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.

I use an oil filled heater on a low setting and leave the door of the airing cupboard slightly open. Most of the heat stays in the airing cupboard but some of it heats the hall too. All I have in my cupboard is a storage tank for the hot water.

Our "airing cupboard" currently has no door. Water tank, which is downstairs in the bathroom, is built up on a plinth to create some semblance of a gravity feed. No hot water upstairs at all. Shelves in the "cupboard" are rubbish and only any use for stacking towels. No space to hang anything at all. Wish we could rip the whole thing out and start again. Still, the quick tumble I do before hanging out the clothes seems to help a lot.

i do the quick tumble after leaving washing out all day.

My airing cupboard used to have shelves, but my dad took them out and replaced them with a rail so I could hang the clothes up. Before we did that, I had clothes on a folding airer in the hall and they used to take about 3 days to dry. That was no good with 4 dc in the house. We have no water upstairs. I stack towels on a stand in the bathroom.

My tumble dryer is shit though. The minimum drying time is 40 minutes and there is only a choice of 2 settings - cotton and non cotton! And it shrinks virtually everything except towels and duvet covers!

Yes it seems I do it the other way around from most folks. But I find by the time the clothes have been hanging for hours they're really creased and the tumble dryer doesn't seem to help with that. Whereas if I warm them first in the tumble dryer and THEN hang them out the creases fall out of them, and the worst of the moisture steams off fairly quickly.

It's crucial in our house that clothes dry quickly because we are washing them in water that comes straight from the loch with minimal filtering. They quickly begin to smell if they take too long to dry.

Could you put a curtain over the door of the airing cupboard or a folding screen, just to keep some of the warmth in?

Ahh creases. I have stopped caring

Yes actually we probably could. Hadn't thought of that, despite using curtains in place of door everywhere else for about 3 years! This is our first winter in this house with doors!

Hehe, you don't live with my DH, the ironmeister. I am still trying to convince him that dried using my method you can shake out most of the clothes and put them away without ironing. Whereas he prefers to chuck them in the ironing basket, whether or not they need it, and leave them for a week thus ensuring they are all creased to buggery and HAVE to be ironed. If he does that, HE does the ironing. (I think he must quite like it )

not read whole thread... but finding cheap tesco own brand vodka makes my feet hot enough to get to sleep of night.

gaelic ive decided the storage heaters are going on low Thanks for all your help and advice

I also wish my water tank wasn't so well insulate, my airing cupboard has no warmth at all! Would love to be able to hang stuff in there to dry,

I hope it was helpful. Having said everything I've said, I just checked our meter for usage last night and had a panic. 27 units! But then the water takes about 7 units on average each night, we had the tumble dryer on this morning - that's another 3, the heater was on low in our room because I hadn't put DD in a sleepsuit and it turned chilly. So looking at all that, about 14 or 15 units for both storage heaters put together isn't too bad. But boy it brings it home how darned expensive it is running electric heating.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I'm so old that I grew up in a house without central heating. You could see your breath in the mornings and there was ice on the inside of the windows. We had extra blankets, wore warm pyjamas and got dressed bloody quickly in the mornings . I don't know if you can still get them, but we had a gas heater than used one of those large gas bottles. It was on wheels, so you could move it from room to room. Might be a good alternative?

We have one of those, got it free from a neighbour who was throwing it out. I mentioned it earlier on in the thread as they really are a godsend. It's our fallback for when our power goes down overnight meaning that the storage heaters don't get charged. But then the price of calor gas cylinders is going up astronomically.

Sorry haven't read whole thread but thought I should add my recent discovery that my local council appear to be funding installation of loft and cavity wall insulation.

On their website it looked like each would cost £85, which still sounded reasonable, but I completed an online form and it seems that having children under 5 in the house (or being over 70 or in receipt of benefits) makes us eligible for both free

I'm hoping this will reduce our winter heating bill which was outrageous last year.

I assume that other councils are running similar schemes, worth a look.

The problem is when your loft is insulated as much as it can be and you leak heat through solid walls. Modern houses with cavity walls are already much better off - they're focusing the help on the wrong people in the wrong houses.

I'll second the gas heater with bottle. We've had ours 20 years - it's a small one with 2 heat settings and we replace the gas bottle at the start of each winter. We use it as an added extra in the kitchen/diner for really cold days or has been used in case of a power failure (our lounge gas fire relies on electricity for the fan). It's about £16 to refill the gas bottle and provides almost instant warmth - it's also reassuring to know it's not being added to the gas bill.

Gaelic How do you know if your walls are solid or cavity?
Ours are brick walls plaster inside and about the thickness of a brick length

look out for airing bricks (bricks with holes) or gaps between bricks. if it is a cavity wall these airing bricks or gaps tend to be at or just below floor level.

Debs75 - in our case it's a 150 year old granite-built farm building so it's a fair bet . I'm glad mousyfledermaus could advise on other buildings because I haven't a clue!

Cupawoman - where do you get refilled gas cylinders for £16? Up here they were £30 last winter and I'm sure that will have gone up again.

gaelic 27units i'm going to start doing what you do and check my meter tonight. Will probably have a fit in the morning though!!

I have the same problem with my walls, its a timber framed house so apparantley can't be insulated you're right about them helping the wrong people....as usual!

Oh and i put my input and output on 1 but theres no heat at all, but actually its been abit warmer the last couple of days so i'm not too bothered.

Hmm. I guess maybe yours are working differently from mine then? Are they old ones? Might be worth turning them up tonight and see if there's any heat. If there's something wrong better to find out before it gets really cold eh?

Turned out hall one off last night and didn't have anything else going either. 11 units - much more acceptable. Hall one will be using more because there is currently no ceiling (don't ask!). Not for long hopefully.

No ceiling, oh i've been there too many years ago!! Not good!

Well i might switch the heaters up abit but maybe not tonight its not too cold down here tonight

Taking my reading before bed though

Gaelicsheep Gas bottle is 7 kg butane and our heater is a smaller version (2 settings) of the more commonly used 3 setting one. Believe it or not we get the refills from a house removals/storage service firm who do a sideline in gas bottles. DH says the next size up to ours (presumably for 3 heater setting fire) is £23.