How to live without heating - save £000s

fiddlesticks0

GingerTim said:

HertsLad said:

GingerTim said:

On a less flippant note, have you ever considered using the money saved on heating costs to properly insulate your home so you don't have to do this? Or at least not to the same extreme extent?

I don't think the insulation can be too bad as it is because, as I said, the interior temperature has never gone below 2C, as far as I know. It's always warmer indoors. Outdoors always feels colder. So any small gaps could be good for ventilation. What good would further insulation do? I am not creating any heat indoors, so there is nothing to retain. I keep blinds closed, so there's not even much of a warming 'greenhouse' effect from sunlight.

Just imagine, with proper insulation the indoor ambient temperature might stay above 10 degrees!

Your comment suggests you don't understand what insulation does and how it works. Put it this way - I'm fortunate to live in a very well insulated flat. I haven't had to put the heating on for any considerable time in the last two weeks, and it hasn't dropped below 20 degrees indoors since December. I'm not saying it would instantly raise your indoor temperature to that, but it would be a damn sight warmer than 2 degrees indoors (which is basically like living outdoors, anyway).

Just looking at some old posts in this thread - re this one (from Feb 2022), I'm really surprised any reasonably standard property, even if very well insulated can stay above 20c in the middle of winter with minimal heating. I know there are some new super-insulated green properties, so this could be one of those I suppose - with presumably no warm air escaping from the property (no trickle vents in the windows for example), I believe these have systems to regularly extract any moist air to avoid damp, but I don't know what 'replaces' the extracted air. If the property isn't one of the new super-green ones, I assume dehumidifiers would be needed if very little warm air is escaping the property.

As the property mentioned is a flat there may be quite a few adjacent flats which are being heated I guess which would make a significant difference  - my flat has a property below and one to the side but they've often been empty the past few winters so no heat coming from those and it's already been down to 14 during the daytime in the coldest room here this week.

GingerTim

fiddlesticks0 said:

GingerTim said:

Just imagine, with proper insulation the indoor ambient temperature might stay above 10 degrees!

Your comment suggests you don't understand what insulation does and how it works. Put it this way - I'm fortunate to live in a very well insulated flat. I haven't had to put the heating on for any considerable time in the last two weeks, and it hasn't dropped below 20 degrees indoors since December. I'm not saying it would instantly raise your indoor temperature to that, but it would be a damn sight warmer than 2 degrees indoors (which is basically like living outdoors, anyway).

Just looking at some old posts in this thread - re this one (from Feb 2022), I'm really surprised any reasonably standard property, even if very well insulated can stay above 20c in the middle of winter with minimal heating. I know there are some new super-insulated green properties, so this could be one of those I suppose - with presumably no warm air escaping from the property (no trickle vents in the windows for example), I believe these have systems to regularly extract any moist air to avoid damp, but I don't know what 'replaces' the extracted air. If the property isn't one of the new super-green ones, I assume dehumidifiers would be needed if very little warm air is escaping the property.

Being the owner of one such flat, I can confirm that this calendar year the temperature hasn't dropped below 20 with really minimal heating usage (it did drop to 19 towards the end of 2022). The cat does appreciate the radiators being switched on from time to time at this time of year, though.

I wouldn't say it's a super-green property, but it is insulated to within an inch of its life and the windows are triple glazed, with an ambient mechanical ventilation system moving fresh air in and stale air out and preventing damp. I'm very fortunate, though, and have certainly lived in plenty of places where I'd have to gun the heating to keep warm.

bob2302

fiddlesticks0 said:


...    with presumably no warm air escaping from the property (no trickle vents in the windows for example), I believe these have systems to regularly extract any moist air to avoid damp, but I don't know what 'replaces' the extracted air. If the property isn't one of the new super-green ones, I assume dehumidifiers would be needed if very little warm air is escaping the property.

My understanding is that they use counter-propagating heat exchangers to recover most of the heat that would be lost by ordinary ventilation. Dehumidifiers are only useful with low  levels of ventilation.

HertsLad

I read there will be protests against the Labour policy of removing winter fuel payments from most pensioners. Quite right, too. But I'm not sure about the photo used to support the news article. I believe I am living proof that the statement need not be true if people take a few simple steps, like I do.

 

masonic

There will be plenty with health conditions for whom living without heating could be deadly though. There have been deaths over the winter attributed to lack of heating for several years now, and likely there will be more this winter. I'm not sure all of them could have been prevented by an alternative choice of clothing.

Swipe

I went without heating for 9 days during last January's cold spell due to a Eon leaving me without off peak rate after a switch. The internal house temperature dropped to around 5C by the 9th day. Even though I was layered up and my body was not cold, I still found the whole experience utterly miserable. I didn't like the constant feeling of the cold air on my face and hands. When my off peak was restored and my storage heaters were back on, the bedroom back at 14C and my living room at 17-19C felt like absolute heaven.

Scot_39

masonic said:

There will be plenty with health conditions for whom living without heating could be deadly though. There have been deaths over the winter attributed to lack of heating for several years now, and likely there will be more this winter. I'm not sure all of them could have been prevented by an alternative choice of clothing.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-press/archive/winter-fuel-payment-prevents-12000-deaths-yearly/

Note sure what changed over the decade to get to 3850 iirc in 2017 Labour report.

But I do know energy isd up 75% since pre crisis - despite being well sub EPG - and pensions have risen by less than half - so can only imagine that makes odds worse.

Shame we don't have a proper impact assessment to give us a real estimate - ahead of the planned cut.

Which Age UK now estimates will hurt 2.5 million pensioners following a lengthier data analysis

HertsLad

Swipe said:

I went without heating for 9 days during last January's cold spell due to a Eon leaving me without off peak rate after a switch. The internal house temperature dropped to around 5C by the 9th day. Even though I was layered up and my body was not cold, I still found the whole experience utterly miserable. I didn't like the constant feeling of the cold air on my face and hands. When my off peak was restored and my storage heaters were back on, the bedroom back at 14C and my living room at 17-19C felt like absolute heaven.

I'm sorry to hear that but I doubt if you were as well wrapped up as I am. For example, I will be wearing my down insulated trousers below about 8C. What were you wearing on your legs? At 5C you need to be wearing a lot more than 2 base layers and jeans. 

Swipe

HertsLad said:

Swipe said:

I went without heating for 9 days during last January's cold spell due to a Eon leaving me without off peak rate after a switch. The internal house temperature dropped to around 5C by the 9th day. Even though I was layered up and my body was not cold, I still found the whole experience utterly miserable. I didn't like the constant feeling of the cold air on my face and hands. When my off peak was restored and my storage heaters were back on, the bedroom back at 14C and my living room at 17-19C felt like absolute heaven.

I'm sorry to hear that but I doubt if you were as well wrapped up as I am. For example, I will be wearing my down insulated trousers below about 8C. What were you wearing on your legs? At 5C you need to be wearing a lot more than 2 base layers and jeans. 

You are probably right, but I'm certainly not planning on going 9 days without heating again if I can help it. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Very interesting thread, I think you could extend these ideas to various aspects of life, we probably all eat more than we should, own more stuff than we need, etc but one thing is for sure, if I told my wife we were going to live without heating from now on she'd say "good luck, I'm off"!