House so cold

Eliza_2

smcqis wrote: »

7 degrees not cold?! I sometimes wake up to 12 degrees and find it cold

Well you're very nesh. You can easily get used to it, just reduce your room temp by a degree or so every so often - 7 isn't too bad and your body is warm after being snuggled under a duvet all night. My main room is generally 9 apart from near the fire where I sit so that's fine. Away from the fire I'm generally doing things so that's fine too.

The weather's getting warmer apparently for the next few days which will be fab. If I ever win the lottery and can afford to keep the house warm, I don't know what I'll do!

If I stay with my mother whose house always seems roasting when I first get there, I can sometimes feel chilly by day 3. Returning home to this icebox and by day 3 I'm used to the cold again. Needs must!!

bernithebiker

Eliza wrote: »

Well you're very nesh. You can easily get used to it, just reduce your room temp by a degree or so every so often - 7 isn't too bad and your body is warm after being snuggled under a duvet all night. My main room is generally 9 apart from near the fire where I sit so that's fine. Away from the fire I'm generally doing things so that's fine too.

The weather's getting warmer apparently for the next few days which will be fab. If I ever win the lottery and can afford to keep the house warm, I don't know what I'll do!

If I stay with my mother whose house always seems roasting when I first get there, I can sometimes feel chilly by day 3. Returning home to this icebox and by day 3 I'm used to the cold again. Needs must!!

I admire your stoicism! Pretty impressive to be able to live with such low temps.

Our holiday houses are mostly empty over the winter, but even so we keep them at 13 or 14'C minimum to make sure they don't get damp.

Don't you have a wood fire of some kind you could use?

Eliza_2

bernithebiker wrote: »

I admire your stoicism! Pretty impressive to be able to live with such low temps.

Our holiday houses are mostly empty over the winter, but even so we keep them at 13 or 14'C minimum to make sure they don't get damp.

Don't you have a wood fire of some kind you could use?

Yep an open fire (see last bit of first paragraph!) Really blasting out the heat this evening, I'm roasting and have a polo neck plus woolly cardy on, so plenty warm enough. I don't think it's being stoical at all, there's no point in being warmer than you need to be. It would be different if I was old or ill.

Anyway I hope by now the original poster has found the Preparing for Winter thread, the ideas on there are the way to go!

and ps, where are your holiday houses - don't they let in the winter?

suki1964

bernithebiker wrote: »

I admire your stoicism! Pretty impressive to be able to live with such low temps.

Our holiday houses are mostly empty over the winter, but even so we keep them at 13 or 14'C minimum to make sure they don't get damp.

Don't you have a wood fire of some kind you could use?

Jeez I'd be toasted

Damp is a different matter all together, perhaps you need a dehumidifier?

I have to say last night it was minus 3 outside yet still had the bedroom window open. As it happens I have a cough which kept the hubby awake so slept on the sofa just wrapped in a dressing gown and one small sofa fleece. Sitting room was around 12 oC

It's not so much stoicism its what you get used to. For too long we have got used to over heated homes and places of work

However I wouldn't say to another how to heat their home as its a personal preference

chris1973

7c? & 12c? in the bedroom when its well below freezing outside with no heating on?, wow thats tropical, you must have a fairly well insulated property. I envy those temps.

Unlike most bedrooms in houses or flats which have other rooms below them, My room is over a completely open archway, currently used as a car port, with no insulation under the floor boards meaning the inside temperature closely mimics and tracks the outside, which, believe me, at this time of year is like sleeping in a garden shed. Whats worse is that the cold, coming up through the floorboards 'soaks' into the carpet, so you tend to hop extremely quickly from the bed to the bathroom at 6AM to get ready to go to work, as the floor is cold, damp and at the moment feels like walking on ice.

The last few nights the temperature high up in the Staffordshire Moorlands has dropped down to around -4c / -5c and i've been going to bed in room temperatures of 3c, so cold you can see your breath.

Occasionally I treat myself to the luxury of running the storage heater in the bedroom, which is 2.55kw and after a couple of nights worth of running, manages to get the room to a balmy 6c by mid-afternoon, not that i'm there to enjoy it as i'm still at work, by the time i'm ready for bed the storage heater is played out and its back down to 3c or 4c, so basically I may as well just put it out in the yard and try and use it to heat the garden, as i'm getting no actually heat benefit, just helps to dry out the condensation.

When it gets really cold I sleep in the lounge, try it, yes its inconvenient but its still a hell of a lot more than some people have!.

My main lounge heating is actually paraffin / kerosene, as running three night storage heaters can cost upto £3.00 a night or £90 a month just to take the chill off the room, requiring 5 or 6 hours of further 'top up' heating in the Evening using convectors on premium E7 daytime rates, which is extremely expensive, far more so than even LPG or Oil central heating!.

By using a modern kerosene indoor heater i've reduced my KW/H heating costs down from 18.85p KW/H (Npower E7 rip off merchants) to 7p per KW/H on paraffin (5.6p per Kw/H on heating oil kerosene bought at 56p per litre). I only have the one heater, but thats all I need, I only live in one room. However, even this fails to get the bedroom to a decent temperature as the heat just escapes, hence the better insulated lounge effectively becomes a bedsit for 3 or 4 months of the year,.

Seriously even with heating oil you have it made, compared to Electric only heating, its still half the cost. Just switch off the radiators in the rooms you don't use, and migrate to one room during the winter months!. Its better to live comfortably in one room, than wonder around 3 or 4 which are all freezing.

I do feel your pain though, people just think its the elderly and unemployed who feel the cold, but there are also those who work long hours, and third world wages just to brighten government figures, who are in fuel poverty too, its not newsworthy for papers to cover their plight though, and why bother anyway? cos they are entitled to sweet **** all.

In short, what i'm saying is that don't expect Daddy Warbucks to appear with a solution, the only person you can rely on in this world is YOU, and only YOU can find a solution to help YOURSELF. If you are cold buy some blankets, charity shops are full of them, wrap yourself in them with a bubble wrap layer (pound shop) between each one - worked for me!. Okay, it sounds and looks daft, but who is going to see you?, there is no pride in being cold, and trust me it works.

Lots of other practical and cheap solutions above, use them to your advantage.

Also consider doing voluntary work, it looks good to potential employers, and from experience charity shops, help the aged offices etc are usually always toasty warm. Far easier to be out of the house for 8 hours a day in a warm environment than sitting in a cold house.

Eliza_2

chris1973 wrote: »

The last few nights the temperature high up in the Staffordshire Moorlands has dropped down to around -4c / -5c and i've been going to bed in room temperatures of 3c, so cold you can see your breath.

chris1973 wrote: »

Also consider doing voluntary work, it looks good to potential employers, and from experience charity shops, help the aged offices etc are usually always toasty warm. Far easier to be out of the house for 8 hours a day in a warm environment than sitting in a cold house.

Not always so easy Chris - as a fellow Moorlander I carefully have to plan my trips into town because of petrol costs and along with rural areas all over the UK, public transport is also expensive and unreliable.

There was a scheme recently between the two local authorities where a free energy audit could be done, and then trained volunteers would visit people who wished to take up advice about insulating and heating. I had an audit done on mine and it was fascinating, and found sources of cold I hadn't realised, as well as simple ideas for solving the problems, however not one single other person in the local villages took up the offer. The volunteers were armed with info both about low cost insulation schemes as well as common sense ideas such as those found in the Preparing for Winter thread. The scheme died a death as far as I know, do people prefer just to moan and complain rather than ask for help?

This website has been invaluable to me but when I talk about the wonders of bubble wrap to people they think I'm slightly mad yet still complain about their draughty windows.

From a wet but gloriously beautiful Moorlands

Liz

spinningsheep

I can believe it Eliza and chris1973, having grown up in Werrington in the moorlands and now living just down the road in Bucknall, a mere 3.5 miles the temp difference can be as much as 4 degrees! I had rain here in Hanley a few weeks ago but it fell as snow in Werrington.Further up into the moorlands you get, the colder it gets.would LOVE to live up there again alas priced out of the market Proper winters there

[Deleted User]

Anything less than 20c all the time and the wife would pack her bags....

Having lived in an old house without proper heating we never got used to the lower temps and we're young and fit...