Keeping warm without central heating or gas fires

1trainer1

We are currently living in an old 1890's house and it is freezing cold during the evenings, we have got a small fan heater but that is only good when you sit next to it.

how else can we keep warm as once we leave the living room and go to the bedroom the hallway is freezing.

We are doing an extension on the house and cannot put heating in until March / April once the extension is completed.

I am wearing 3 layers which is ok for the time being but need something else is possible for the two of us

UsernameAlreadyExists

A duvet and snuggles.

I bought an oil filled portable radiator for the missus recently (we have only one CH rad in a largish room which doesn't work that well). She has contacts and the fan heaters irrirate her eyes. The portable rad is pretty good, but again is only really good for localised heating.

ilikewatch

I would have thought that a house that age would have open fires?

southcoastrgi

i don't understand why you can't put heating in now & just leave the pipework ready to go to feed the extension

VoucherMan

I have an electric heater similar to

Ideal if I just want to warm a single room. Or at the bottom of the stairs to take the chill off the staircase / landing. Usually has the room warm enough after 15 or 20 minutes.

maninthestreet

A small fan heater is not going to be able to heat an entire house, only the room it is in. You need electric heaters in each room.

HappyMJ

A boiler output is typically in the region of 15kW when on maximum output for an average 3/4 bedroom house. So if you are going to use electric heating you will need 15kW of electric heaters....NOT all in one room but spread around the house. Be aware though that each 3kW heater will draw 13A @ 230V and most houses can only handle 80A of total current. So no more than five 3kW heaters (you would be much safer using seven 2kW heaters but never having them all on at once) or when you turn the oven or the electric shower or even the immersion heater on the main fuse on the house will start to overheat and possibly blow after a time.

macman

The first thing to do is improve the insulation.
As above, no reason you can't put the CH in now and then extend the pipe run into the extension later.
Otherwise just invest in a few cheap convectors, one fan heater is totally inadequate.

good_advice

Hiya, there is a lot of people who have heating but are to afraid of large bills to have it on much.
As you said layers of clothes help. Vest, base layer and jumper.
No one has said hot water bottle on your thread yet.

After dinner, hot baths or shower. Into pj's and then watch tv in bed or read a book? Hibernate like the animals.

On the dark cold nights many people get up late and go to bed early.
Roll on spring!

evoke

Agree with a previous post: you'll need electric heaters (like portable oil-filled radiators) in all the areas of your house that you want to warm up. They'll provide background heat but are unlikely to keep the room warm enough (depends on how well insulated your house is and how large the rooms are).

Carry a small fan heater into the room you're in and use that to get the room up to a decent temperature. Keep all doors closed as often as you can to avoid large air movements and heat rising from the downstairs to the upper floor.

Budget for around £50 - £100 for a semi-decent electric radiator, and you'll need one in each area of the house that you want to heat up.

daveyjp

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=portable+gas+heater&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&oe=utf8&rlz=1I7GGIH_en-GB&safe=active&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=3228160484100334128#