Elderly OStylers please keep warm

lostinrates

Scrapaholic wrote: »

I remember in the 50's , no CH , the bedroom window panes , small glass panes ,set in metal ( ? proper name ) were iced up on the inside . We had a coal fire in the sitting room but everywhere else was cold . We survived somehow ! Now I'm at an age where I have my own flashes of heat and don't mind a cool bedroom . Hope your FIL picks up soon, Dandy .

Crittall windows.

I love them.

Scrapaholic

Lostinrates, really, crittal windows . That sounds too posh for a 50's council house . They were taken out when it was refurbished in the 70's . I suppose they did look prettier than the ones that are probably there now .

lostinrates

Scrapaholic wrote: »

Lostinrates, really, crittal windows . That sounds too posh for a 50's council house . They were taken out when it was refurbished in the 70's . I suppose they did look prettier than the ones that are probably there now .

Nope, they were pretty standard then I think. They first came in in the ...1920s or thirties I think, but were commonly found in housing from last centuary, and schools and offices.

Most people dislike them, but I just love them. Funny, as I am not so fussed about other last century architectural details.

The paint flaked badly, and they were demons for condensation.

We had one in this house and the builder and architect had to prise my protective fingers from it, because it was in a bad state and very, very draughty. But...I loved it!

Popperwell

Even the Age Concern site cannot really offer a solution to the cost of gas and electric so many still have to leave it off and all their advice is much the same as what we are all doing through choice or because we have to...

Wearing more layered clothing, using hot water bottles, fleeces, blankets, duvets, gloves, hats. coats indoors even in bed!

So even their help is limited to some extent...it would not be so bad if when we see a bill of say £50 a month for Gas CH during the winter to stay warm but you still have to find money for electric too. Not helped by the increases in rent, countil tax, possibly bedroom tax and now food. And if you own property there are all those repairs you have to do to keep the house in good order(roof repairs, rewiring, replacing heating systems etc...)so either way it isn't easy. Good and bad points for owning or renting property.

Errata

Crittal windows? Cold, condensation and rust are my memories of them. But one could get dressed in the morning whilst admiring all the different shapes of ice on the inside.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Errata wrote: »

Crittal windows? Cold, condensation and rust are my memories of them. But one could get dressed in the morning whilst admiring all the different shapes of ice on the inside.

Me too, when in my freezing cold council flat. Was warmer when the ice blocked the draughts, too. And as private as having net curtains.

I do remember how they rattled when the red arrows flew overhead, though...

bluebag

gayleygoo wrote: »

OP I do hope your FIL is recovering, how scary!

My granny got a free room thermometer last year from the council, which I thought was an excellent idea as she knows she should put heating on or light the fire if it "goes into the blue bars"!

Not all elderly people live in small, easy to heat houses either. OH used to be a coalman and is now a postie, and says there are a lot of elderly people living in big, even huge houses - often very old houses - by themselves and they'd be hard to heat properly in the winter, and not much can be done if they don't have the money. Each winter in his colleague magazine, there are stories of elderly people who've been saved by postmen when no-one else was there to check on them.

Our baby monitor shows the temp in our LO's bedroom and lately it has been 8 or 9 degrees in there at night. Health visitor told me off once but we make do with blankets and warm jammies! We have heating oil there but its only on two hours a day because I don't know where the money for our next batch will come from. We're not as fortunate as our young, single friends who get heating money from the dole to spend on drink, they live with their parents FGS.

Would it be possible for you to have a small heater just for babies room with a thermostat so it didn't run away with the electric? Maybe just on for a few hours to keep the room a little warmer.

Have a look on the preparing for winter thread for cheap ideas to increase the insulation in the room, if you haven't already.

I don't know what your circumstances are so it's just a suggestion. We are all trying to do the best we can with what we have. Not always so easy.

sonastin

It does feel a whole lot colder this year than we had last winter, even though its still much warmer outside. We're still getting into double figures during the day and yet our house feels much colder than it was when it was below freezing last winter. I know some of the work we've done to the house over the winter will becontributing to that (insulation nicked out of the loft to insulate the kitchen walls and floors - will be replaced in the loft when the refurb gets that far!) but that can't be the whole story. Maybe I've just gotten soft over the summer! Last year I was perfectly comfortable when the living room was around 18deg but this year I'm grabbing extra layers and blankets at that temp.

I have to say that my grandma went the opposite way with heating. I'm grateful that she never feared putting the heating on but when she was in her own home (in nursing care now), it was uncomfortable visiting her. The living room was always hotter than the surface of the sun. You'd make sure you could strip down to shorts and a vest top while she was sat there in a fleece! My OH could only be in there long enough to say hello & goodbye because it was so hot. Thankfully the nursing home keep the place at a much more bearable temperature - and she seems quite happy with it. As you say, old folks' internal thermometers stop working at some point.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I KNOW this is a serious thread, I KNOW this.

It's the correct information. I KNOW this.



But I just keep reading the title as 'Elderly Oysters please keep warm'.

[Suppose they'd do that with the Walrus and the Carpenter]

vanoonoo

lmao @ ELDERLY OYSTERS heehee!

we had louvre windows where I lived in the 80's and no heating upstairs only two gas fires downstairs, so we often had ice leaves on the windows when I woke up. Fairly sure I slept with a hat on more often than not!

This was in the days that my duvet was refered to as a continental quilt - are they different?