What's it like living with no central heating, immersion boiler and a fireplace?

[TulipsAndWings]

That's it really.

Thinking of taking on a flat with no central heating, an immersion boiler and a fireplace. I have 2 young kids, is this a crazy idea?

where in the building is the flat?
how many external walls?

It's an upper villa in a terrace, so front and back of flat as outer walls. It's listed building, so no double glazing either.

Cold, damp and expensive

COLD! Our last house didn't have central heating when we moved in & a wood burning stove. We lasted one winter, used a lot of electricity with plug in radiators and then got central heating installed. If it's a stove that takes coal then it might not be so bad as you can keep it burning on low overnight; otherwise it's freezing when you get up in the morning until you get the fire going.

How will you get fuel to the fire? Where will you store it in the flat and outside? On a winter day think possibly a big (20kg) sack coal or three big baskets of wood.

Does the flat have cheaper night time electricity (a twin tarif meter)? Could a couple of storage heaters to provide gentle background heat in the coldest months be an option?

Not mad if its what you want to do but worth thinking through the practicalities.

Eek! Expensive I'd have thought. Our stove runs our heating and water which is a toasty warm, efficient way of doing it. In summer we use immersion for hot water and with having it on for just 1 hour a day in the evening to wash up and do bath for dcs our electric bill is the same as in the winter.

Apparently the fire heats a water tank in the attic. It has a private back garden so storing coal wouldn't be too difficult.

Would you be buying or renting? If buying, would it be your plan to install better heating, insulate etc asap? I wouldn't want to live in a permanently cold house but could cope if it was just going to be, say, one winter while I got quotes and building works sorted out. If it was a rental, I wouldn't even consider it.

Our first flat had an immersion and one gas fire (and no double glazing) In winter it was fine during the day if you wrapped up, but the evenings were really miserable. You might be slightly better off if it's solid fuel - we lost gas pressure during the peak period because of everyone else in the block turning their fires on. However, I'd never live somewhere without double glazing and GCH willingly and I much prefer the instant hot water boiler we have now, although I could cope with an immersion if I had to.

Also, my eldest two were little at the time and we did end up living in just the living room during the winter as the rest of the flat was too cold. It would have been nice if they could have played in their rooms - even after we got central heating, they never got out of the habit!

Chilly.

HTH

I would imagine it would be ok this time of year, but a PITA once the novelty wears off.

Open fires are lovely, but again, a real PITA compared to flicking a button and having hot radiators.

We moved into a 1930s semi with no central heating or immersion when I was about 14. We moved in July and it was hot, but by September, I was totally fed up of waiting for the fire to heat water so I could wash my hair and have two inches of water in a bath! I phoned childline

Cold and expensive. Our first house had no central heating, an immersion heater and two gas fires. In winter we were always cold. And during a particularly cold winter we woke up to a thin film of ice all the way up the inside of the bedroom window every morning. I would look elsewhere for accommodation.

Immersion heaters are probably one of the most expensive and inefficient methods of heating water. Radiators are very useful for warming towels or finishing off drying sheets etc.

Does the back garden have street access for deliveries or does it need to go through the flat?

There are little routines you can get into to help with warmth like hot water bottles in beds to warm the sheets, fan heaters on for ten minutes before you get out of bed, heavy double lined curtains over windows and doors and/ or film over windows.

This isn't looking good.

It's in the school catchment, which is really important.

There's no street access to the back so you have to go through the stairwell.

Is it a stove or an open fire?

If a stove then in a flat it may be ok. During winter months you'd keep the stove in 24/7 so very little work. Since it would be heating water then you'll have stacks of water and the stove would heat the flat without need for radiators. My stove heats most of the downstairs of my house pretty well.

You'd want to investigate what safety system it has though for the water tank. ie once the tank is hot what happens? If there is nowhere else for the heat to go the tank boils over. So is there a heat sink of some sort somewhere or do you have to periodically run hot water off to avoid boiling? In my system it triggers the heating so not sure what it would do with no heating system.

Oh my god this house didn't hAve ch when we bought it, or any insulation.

We slept in jumpers with elec blankets and two duvets. i would have used a bed pan if i could as getting out of bed was horrid

We are now insulated to the max with ch. Never again.

Sorry just read it's in catchment, i could bear it for a fabulous school!

Just make sure you buy lots of primark onesies your going to need them

Are you renting or could you slowly improve if you own?

No.

Bloody.

Way.

I'm a hardy kind of person, grew up in a house with no heating in my bedroom (attic) and frost on inside of windows in winter. I've also lived in some godforsaken rentals where the heating is centrally controlled and I had a terrace where I had a fireplace and they are beautiful but hugely wasteful, a wood burner is much more efficient.

With the price of heating now then the only place I'd move to is one with better energy ratings!

Cold! I grew up in a house like that.

Might put up with it for good school catchment though!

Welcome to life outside the UK.

This is our life right now. It's winter here, too.

Its bloody freezing. winter is a constant battle to stay warm. plug in radiators, hot water bottles, blankets piled everywhere. would not recommend especially with children. very expensive.

open fires are expensive to run because so much heat goes up the chimney. Modern closed stoves are much better.

It is common in older homes to have a back-boiler built in bethind the grate which takes (some) heat up pipes to the hot water cylinder. If you are running the fire anyway on free logs it will seem economical, but not if you have to buy the fuel. It is about a tenth a powerful as a gas boiler at heating the cylinder so takes a long time.

By Immersion Boiler I think you mean a hot water cylinder which has one or two electric immersion heaters fitted to it.

What colour is the cylinder? This is important. is it in an airing cupboard (common), or in the loft (unusual).

Electricity costs about three times as much as gas. If you have no gas I would reluctantly consider an economy-7 type tariff and storage heaters.

I would not want to live in the flat you describe. It will be cold and expensive to heat.