

Oh and was told for someone who is not active for what ever reason 20c is the best tempture .mines 12c waiting for LL to get back from his holiday to fix the boiler again !!! but i am on count down to move

Ah, insulation on the back of the loft door is a good idea, Tianc - thanks.

I've got my draught-strip ready to put on today. :)

Regularly descaling your kettle will make it more efficient and use less energy to boil the water.

I use the cheapest malt vinegar which costs 13p a bottle from Sainsbury's. After descaling I pour it back into the bottle and re-use for descaling the kettle until it gets lots of limescale in it.

Works much better than those expensive smelly chemical-y descalers you can buy. :)