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.

catapult not sure if it's a lift in use or not. If it isn't you could just block it off with a piece of OSB. If it's in use maybe make a hatch with something light like plywood or even big cardboard boxes sell taped together that can be lifted/folded when the lift is needed?

Yes Viking it be in use will be my access to upstairs in new house .hmm trouble is I may need one of Ds to reach I'm knee high to a sparrows fart

Definitely think that will be my main heat loss from the lounge

Aren't grants still available for insulation?

I'm sure we got a grant a couple of years ago, and had it fitted for us cheaper than it would have been to fit it ourselves.

We got a grant for it to be done this summer, we got a radiator fitted in the bathroom as well. i think the scheme has ended now though.

we get damp/black mould above the bathroom window, any ideas how to prevent it? We don't get it anywhere else.

Has anyone suggested selling your computers, phones & other gadgets, stopping broadband, etc & spending the money on heating? Or is that too 20th century?

Decorhate, why come on the thread just be deliberately confrontational?

You don't know people's situations - or what gadgets they have, so are not in a position to judge.

For example, in our case, the computer and broadband is required for dh's work, I have his old-broken laptop, which is years old and very shonky, to use and I do have a mobile phone, so the school can contact me in an emergency if I am not home, as I have a child with SNs, but its a very basic pay as you go that I've had for years and I never use any of the credit.

How do you suggest we could save money there then?

If you had bothered to read the thread, you would see that some people are in rented accommodation with little or no heating, others have antiquated heating systems that cost a fortune to run and there's nothing they can do about that if they're in rented accommodation.

Things are not always as black and white as you think.

I am just pointing out that many things are regarded as essentials nowadays which use up a fair proportion of people's disposable income. These were either not common or not invented 40 years ago and by and large people managed without them Having grown up in a cold house, I regard heating as a welcome luxury and would go without lots of things to be able to keep the heating going. I can remember dragging pallets home to burn & even burning furniture... Will shuffle off now [old gimmer emoticon]

decorhate A huge problem a lot of people are facing is heat leaking out of our houses. If they had the disposable income to spend £100+ a month on heating their leaky houses then they probably would. The leaks still need addressing and some of us don't own our own homes so can't have insulation grants. Or we are in rented accommodation and have LL who won't do anything about it.
We are luckier as we are in council accommodation and we have had double glazing and central heating put in. The glazing is shoddily done with gaps in the plaster surrounding the windows, our external doors are draughty and the central heating is set high to offset the radiator covers which they put on. We are waiting for loft insulation but they will only put the bare minimum in so we will still lose heat.
And some people might not want to spend their hard earned cash on heating the outside world, lining the fat cat energy bosses and using up precious resources. They might want to find a way to save the energy thus saving money and staying warm

Back to tips.
If you have a condenser dryer, and can afford to run it, use the hot water in the tank to fill up hot water bottles. The water in mine just gets poured down the sink and it is pretty hot so DC's are getting hot water bottles for their beds and it can go to some good

Ha ha at selling stuff. The majority of us too broke for much heating also have nothing to sell. My mobile is a freebie from Vodafone on minimum a month, my broadband free from sky on minimum tv package, laptop four years old and on its last legs. Id be lucky to get afiver for it.

There are people out there who have the bare essentials, earn their wages and still have not enough to cover rising food and heating bills. Until you have been in that situation you have no idea.

What makes you think I have no idea? Even if it's a small amount, any Sky or mobile phone package is costing something, which could be spent in an alternative way. And mobiles, Sky, etc ARE luxuries, though many people seem to regard them as essential I appreciate people have different priorities in terms of what they spend their money. I'm just pointing out that there are other ways to save money and if people are in the dire situations they claim to be in, surely those are equally valid tips as those about insulation?

Decor

That's very good now how do you suggest I go out and do my shopping ? Ir access support groups

Or how my son will do his homework . I rely on the Internet I can not physically just pop to the shop or check my bank balance from the bank machine

Odd times I go out myonile is a necessity I get a flat wheel or worse tip out I'm going to need call someone to come help

decor of course it is right that people have to choose priorities, but to be honest there is very little to be made out of a PAYG phone and an elderly PC which is what many people get by on. I pay for my elderly parents to have a mobile each and I pay their broadband for my old computer - and considering my "new" computer is six years old you can imagine the old one is ancient and pretty worthless.

I pay it because I worry about my parents being socially isolated. They have a car but are struggling to keep it on the road due to the extra costs.

I'm very far from the breadline, but I've been humbled by some of the stories on this thread - and I've seen no self pity, just people asking for advice.

I kind of see where you are coming from decorhate, it is about priorities, yes, but in many peoples cases, an extra £15 a week going on heating wont make much difference if the house is not insulated adequately, or is damp, or has cracks in the walls, or insufficient draughtproofing, or an ineffective heating system, which will take years and years of being cold and having no luxuries whatsoever to save up to replace (bearing in mind that inflation doesn't increase in that time which in all probabilities it would).

To demonstrate my point a little further, alot of pensioners I know do not have sky tv, mobiles phones, broadband or a computer full stop. They don't have a quilt, don't drink or smoke, rarely go out and struggle every week to make ends meet...yet they still find heating too expensive. So the point should be that heating is too expensive and houses are not insulated well enough or have a good enough heating system imo.

You wouldn't save enough by cancelling broadband/sky/mobile phone to make much of a difference at all to alot of people. Heating is just too expensive for that.

Also technology just keeps reducing in price while fuel keeps increasing. Broadband speeds get better and faster while also getting cheaper. Fuel just keeps going up disproportionately to the wholesale price of fuel. Competition within the technological arena is keeping prices low whereas the energy companies appear to have a cartel.

I sort of agree with your sentiments Decorhate but I think you picked the wrong example of a dispensable necessity.

TheHumanCatapult, lift to bedroom. Hmm.

Will you have the opportunity to discuss it with the people doing the conversion, as they must have seen this problem before? And maybe the lift will have built-in flaps, to make the bedroom floor safe for children?

But suggestions straight off the top of my head:
? raise the lift platform when you've used it, so it largely fills the gaping hole
? make up-opening trapdoors for the bedroom floor, with dangling ropes so they can be pulled to from below, and a window pole to shove them open from below when needed
? long thick curtains on a ceiling mounted track, in either the downstairs room or the bedroom or both
? combination of curtains and rigid plasterboard "lift shaft"

It's really hard to know without seeing the exact installation you're getting, isn't it? There's all the machinery and the possibility of ropes snarling to consider. Come to that, if it's the sort of wheelchair lift shops use, where you have to keep the button depressed, you could perhaps pause below ceiling level to open/close a hatch?

Good luck with all this ? is a new house now in sight?

Ty

Yep I should move in end of January

From what I gather the Walls are half height don't think there's even ceiling to it . So may need to leave in the up position to stop one if little 2 coming through

Hmm

Ok, can I ask a really stupid question? When you're talking about insulating doors, which bits are you talking about? Do you mean the bits around the outside of the door frame? Or do you mean the gaps around the door itself? And if the latter, then how do you insulate them while still allowing the door to open (other than the gap at the bottom - I've got that one now )? Thanks!

And mobiles, Sky, etc ARE luxuries, though many people seem to regard them as essential

Yes, the are a luxury if you dont rely on them for work. But many people nowadays do. And if you dont have them, you cant fulfil your job, therefore you dont get paid, and then you're worse off.

Believe me I know there are some people who do choose to spend money on cigarettes and alcohol, £45 a month mobile contracts etc over heating, and yes I do agree they could maybe reprioritise. But the vast majority of people here on this thread arent like that.

and I'm sorry, but there are a lot of people who dont have a clue what it is like to have to choose one bill over another. What its like to have £7 to split between petrol, gas and food for 3 days. To have to save up just for £15 a year football subs.

I didnt used to. I could envisage it was hard, but I could put the heating on when I wanted. I could pay a bill when it came in. I could fill my car with petrol to the top and not even blink about how much was in my account. I knew nothing about strict budgetting.

Now every single penny counts. And it is such a stress to spend everyday on edge as you are literally budgetted to the last 5p. Just something like driving over glass and puncturing your tyre can be so stressful - I get part worn as cheap as I can yet its still £20 which is a massive part of a weekly budget here.

So yes, some days I have to choose over 2 pints of milk or £1 on my gas if something shit has happened. Or raid the 2p jar just for a loaf of bread.

OK, several things there, Ablative.

1. The outside of the door frame should not need insulating and there should be no air flowing between frame and wall. It should be sealed to the masonry of the walls with mortar, sprayfoam, decorator's caulk or the like. However, if a bad installation job is done, it's possible there are gaps. This is actually common with replacement windows, where the glass is double-glazed and lovely but you can see three counties through gap between wall and frame. If you have that problem, fix it with the aforementioned mortar, sprayfoam, decorator's caulk, etc.

2. Gaps around the door itself. This the main bit to tackle. As you say, these allow the door to open. So you have to use draught-strips which compress as the door closes onto them, forming a seal like your fridge door. Different types include:
   ? stick on foam
   ? stick on E profile rubber
   ? stick on P profile rubber
   ? V-shape
   ? brushes
   ? nailed on external aluminium and rubber
   Assess what will be best for your door, and try to envisage what paths the cold air is taking to get round the door (sometimes it can be indirect). Similar products are available at B&Q, etc, and Stormguard also have more types of seal if the above don't do it for you.

3. Insulating doors. Ie, sticking or stapling insulation board or bags of rock wool to them. Ugly and drastic, but perfectly good solution for doors of cupboards which have vents to the outside (eaves, understairs, etc).

Stopping draughts is going to be the cheapest and least fiddly gain, and unless your house is already really well sealed will probably also be the largest gain.

smokinaces my heart goes out to you .

Oh smokinaces

sorry to hear that, smokinaces. I hope things look up for you soon.