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Original poster

Anyone NOT got Central Heating ?? ..........What do you have instead ??

33 replies

Nutcracker · 02/05/2004 20:02

Just wondering if anyone on here hasn't got central heating and if so, what have you got.
I have to look at that maisonette on tuesday, which has a gas fire in the living room and thats it.
If i can't get the council to install centrall heating or get a grant, what would be the best way to heat it.

My friend has oil filled heaters in hers, is that the best way to go ??

OP posts:
MadameButterfly · 02/05/2004 20:04

Hi Nutty,

We don't have central heating. We have a gas fire in the living room and the kitchen and a storage heater in our bedroom.
In the winter we put an electric heater in DD's room.

cuppy · 02/05/2004 20:06

We have storage heaters in our house , whisn are a total pain in the ass and are actually about the same cost as installing central heating - so I definately wouldnt recommend them. We have no heating upstairs so in our room I use those oil filled radiators too. I find them really good - instant heat - and they do chuck it out - and you can wall mount them. Only thing is we havent had electric bill in yet since we bought them so have no idea if theyre expensive. I hope not!!!!!!!

MadameButterfly · 02/05/2004 20:10

oil filed radiators are very expensive.
We put a timer switch on it when it is in DD's room. We set it for about an 30 mins before she goes to bed then have it coming on for about 15 mins every couple of hours thoughout the night

cuppy · 02/05/2004 20:13

oops
I'll look forward to that bill then

Original poster
Nutcracker · 02/05/2004 20:27

I'm abit confused. They are all plug in aren't they ??

In the Argos book they've got

Oil filled
Covector
Panel heaters

Anyone know which is the cheapest to run.

I will need to have at least 3 maybe 4.

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discordia · 02/05/2004 20:31

Depending on size of rooms, calor gas heaters can be good. You would need to rig up some kind of fire guard to keep little ones away. You do need good ventilation tho'. They can be a bit smelly. However, not too expensive to run (compared with electric heaters) and also supply instant heat and are very effective. We lived in a council house once with just a gas fire in the living room and the rest of the house was piggin' freezing. Agree with cuppy that storage heaters are hopeless. Expensive to run and give you heat when you don't need it then go cold when you do.

Janh · 02/05/2004 20:35

nutty, do they give a wattage for each kind?

Electric heating is very expensive anyway, but more powerful generally = more expensive. But if they have a thermostat so that they switch off sometimes they're not as bad. Our attic has no heating, we have used convector heaters and fan heaters up there (not both at once!), fan heaters warm the room up faster but convectors use less (I think) because they cycle on and off.

I think panel and oil-filled are similar in that they just sit there being hot. Convectors actually put warm air out. Fan heaters blow warm air out. HTH!

What's happening about the house on your estate? Anything?

Hulababy · 02/05/2004 20:39

No central heating here. We don't have any gas at all. Have individual eletric heaters in each room (two in living area). WE hardly use them TBH as place is very warm luckily. No idea how expensive as have yet to have an electricity bill - only been here 9 months and written several letters!!!

Janh · 02/05/2004 20:40

Hula, how is it warm if you don't have any heating????

Original poster
Nutcracker · 02/05/2004 20:40

I'm still waiting to hear Jan. I am being considered for it at least and it will be offered to the lucky recipient early next week. I'm going to ring them tuesday morning and see whats going on.

We did used to live in a house with only gas fires downstaires and i think we used convector heaters. I'm sure they used to switch on and off according to temp because you could here them click on and off.

Probably wouldn't bother having one in our room, just the dd's room and ds's room upstaires and perhaps a spare to use where evr needed ie kitchen first thing in the morning.

OP posts:
Hulababy · 02/05/2004 20:42

Sun comes through windows - right position for all day sunlight. And in a 5th floor apartment so I guess we have the heat rising from those below. Very new proprty too so well insulated. We do have heating on during the day/evening in winter but not all day, just a little bit here and there. Not sure DD's heater has ever been used - her room is a heat trap on its own!

Original poster
Nutcracker · 02/05/2004 20:42

We are spoilt at the mo as our heating and hot water are included in the rent, so we use as much as we like.

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toddlerbob · 02/05/2004 20:49

In NZ nobody seems to have central heating. Gas fires cause condensation and without another drier form of heating you are looking at some steamed up windows in your cold rooms, which will get a bit boring to wipe after a while. Being a maisonette may give it some warmth from the shop (?) below. I lived in a maisonette above a pizza shop and never had to turn on any heating.

agy · 02/05/2004 20:50

I'm pretty sure convector heaters with thermostats would be the most effecient and economical option for bedrooms. A fan heater would probably be quickest for kitchen on cold mornings!

WideWebWitch · 02/05/2004 20:58

Those plug in radiators are VERY expensive. When I lived in a tiny one bed flat temporarily a few years ago I had ONE of those plugged in each night for a couple of hours, i.e not much more than you'd use central heating in the winter, and my electricity bill was over 400 quid for the quarter. So beware of those.

Janh · 02/05/2004 21:04

Will keep fingers crossed for house then!!!

But, if that doesn't happen and you do get the maisonette, I agree with agy - convectors would be best for bedrooms (they are v slim these days and can be wall mounted, and if you put them on plug-in timers you could control them pretty well) and fan heaters are lovely for instant warmth, especially if you just plonk one on the floor in the kitchen - the heat hits your feet, then goes up your nightie (or whatever!) and warms the rest of the room. (A long time ago we had a built-in fan heater in the kitchen and in the mornings I used to stand in front of it for 5 minutes to warm me up and get me going )

Original poster
Nutcracker · 02/05/2004 21:05

Tb - Never thought of getting heat from shop below. I'm not sure what the shop is. It's either a hairdressers which would generate some heat i suppose, or a clothe shop.

WWW- Blimey, won't have those then.

Seems like convector may be the way to go then.
Well if i accept the maisonette i've got all summer to buy them and i will start putting money in my electric meter too so it builds up for winter.

OP posts:
Hulababy · 02/05/2004 21:05

Our electric heaters are very thin, wall mounteed, and pluged in right next to in. Also have very efficient thermostats on each one.

Original poster
Nutcracker · 02/05/2004 21:06

Have already got a couple of little fan heaters actually, i'd forgotten about them.
They will come in really handy then.

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Mirage · 02/05/2004 21:30

We don't have central heating- in fact I have never lived in a house that has,so don't know much about it.

In this house we have storage heaters.They cost approx half as much to run as plug in/convector type electric heaters as they charge up overnight on cheap rate electricity & let the heat out during the day.I agree that they can be a pain,as you have to be a bit psychic & predict if it is going to be hot or not the next day,so you can decide whether to let the heaters charge up or not the night before.We always seem to be in credit on the leccy bill,so they don't seem to be costing us that much.Can't say how the bills compare to gas bills though.

If you want to work out how much it will cost to run any sort of electric heaters,your power supply company should be able to tell you,if you can tell them what kilowatt heater you are thinking of using.

Hope you get the place you want.

Slinky · 02/05/2004 21:53

We have central heating now - but when DH and I first got together, the first few houses we had had NO heating at all - bloody grim!!

My childhood home had electric storage heating on the landing upstairs and warm air vents (electric) downstairs. Bedrooms had none at all - hence why I only sleep well when the room is cold - much to DHs annoyance

Our first house together (DH and I) had no heating at all - well it did have some "dodgy" gas heater things but we were too broke to get them repaired so did without.

Then when DD1 was born, we moved to a bungalow that had no heating in lounge, but had electric storage heaters in the bedrooms. VERY expensive to run - absolutely useless in the UK climate of one warm/next day cold as it took a good 24 hours to them to build up heat.

In the lounge (which had no heating) we used the Calor Gas heaters - and hated them!! Firstly they really smelt and secondly, they caused so much condensation that every morning I would collect 2 PINTS of water off the windows. If you didn't keep on top of it, the water would pool and just drip onto the carpets. Remember one VERY cold morning - snow/ice etc - DD1 was 12 weeks old and the gas ran out. It was so cold that I had to take DD1 back to bed with me to keep her warm - until DH could get hold of some more gas.

I've always heard that convector type plug-in heaters are very expensive to run.

Since that very cold bungalow, we've always lived in houses that had Gas central heating - and when DD1 (now 8.5) complains about feeling cold, DH and I tell her the stories of what we used to do to keep her warm as a baby

agy · 02/05/2004 22:31

Of course any heater will cost money to run, and no doubt gas central heating is everybody's best bet. Lets hope that Nutty gets a house with that in the not too distant future. In the meantime the most cost efficient method of heating the maisonette, I believe, would be convector heaters where you can keep the thermostat fairly low at night. And they are inexpensive to buy.

kid · 03/05/2004 14:54

We currently have central heating. When we first moved here we only had a gas fire in the living room. It was FREEZING! The council installed CH 1 year later and it is much, much better. We are going to view a house tomorrow that only has economy 7 (storage heaters?) but I have no idea how this will be in comparison to CH. What about the cost of hot water? We have a cobi boiler at the moment so the water is heated up as we use it.

SenoraPostrophe · 03/05/2004 15:03

nutty - we don't have central heating or gas, so we have electric heaters only. It's expensive.

Of the types of electric heaters, oil-filled is cheapest, fan heaters most expensive, but there's not a lot to choose between them.

Having said that, I would give my right arm for that gas fire! We used to have just 2 gas fires in a non-centrally heated house and found the bills were not too extortionate if we left the gas fires on low all the time. Plus you can really heat a room up quickly with them.

Original poster
Nutcracker · 03/05/2004 16:55

Thats another thing, Hot water, how will i get it. Will i have an emergen or something. Never knew this could be so confusing.

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