Worried about keeping warm

SEE

I'm really worried with the price rises that I won't be able to afford to keep warm next year. I already use door curtains and wear warm clothes indoors, but our extended cold seasons are starting to push keeping warm out of my budget.

I've had severe lung and throat infections this year due to not being as warm as I should be. I just wonder how many families this year are running up heating bills knowing full well they cannot pay. A terrible situation, especially when we may be looking at future increases in arthritis etc due to being too cold.

I used to have a good supply of lath from roofing jobs, but no one can afford to have roofs don't at the moment.

Eliza_2

Lots of others, me included, equally worried. Lots of hints and ideas here
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4202003.

Liz

bryanb

I don't think you can blame not being warm for infections, but I sympathise with your worry.

grahamc2003

With an electric blanket, there's always somewhere to get really warm, however cold and grim it is everywhere else. We bought a double for a king sized bed, which works great. They cost pennies to run, and sometimes they go for a tenner.

For various reasons, I'm afraid the bad news is that our energy bills can only increase at a high rate for the forseeable future - that is already built in. So plan as best you can for that.

suki1964

Eliza wrote: »

Lots of others, me included, equally worried. Lots of hints and ideas here
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4202003.

Liz

Lots of advice there

I also buy logs and coal throughout the summer to spread the cost, oil is only used for three hours a day to keep the non living rooms warm enough for mum to use

I also use my money box money, I save 1 and 2 pound coins to pay the coal man if I run out in the winter

I also have lap blankets in the sitting rooms.

I think for most people now its a case of keeping one room warm enough and rarely or barely heating the rest of the house

reeac

SEE wrote: »

I'm really worried with the price rises that I won't be able to afford to keep warm next year. I already use door curtains and wear warm clothes indoors, but our extended cold seasons are starting to push keeping warm out of my budget.

I used to have a good supply of lath from roofing jobs, but no one can afford to have roofs don't at the moment.

In my experience roof tile laths are always pressure treated to avoid rot. You shouldn't burn such wood on a domestic fire.

SEE

reeac wrote: »

In my experience roof tile laths are always pressure treated to avoid rot. You shouldn't burn such wood on a domestic fire.

I doubt they were treated 100yrs ago? That is how old they are.

SEE

bryanb wrote: »

I don't think you can blame not being warm for infections, but I sympathise with your worry.

I just found this.

There is a constant increase in hospitalizations and mortality during winter months; cardiovascular diseases as well as respiratory infections are responsible for a large proportion of this added morbidity and mortality. Exposure to cold has often been associated with increased incidence and severity of respiratory tract infections. The data available suggest that exposure to cold, either through exposure to low environmental temperatures or during induced hypothermia, increases the risk of developing upper and lower respiratory tract infections and dying from them; in addition, the longer the duration of exposure the higher the risk of infection. Although not all studies agree, most of the available evidence from laboratory and clinical studies suggests that inhaled cold air, cooling of the body surface and cold stress induced by lowering the core body temperature cause pathophysiological responses such as vasoconstriction in the respiratory tract mucosa and suppression of immune responses, which are responsible for increased susceptibility to infections. The general public and public health authorities should therefore keep this in mind and take appropriate measures to prevent increases in morbidity and mortality during winter due to respiratory infections.

Ecodave

Can we take it that you have addressed the obvious issues around insulation and swapping to a favourable energy tariff?

Can you describe your heating system? Perhaps you could make some improvements there?

A._Badger

Perhaps you could usefully burn some of the 'Green' propaganda publications that have brought this situation about? We wouldn't be in this position had not eco warriors deliberately rigged the energy market to create artificially high prices.

And to the person who suggested cold weather can't be implicated in physical ailments, shame on you - that is nonsense, as any charity or medical body working with the young, aged or infirm will tell you. Well done, SEE for squashing that one!

You have my sympathies, OP, truly - as has anyone else suffering the consequences of this country's insane energy policy. It won't make you warmer, but complain like crazy to your MP. This hasn't happened by accident.

grahamc2003

A._Badger wrote: »

Perhaps you could usefully burn some of the 'Green' propaganda publications that have brought this situation about? We wouldn't be in this position had not eco warriors deliberately rigged the energy market to create artificially high prices.

And to the person who suggested cold weather can't be implicated in physical ailments, shame on you - that is nonsense, as any charity or medical body working with the young, aged or infirm will tell you. Well done, SEE for squashing that one!

You have my sympathies, OP, truly - as has anyone else suffering the consequences of this country's insane energy policy. It won't make you warmer, but complain like crazy to your MP. This hasn't happened by accident.

While the current dire energy situation - and I doubt most realise how really dire it is - has been made much worse by green imperatives over the last 15/20 years, the rot set in around 50 years ago, and for that 99% of the population are culpable. There was - and still is - only a single source of energy for the substantive part of our electricity, and that is Nuclear. Others are either intermittent (like solar or wind), or finite (like coal, gas). Posting a view like this 20 years ago - as I did - would result in instant condemnation from every quarter as if I were insane (I don't think I am, and I did work at the highest engineering level for the National Grid), but today such posts get reasonable support, with now only a minority thinking we can manage without. It really doesn't matter what the risks are (they are tiny relative to most others), it is the only option on the table (for the substantive part).

Energy policy, such as it is, has been dictated by anti-Nuclear groups with the support of the vast majority in the near past, and ideologically driven 'environmental' (which are anything but these days) groups in the near past, producing our current situation, where in 4 or 5 years time, we'll be lucky to escape electricity rationing, and when we can get it, it will be very expensive. Aiui, there are 4 reasonably large coal fired (i.e. relatively cheap) power stations being decommissioned as I type, and the implied view that they can be replaced by very expensive and highly subsidised windmills and solar power is an obvious nonsense. I wish I could post something more encouraging.