Winter Fuel Payment 20 November 2015 at 12:05PM in Over 50s MoneySaving 104 replies 23.6K views

Gillyches

Hello, Biggles,

Unfortunately we don't even have a thermostat on it... not a separate wall-mounted one. However, we do turn the boiler switch/thermostat down to the lowest setting.

Do you turn the water off at the rising main whilst the system still runs? Is that safe?

margaretclare

elljay wrote: »

Aside from the rules which have been mentioned, the intention behind the payment is to ensure that pensioners have help with additional fuel bills which we have to pay in this cold damp country with our poorly heated and uninsulated homes and to minimise the risk of death or poor health through cold.

Yes, I think this was the original intention. The legislation could not possibly have taken into account those who choose to have two homes, one in a warm country and one in the UK. Most of the people for whom this was intended would not have two homes, one in a warmer country.

Biggles

Gillyches wrote: »

Do you turn the water off at the rising main whilst the system still runs? Is that safe?

My plumber assures me that it's perfectly safe.

seven-day-weekend

We didn't get the WFA when we lived in Spain, although one of us qualified on age. We too had a home in the UK.

However I can see both sides of the argument. It IS cold in some of these places in the winter; the only time I have ever had an electric blanket was in my freezing cold Spanish house on a mountain at the altitude of Snowdon's summit. No central heating, just bottled gas or electric heaters in most rooms although we did have a woodburner in the sitting room. Tiles floors and walls - the houses are built to keep heat OUT so they are cold in the winter especially at that altitude. We did as the Spanish did and just heated the room we were in. So we probably had more need of it there than we do here. However, we chose to live there and so therefore didn't see why we should grumble about not receiving it.

On the other hand, why should some British Pensioners receive it and not others? This was my friend's argument who also lived in the same Spanish village as me, she had worked all her life and didn't see why she should not be entitled to it to help heat her (freezing cold) house, as much as any other pensioner. It would have bought her winter's logs for the logburner, or extra gas bottles.

So, as I say, I can see both sides.