If you live in an old house how do you keep warm?

[flatcapandpearls]

It is worrying me that I am freezing and sat under a duvet again and it is July, how are we going to cope in January. We keep having to put the heating on, but as it is oil central heating we want to use it as little as possible.

It must be cold as my medication makes me feel hot all the time.

We have a real fire in the room where we sit in the evening, we have been using wood and it does not seem to provide much heat. People who have real fires what do you put on them? How do you keep them going?

The dining room has a woodburner which apparantly blasts out quite a bit of heat but we dont spend much time in there, although maybe when the furniture arrives we will.

There is no double glazing and some stone floors so there is little insulation.

It is a lovely house but so cold, what can we do.

And we're supposed to be on holiday!

sorry but if you are sitting under a duvet freezing then i def wouldnt be leaving it to early autumn to get some coal lol
get the fire roaring!

lol, we did have a few cold days here out of the blue, hopefully they have gone for now. It was hot here again, hopefully that will last.

yep us too lol,but not cold enough to hide under a duvet lol,
my problem is that after having no heating for years we suddenly have gas ch and i keep turning it up full!
will be OMG when the bill comes in lol,

Jangly, we've been using the log/coal mix but our chimney sweep noticed last time and said it was tarring up our chimney, or something like that [hmmm]. Certainly seems to make the logs last longer though.

lol,just noticed today,argos do rolls of the window glazing film,it's about £6.99 i think,

Thanks suzm we have an Argos in Blandford so can pop in.

Do you have to get your chimney cleaned Boden? Having paid for my cess pit to be emptied today I can see this rural living csn cost a fair bit!

you should get your chimney swept every 6 months, if you are only using it now and then you wont need it done so often,but at least once a yr,
if you dont sweep it the soot collects and you are more likely to have a chimney fire,

it costs £25 where we live to have it swept,

thanks, dp was just saying that our contract requires us go clean the chimney every 6 months

Aren't your kids small enough to fit??

The woodburner chimney needs doing more often than the open fire - yearly v every two years.

I often think I've got my grandma's life in some ways - a weird combination of stacking logs, starting fires then leaping back into the 21st century via the web!

DH sweeps our chimneys twice a year. We use our open fire quite often in the winter (more for ambiance than heat) and the woodburner about 3 times a week.

Our house is v old and as well as central heating we have a range cooker. When this was turned off for servicing I couldn't believe how cold the place was.

Mind you, our previous house had no central heating, and our log burner was the main heat source. The irony was by the time you had chopped up enough sticks and logs and carted them back to the house you were warm as toast.

I think if you live in a cold house you do adjust eventualy. After 2 years with central heating we are becoming soft!

You can fit a semi/permanent secondary glazing to windows, its like clingfilm and uses double sided tape and a hair dryer, it would at least stop the drafts, you can get from most DIY shops.

Thanks MrMayo.

Lived in Victorian properties most of the time, now we are in 1930 house. They keep a regular temperature in all seasons if you have a decent boiler. Modern houses are stifling in summer - I cannot sleep properly at my parent's flat.

So don't worry, besides it's quite cold for july now.

Thick curtains help. I never had big bills but we always made sure that the central heating was updated and running. We had energy efficient boilers too.

Have not got time to read all the other suggestions so may be repeating. I live in a house like yours. Get the fire checked by an expert ours was not put in properly i think it needed some sort of filling in the back so before we had this done the heat was not coming out into the room. We all have primark sleeping bags and if we are not moving around we are inside them . I have lined all the curtains with heavy fabric. It is still very cold and I envy people with new houses these days.

lo aramninta, we have quite good sleeping bags so they may get used for more than camping.