£8 A Day for GAs?!

space_rider

dagsky wrote: »

paying now!! I've got a young baby in the house 24hrs a day so i really do need to keep the house warm at all times! !

I had a new baby 20 years ago and it was absolutely freezing in the winter of 1986. I couldn`t afford to have the heating on 24/7 and there was even ice on inside of the windows. I wrapped her up, though not too wrapped up at night because of the threat of cot death but she was fine.

I`m not saying turn the heating off but you don`t need it on 24 hours a day.

Magentasue

dagsky wrote: »

've got a young baby in the house 24hrs a day so i really do need to keep the house warm at all times! At the current rate of gas costs it would cost me an extar £240/month just on gas!! Include the council tax and rent and i'm paying nearly a grand a month!! Struggling to afford that but when you got to make ends meet you got to do what it takes!

For a different view, since my electric is included in the price of my rent, what if i tried using oil radiators? You know the portable ones like the delonghi

Ordinarily, gas CH would be more economical but if you're not paying extra for electricity, that's obviously the way to go. When we moved into our house in Feb, we used convector and fan heaters because there was only a couple of gas fires here. Very expensive, but that's not an issue for you. I would just heat as you need to. Put a heater on when you get up to warm the room you're in and turn it off once you're dressed and moving around. Turn it back on when you get your baby up. Heat the room where the baby sleeps before you put him/her to bed and then turn off. Use a thermometer and just use the heater to bring the room back to temp.

As said, babies need to be protected from cold but they don't need a warm house at all times - just keep it warm where necessary. Again, as said, it doesn't have to be too warm - overheating is dangerous too.

I'd go for a lower temp with the gas CH and turn it up when you're bathing etc and need it warmer. But if electricity is included, that's obviously going to cost you less. I'd be careful though. If your landlord gets sky high electricity bills, he'll want to cover that somehow.

Above all, don't go into debt keeping it warmer than you have to. You shouldn't have to be cold, but nor should you feel that you have to heat it more than you can afford to.

We bought the cheapest heaters we could find as we knew they were temporary - they were fine.

basmic

I believe the lowest safe/comfortable temperature is 18c for night times - given that they will be (or should) wrapped well up in bed, if I were you I'd change the thermostat to 18c from 7pm-7am.

space_rider

basmic wrote: »

I believe the lowest safe/comfortable temperature is 18c for night times - given that they will be (or should) wrapped well up in bed, if I were you I'd change the thermostat to 18c from 7pm-7am.

You are correct!

http://www.fsid.org.uk/your-baby.html

I`ve been trying to be economical with the central heating but I must confess I much prefer it at 23c but keeping to 20c. Hopefully I`ll get used to it! I have turned the heating off at 10.15 instead of 11 so unless this winter is colder than last I should use less gas this year.l

whowants2brich

Tell your landlord that he needs to provide one of those energy efficiency certificates for you, as it's now legally required for rented property. That will then show him and you how efficient (or not) the property is. If he is told that it is as bad as you think, he will need to improve things - fast.

If he doesn't, you could contemplate moving property (you haven't said why you wouldn't be able to, other than the little one) so maybe that may be an option. If you're a good tenant otherwise then the landlord might not want you to leave, and have the extra costs associated with getting a new tenant etc etc etc... (and then he definitely will need a new energy certificate for the new tenants...)

Other than that, I agree, see if you can cope with the heating turned down a few degrees. Or get a small electric heater and set it on a timer to go on and off every hour or two for 15/30 minutes, just to keep the heat up, but not too hot. If you keep them on for longer periods, you're increasing the fire risk and definitely pushing the landlord to amending the bill so that you pay for electricty (or over a set limit of x units per month/quarter).

I've only just turned my heating on for the first time yesterday, we have a thermometer in our lounge, it showed 15C so I thought I should turn it on. It's now up to 19C and we're not struggling. Last winter, it was 21C in the flat, I'm hoping to keep things a few degrees cooler, hopefully it'll help.

Oh, and one final suggestion I have - we were lucky to be able to lay our hands on one of those table-top oven/cooker/grill things - a small little unit which is great at cooking smaller portions in an oven/grill, and ours has a hotplate to cook things on as well! We have this in our lounge, so whenever we cook things like fish pie/cakes/shepherds pie/pasta dishes etc... we cook them in there, thus heating the flat as well as cooking the food. We'd have to cook it anyway, but this way, we use less energy to heat up the oven and to cook the food - and it heats the lounge at the same time!

whatatwit

Whowants2brich, I think the Energy Certs are only required for new tenancys after 1st October, I'm sure that they are not required for existing tenants. But, all the EPC shows is the efficiency of the property to enable a prospective tenant to make an informed decision before renting. It's not a guidline of improvements needed.