Is your heating ON or OFF?

Rosa_Damascena

Coffeekup said:

A young guy from work moved in with his partner 18 months ago from living at home with his parents, and he asked a few of us what he'll be paying for prices for bill's. When the price of energy came up he raised his eye brows and must have thought it was way off. Fast forward to a week ago he mentioned the price of energy and said "I hate looking at the smart meter when the boiler is on."  

It's all part of growing up!

A fast-paced walk at pace for an hour in the evening followed by a warm shower keeps me nice and toasty. The heating is on but very low.

bouicca21

It’s warmed up a degree or two so mine is off again. 

As for the young guy - I found with my own children that there’s nothing like paying your own bills to realise that it’s cheaper to put on extra layers of clothing.  It’s rather like attitudes to re-using and mending stuff.  They used to think I was just penny pinching (which was partly true, money was tight, but I was brought up to eschew waste of any kind).  Now, all of a sudden I’ve turned into an eco warrior.

summertime_2

mumf said:

Right now,the windows are all open,and the back door too,so the dogs can come and go. We ( but my wife particularly) believe in fresh air through the place. I can see the vent on our neighbours house belching steam all day. They are a third of our age,and it must be piggin’ roasting in there! We have electric panel/ infra red heating in all the rooms for when it’s cold,but mainly our heating is the two multi fuel burners downstairs. The big one will be lit about three o’clock today. We must be made of tougher stuff,I reckon.

l actually think central heating is bad for health.. l think going from  a very over heated house then going out into a very cold outdoors ,causes colds, due to high fluctuation of body temps . Its only my opinion and im not sure  if l right...ll have to research it.
Dont get me wrong, l dont mean ones should live in very cold house but l do think young ones today do have their homes over heated.
 But us older ones l do think are made of tougher stuff as we use to eat far less process food in our day ,so less posion in our body from all the chemicals today thats pumped in meat and sprayed on veg etc. A lot of old friends l knew lived to their 90's (those that didnt smoke) and had very hard economic upbringings. l think l must have done something right when bringing up my 3 children as they are all very frugal. My son likes to check to see who out us in the family is the last to put heating on. And my daughter and her hubby and their 4 children have a small homestead type of property where they too grow a lots of their food and have geese and chickens. She too cooks in winter with slower cookers.  Always hangs washing outside everyday (has 4 kids) + no tumble dryer and they have a wood burning fire that heats the whole house.They save £££s being frugal and use savings to have skiing holidays which they all love. Non of them gets colds or flu and all are very fit including  all my 8 grandchildren. Was chatting about this with hubby and we both said we cant remember the last time we both got flu..l think it was in out 30's and that's and  40 years ago.l cant ever remember hubby ever having a  head cold in all the 50 years we have been married.

chrobakx

My heating is on due to small baby in house

bouicca21

Central heating bad for you?  TBH going from an overheated room into the freezing cold of the rest of the house or outside can’t have been great for our health.  Way back when, one would have a coal/coke fire in one room and the rest of the house was unheated.  I can’t be the only person who remembers having ice on the inside of the windows because the condensation had frozen overnight.

Effician

bouicca21 said:

 Way back when, one would have a coal/coke fire in one room and the rest of the house was unheated. 

Some of us still do it this way all be it with a log burner,  granted reasonable insulation/draft proofing & good air circulation from fans make it workable.

summertime_2

l did some research this afternoon about central heating temps, as l was worried perhaps we had ours too low as we keep our 's  to 60F. if it goes below that, we put heating on. All day yesterday and all day today ,our rooms in day time have not gone below 60F and we feel comfortable with that with jumper on ,leggings etc. our living room was 65F (18c)
 
the info  on many google searches said that if house goes below 15c..its time to have heating on.
they recommended 18c-21c is a good temp.
anything over 21c is considered. too high for health as central heating does dry out the air and causes sinus problems and other health problems.
of course everyone has different circumstances with health issues,ages,children etc  and of course property insulation is a factor as well, but from what l have read ,if in good health, then above is recommended, 
its well worth looking up to see what Health experts say about Central Heating.

summertime_2

bouicca21 said:

Central heating bad for you?  TBH going from an overheated room into the freezing cold of the rest of the house or outside can’t have been great for our health.  Way back when, one would have a coal/coke fire in one room and the rest of the house was unheated.  I can’t be the only person who remembers having ice on the inside of the windows because the condensation had frozen overnight.

yes l remember those days when my moms house had ice crystals on our bedroom square window.panes .We had some very bad winters in those days..,anyone else remember the bad winters of the 50's- 60's.But  our  living room coal fire was not a over heated room,  no double glazing in those days or loft insulation, not like some have their homes today. So back then we never had a real huge drop in temp. Was we healthier back then, l dont know but l do know my dad never lost a days works in his life and  l dont remember any of my brothers or sisters, 7 of us,having had cold or flu or chest infections. Perhaps we were lucky.

General_Grant

It's been 13.2 deg C for about 3 hours now so I'm about to light the fire in the sitting room.

A couple of years ago Age UK gave advice that one should "keep your main living room at 21 deg C (70 deg F)", that this was the "ideal living room temperature".  The ideal bedroom temperature was said to be 18 deg F.  Further they said that 15 deg C was cold and that "the cold raises blood pressure, which can be bad for your health".

General_Grant

When I was a schoolchild (1950s/60s) in winter our coats were kept in the unheated hall.

Coats were to be put on only at the point we were setting foot outside.  According to my mother this was because "you won't feel the benefit when you go out if you put the coat on ahead of time". 

I never followed the logic as I thought I could wear the coat for a while indoors and this would mean the coat would have warmed up and keep me warmer when I did go out.