How to live without heating - save £000s

FreeBear

wrf12345 said: Keeping the house warm enough to avoid freezing pipes is another issue, though.

A cold house will be prone to condensation - This can lead to mould and also promote rot in the woodwork. One could end up with a very expensive repair bill a few years down the line.

masonic

FreeBear said:

wrf12345 said: Keeping the house warm enough to avoid freezing pipes is another issue, though.

A cold house will be prone to condensation - This can lead to mould and also promote rot in the woodwork. One could end up with a very expensive repair bill a few years down the line.

Condensation occurs when two conditions are met:

1. The fabric of the home is cooler than the air inside the home.
2. The humidity of the air inside the home is such that its dew point is above the surface temperature of the fabric of the home.

The dew point is more easily reached if the fabric of the home drops to lower temperatures, but it does require the internal air to be warm and humid. That can come from activities such as cooking and using hot water, or simply enough bodies shedding heat and breathing. I remember problems with condensation as a child in a poorly insulated home heated primarily by coal fire. It was also in a generally damp part of the UK.

The tools for combating condensation are ventilation and dehumidification. I have made use of a dehumidifier even when heating my home to 20C in winter. When dropping the internal temperature, especially as I avoid the heat loss that comes with ventilation, I've found a dehumidifier invaluable. It also recovers the latent heat of evaporation that put the moisture into the air. The "full HertsLad" approach is lots of ventilation.

But it would be unwise to let moisture build up inside any home, especially those allowed to reach low temperatures. Windows are often the gateway to understanding if you have a problem.

wrf12345

The humidity in Torbay combined with the sea air is best described as corrosive and even now I am wiping the windows down due to condensation each morning, though only on the north side of the house (no heating until December), each end of the house is vented (chimney breast and kitchen extractor fan) and usually have one or two windows slightly open in the day. No hot water as I do cold water showers and cooking is all via a microwave (even nuke my cups of coffee) so minimal amount of steam in the house. The answer is probably to move...

Green_hopeful

The windows showing moisture seems to work for us. We have several rooms we don’t use much and we don’t heat but we also don’t add any moisture. No condensation. The rooms we use would be running with condensation if we didn’t keep on top of the moisture with a window vax and dehumidifier. 

HertsLad

wrf12345 said:

The humidity in Torbay combined with the sea air is best described as corrosive and even now I am wiping the windows down due to condensation each morning, though only on the north side of the house (no heating until December), each end of the house is vented (chimney breast and kitchen extractor fan) and usually have one or two windows slightly open in the day. No hot water as I do cold water showers and cooking is all via a microwave (even nuke my cups of coffee) so minimal amount of steam in the house. The answer is probably to move...

If you hold off on heating until December, that's pretty good. I could never tolerate cold water showers so you are tougher than me. I'm sorry you have a problem with condensation. It's a non-issue in my house, with only a slight trace on the bedroom window, from my breathing overnight, I guess.

MarzipanCrumble

I too don't have condensation apart from 1 or 2 days in bedroom, nor mold.  But then I don't dry washed clothes inside other than occasionally using tumble dryer which vents outside.

I don't heat to anything above about 16C - central thermostat in hall but I do have 2 woodburners but only one used.  Cavity wall insulation, double glazing, draught proof door stoppers etc.  Loft is insulated and boarded with both chipboard and planks.

I wonder about a dehumidifier - maybe look Black Friday

Green_hopeful

MarzipanCrumble said:

I too don't have condensation apart from 1 or 2 days in bedroom, nor mold.  But then I don't dry washed clothes inside other than occasionally using tumble dryer which vents outside.

I don't heat to anything above about 16C - central thermostat in hall but I do have 2 woodburners but only one used.  Cavity wall insulation, double glazing, draught proof door stoppers etc.  Loft is insulated and boarded with both chipboard and planks.

I wonder about a dehumidifier - maybe look Black Friday

Watch the prices on dehumidifiers. We were looking for a particular Meaco one last year. The price went up for Black Friday. I was a bit disappointed. What is the humidity like in your house? Sounds like it could be pretty low anyway. My previous house was like your house and the humidity was really low. 

bob2302

HertsLad said:

bob2302 said:

I concede my savings don't quite wipe out my entire energy bill because I still pay to use a little mains gas, just for my gas cooker. I have zero cost for electricity because 100% of my electricity comes from solar panels and a battery bank.

That's missing the point, the thread is about the money saved by living without heating. The point is that you can make almost almost all of the savings you claim to be making, without doing anything extreme.

I don't think you need to remind me what this thread is about. I started it.

How exactly could I make the same savings 'without doing anything extreme'? Have I missed something?

I've already explained  this several times, but you don't bother reading what I write - of course you are missing something.  Read the text you just quoted, and look at the end of title of this thread.

HertsLad

bob2302 said:

HertsLad said:

I concede my savings don't quite wipe out my entire energy bill because I still pay to use a little mains gas, just for my gas cooker. I have zero cost for electricity because 100% of my electricity comes from solar panels and a battery bank.

That's missing the point, the thread is about the money saved by living without heating. The point is that you can make almost almost all of the savings you claim to be making, without doing anything extreme.

I don't think you need to remind me what this thread is about. I started it.

How exactly could I make the same savings 'without doing anything extreme'? Have I missed something?

I've already explained  this several times, but you don't bother reading what I write - of course you are missing something.  Read the text you just quoted, and look at the end of title of this thread.

I'm sorry but, if it was some time ago, which page number, please? I genuinely fail to understand how I could improve my standard of living whilst still making almost all the savings I currently make. I see you use the phrase: "claim to be making" as if you don't believe me. I have even uploaded copies of my bills here. What more can I do?

Extreme measures, in your mind may be the occasions when the temperature goes down to 1C or 2C. Most of the winter, the temperature inside my house hovers around 8C or 9C.  Say I set the thermostat for gas heating to 12C. It would need to be almost 'whole house' heating because I found heating just one room so inconvenient and impractical. The cost of heating to 'avoid extremes' and stop the house cooling below 12C would be hundreds of pounds per year. I am guessing but, whatever it is, I regard it as very poor value for money. 

mmmmikey

Good to see lots of interest in this thread again. I'm very much in the I'd rather spend my money on heating than holidays camp. But even given that I've followed this thread with great interest. As someone with health issues and feels the cold, I've picked lots of tips about warm clothing, etc. and the discussion about condensation is relevant to the parts of the house I don't heat.

On a lighter note all this talk of thermal underwear brings to mind the Ronnie Barker "Betty Swallocks" sketch. Used to be considered family entertainment, how times and sensibilities have changed 😁