Ways to keep warm this winter

[harman]

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Kitchen foil is fine - it can be easier attached to a piece of cardboard

Shiney side out (iyswim) to reflect the heat into the room

You can buy that foil stuff on a sheet from builders merchants, can't remember the name of it but it looks like a thinnish roll of reflective insulation.

It'll probably be like other recent winters, wet rather than perishingly cold.

But I reckon they'll be articles about rediscovering the charms of shopping at Damart, cheap ways of insulating your loft and a modern take on 'make do and mend'.

Think it'll be a battle of wills between dh & I to see who'll cave first about putting on the heating

Yes! We had mould and the wallpaper was starting to peel off the walls. Suddenly we would get out of the shower and there was no condensation on the mirror. The clothes actually dried instead of hanging around so long that they became musty and needed washing again.
I have become a bit evangelical about it. If you can borrow one, that's great.

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Normal kitchen foil should work just as well and it's cheaper!

I started an LPG users thread, but it didn't get any definitive answers.

It was 'Is it cheaper to run the LPG on very low - like 1 or 2 - all the time or to turn it off for hours each day and then use higher heat?'

The winter up here is generally perishingly cold in that there is normally a strong wind with rain and/or sleet.

Temp-wise, it's nowhere approaching Colorado or even Canadian winters.

But to me it feels far, far colder for the wet, the gales and the astonishing lack of anything remotely resembling the sun.

Have to say I did do a couple of year without heating at all when I was a struggling single parent but it was a long time ago and I have blocked it out.

Dh is a mad overheated freak though and we never have the heating dial above 18 anyway, so I have got a bit used to the cold. I actually put gloves on during the fecking day last year a few times.

i've not done any work on LPG but can have a look at it for you. Not tonight though, the wine's starting to kick in.

I'm going to get some foil on our next Lidl run.

thanks, avena.

it's a calor tank. 1000 ltrs.

costs about £400 to fill up 80% of it.

Wait for it to become windy and go around your house, feeling for cold spots and areas like around windows where you can feel the wind. Then you'll know that those areas need attention because they will be letting the warmth out. Generally speaking, the roof, windows and doors release the most energy. There's evidence that triple glazing does not save enough energy to repay the cost of instillation.

expat: how long does this last for and what are you using it on (with times of usage please).

I brought Dd home to an unheated house in December 06. I had no boiler and no money to get a new one as the old one was knackered completely. I had damp running down my walls. Clothing, wall paper and curtains ruined through damp and black mildew caused by no heating. I had Dd in her Moses basket with a hat on and ended up bringing her in with me.
I rang the local council and they gave me a grant(eventually)and they arranged and had a new one installed(and a radiator put into a room that didn't have one).
You can get a grant if you are in receipt of benefits, even if it is just 1 penny.

I reckon for getting short bursts of heat, fan heaters are great. Choose the smallest bed room, run heater for a few minutes and then all get changed in there in the morning and evening. If you are the lucky child with the smallest room, then you don't have to get out of bed until the room is warm!

If you want long term heat, those electric oil filed radiators can be quite good, but more at taking the chill off rather than making it toasty. They are safe to run overnight and don't get dangerously hot to touch.

I had an electric fan heater when I had ds (I too had a house with no heating), I had it connected to a timer so it went off when I was asleep and came on 20 mins before I woke up to heat the room up.

Avenalife - electricity cheaper than gas?? You're kidding right? Have you ever tried heating a house on electricity? We used to have gas in our old house and I guarantee on electric it costs at least twice as much!

Expat and Harman, I sympathise so so much. Our previous house (not the one on gas mentioned above) was rented with huge old storage heaters. We couldn't afford to keep more than one storage heater on and we were freezing, freezing, FREEZING. We were in the coldest part of Scotland, with nighttime temps routinely down to minus 9 or 10. I remember posting a thread on here that our bedroom was 9 degrees. We were wearing three jumpers and three pairs of socks and both DH and I had horrific chillblains. The only rooms we could heat properly were DS's room (essential) and the bathroom (kept us sane). It is a nightmare.

We're hoping this house will be better, but we haven't experienced it in mid winter yet. The storage heaters are newer, but they still seem to guzzle electricity when they're on so I'm guessing we'll be spending this winter freezing cold as well - especially with the 20% price hike.

jicky, you've just reminded me. I borrowed an oil filled electric radiator(after about 3 months with nothing)and found it quite good. I left it on all the time to keep the temp level in the bedrooms. It was a blessing!

In winter, it lasts about two months for 80%.

This is with the heat on from 7-9. Then off. On from 4-midnight.

Then off.

And it is chilly pretty big style.

Storage heaters are not! electricity has a mich lower unit price than gas. I used to live in a house with storage heaters (I've moved alot), I only had 3 and my electricity bill was £400 (was 6 years ago). I turned them off and used a convection heater instead which cut the bill down alot.

We had storage heaters in our last flat and they cost a bomb!

They also sucked because you couldn't control them very well.

We did that as well. We kept on one storage heater in the hall to keep the worst of the chill off. We then used a normal electric heater in the lounge and in DS's bedroom.

The trouble is that we are forced to be on Total Heating Total Control - can't afford to change everything. The standing charge is astronomical as is the non-heating rate. And of course anything that isn't a storage heater or the water heater is on that standard rate. So we ran up a very large bill which we're still paying off. I also think there was something very wrong with the storage heater - I rang Scottish Hydro several times with concerns about our usage and was they were as much use as a chocolate teapot.

There's a strange mix of past and present tense in that post - sorry. The large bill was run up at last house. But THTC still applies to this house - if that clarifies anything.

most of the heat goes into the wall. They are closer to the wall than radiatiors so you can't put foil down the back. Because they are attached directly rather than via brackets this is where the heat goes, into the wall. I hate them. Soo expensive. At least the wall was warm though!