Warming up a stone cold house - advice please?

[lostindubai]

Our furniture is all in but the house is freezing cold until we get the boiler sorted next week. Should we warm the house gradually, or get it up to temperature ASAP? I'm worried all the furniture will go damp and get ruined

I would go and buy some oil filled radiators and get it warmed up. They were on offer in Lidl this week.

I agree with Ruhr - if you put them on full blast to start with then turn them down once the rooms have warmed up they are brilliant at keeping a place warm.

We moved into a house that had sat unoccupied through most of winter. We found that we needed to run the heating 24 hours a day for some weeks (lower at night, but still on) and that the thermostat needed to be higher than normal due to the damp. We were lucky to have central heating, but oil radiators will work if not (had to rely on those in a different house over a different winter when our heating unexpectedly died!)

Depending on how damp it is, a couple of dehumidifiers might be a good investment, too. Most hire shops have them, if you don't want to buy them.

and on your new home!

Thank you all! Hoping our central heating will work when it's all switched on. Is it worth getting oil radiators for the sake of a couple of days? Good idea about the dehumidifiers too hadn't thought of that.

Dehumidifiers and oil filled radiators for sure, the radiators will probably come in useful again so worth having.

Our stone house takes an age to get warm, we can never leave the heating off when we go away otherwise it can be weeks before it is warm again. Once it is warm it is lovely and cosy and wonderfully cool in a heat wave.

If it's just going to be a couple of days, I would be inclined to either hire heaters or buy just one inexpensive oil radiator for each floor.

That said, it shouldn't cause any long term damage to leave it unheated for a few more days. Furniture storage compounds are rarely warm, and furniture survives that.

I meant to add that oil radiators are useful things to have around anyway, assuming you have the storage space.

if you have the space it's good to have spare heaters just in case.
a diy store might lend them if you don't.

I bought oil filled radiators when I could not get warm enough when we had a couple of really cold winters, about 5 yrs ago

Love having them as back up for when my Rayburn conks out (about once a year) or to heat study if working from home and don't want central heating on

They are good

For wood furniture, gradual warming up is better than a blast!

Have decided to borrow a couple of radiators for the next few days. Thanks again for your advice everyone

Before you start warming the rooms open all the windows and get lots of fresh air in and let any damp or stale air out.
Even if you are in your coats for a while it will be worth it.
Your rooms will warm much quicker if you do this.

Thanks NewLife, will do. Won't be a problem as in the last day or so the air outside has been warmer than inside! It's like an ice box - the fridge freezer we've been trying to defrost refuses to do so! Thankfully we're not actually living there at the moment...