Is your heating ON or OFF?

raven83

I've had the electric fire on, does that count:o:rotfl:

prepareathome

Ours is on 18c which it has been left at since last October but apart from hall radiator which I cannot adjust all the others have their thermostat set at frost protection so have to be a lot colder before they come on. Hall one has come on for short times but just got warm not hot before going off, but never more than 10 mins or so, so far. Even came on a couple of times during our so called summer.

Bathroom towel rail is left on to max and it also has kicked in a few times but but again only for short times, that is left as with two outside walls it can be very,very cold in there at times although bubblewrap on window has made a difference.

Fleece jackets are being worn by hubby and me when toddling round but in bed now under heavier duvet and sitting in short sleeve top now and quite warm. Fleeced curtains are certainly already making a difference.

Hall and Bathroom rads off just and its 19c in here yet blowing a gale and freezing outside.

Not making any plans for when to switch on other rads will just see how it goes.

craigywv

no heating on today as its been a lovely day got heavy washing dried outside had to put immersion heater on for bath water sort of defeats the purpose.

CupOfChai

Nope, no heating here although we've had to put a jumper on for a bit just in the last couple of days. Argh, I mean a jumper each, we don't get in the same one! Might be an idea though, that WOULD be cosy.

Come to think of it I don't actually know how to work the heating. Best get round to figuring it out soon. We have those electric heaters you tend to get in flats but never had them before so don't know how best to work them. I'll maybe post up photos of the controls sometime and see if anyone can tell us what to do.

Confuzzled

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Just a quick tip for everyone who doesn't already do this: if you have a tiny house like i do, when you have finished cooking dinner in the oven, and have turned it off, leave the oven door open, and all the lovely heat spreads out and into the kitchen (and front room too, in my teeny house!). I have started doing this and it gives a 30min edge off the cold!

Doesn't matter that all my washing (and whole house!!) smells of smoked haddock after that

i've been doing this for years and you're right it really does help. also in the lead up to putting the heat on for winter for good i will do baking during the day instead (storage heaters so if i didn't have them on the night before... oh and i work from home too so if it's a really cool day...) the slow cooker and the dehydrator also put off a nice low amount of heat, just enough to take off the edge of things and i almost always have something that needs slow cooked or dehydrated.

i do try to save the oven til i have multiple things to cook as it's the most costly to run but any of the three really help take the nip off the air. in sweden they heavily insulate homes and use triple glazing, by doing so the vast majority of the time the house stays an acceptable temperature simply by the heat thrown off by appliances (telly, cooker,computer etc) and the body heat of the inhabitants. they usually have a small wood stove for those days when it's not enough but they also have far colder weather in winter at least than we do (i'm in scotland) so that's saying something.

i don't care for laptops in general but sometimes in winter i think how lovely it would be to be able to do some of my work on one snuggled up on the sofa using the lappy as a lap and hand warmer, they do put out a large amount of heat!

jackieb

I was out early yesterday morning and it was white with frost and the temperature dropped to -1.5! :eek:

Confuzzled

CupOfChai wrote: »

Come to think of it I don't actually know how to work the heating. Best get round to figuring it out soon. We have those electric heaters you tend to get in flats but never had them before so don't know how best to work them. I'll maybe post up photos of the controls sometime and see if anyone can tell us what to do.

ok with storage heaters you have two controls, input and output (sometimes labeled as boost)

input is the amount of energy you want to allow in, basically how much heat you want it to store up over night during economy 7

output or boost is how slowly you want it to be released during the day

generally in midwinter we have our input at midway (usually 3-4 on most controls) and only turn it up higher on nights we know are going to be very cold

for output (boost) we generally keep ours down low at a 1 or 2 most of the day, if it's really cold we may turn it up in the evening a bit higher to let more heat out before we go to bed

if you keep your output/boost up too high you will quickly run out of heat during the day and be very cold at night. i used to have real problems with the storage heaters until someone explained how they work now i'm fine

it's VERY important to note, some storage heaters have an extra button or switch, usually red that may be called a boost, or an emergency boost. do NOT use this unless you have to, it's essentially like using an electric panel heater which are quite expensive to run. these will give you heat at ANY time you need it but will cost you dearly. ours in this flat don't have that, i don't think most storage heaters do but i've lived in flats where they've been there, be sure also they don't accidentally get bumped on. a small fan heater would most likely be cheaper to use in situations where you just had to have instant heat rather than using anything like that on a storage heater.

i work from home and home educate so basically we are home all day and this has worked very well for us using the settings i mentioned above. the house generally stays at around 17-18C all winter which is cooler than most like however we heat ourselves locally with slipper boots, fleeces, warm trousers, fleece dressing gowns over our clothes and a nice snuggle blanket or duvet over our laps whilst we are sat at the computer working, hot cups of tea and the odd hot water bottle help when it's nippier than normal.

oddly enough it's my daughter that feels the cold less than i do, and we are both quite hardy with rarely any colds at all, in fact we both went about 2.5 years without any form of cold,flu etc. i personally never felt well when i had the heat up higher in winter, always felt dried out and it played hell with my sinuses.

we've lived in this same flat doing these same things for 3 winters now including the harsh 2010 winter, our electric bill is, all in over the last 3 years averaged £43 per month, that's for EVERYTHING including two computers going most of the day, all lights AND heating. since we have no gas that's it, that's all we pay.

our place is moderately well insulated, i will say the thick underlay and thick carpets help and we're upstairs with a women in her 50's that can be generous with her heat when she has a cold but we also have draughty warped wooden framed double glazing (some i think has blown) so with only some foam draught excluder , fleece lined curtains and some bubble wrap on some windows we've still been able to maintain these low costs. it will of couse differ depending on how insulated a building is, if you're on the ground floor etc but it's not so bad once you get the hang of it!

southantrim3

It's cold here - on sadly

bodmil

Still re-decorating so the radiators are still OFF the walls! No curtains on the single paned windows either! Bit chilly getting into bed but nothing a hot bf doesn't fix

supermum4

on here:( but on min timer few hours in morning and again at night