How to live without heating - save £000s

Green_hopeful

RelievedSheff said:

HertsLad said:

Topiary said:

HI Hertslad just a couple of questions what is your current indoor evening temperature and likely asked before but do you run a dehumidifier. Thanks

The current temperature in the bedroom I use as a study is 13C at 4pm.  As forecast, the weather has warmed up a bit. For the previous couple of days it was 11C. I had started wearing a single down-filled jacket but took it off this morning to go for a cycle ride as exercise. I haven't felt the need to put it back on but remain perfectly warm with two base layers top and bottom, plus shirt, pure wool jumper, and fleece. And with denims over the base layers on my legs.

Sorry but wearing all of those clothes to sit in your house sounds thoroughly miserable.

We heated our home to 21 degrees yesterday and it took 15kWh of gas (less a bit for cooking but we wont split hairs on that small amount).  That cost us £0.88. I certainly won't be wearing a whole wardrobe to save 88p!!

It kind of depends on your house. Your usage is very low. An average of 12000 kWh per year is probably 60 plus kWh per day in the winter. We use 6 to 10 kWh of gas to heat water for three showers a day and cooking in the summer. To heat our house is about 100 kWh per day. And that isn’t to toasty warm. Plenty people can’t afford to heat their houses. Putting an extra jumper on is enough for me at the moment in a house heated to 16 degrees. 

HertsLad

RelievedSheff said:

HertsLad said:

Topiary said:

HI Hertslad just a couple of questions what is your current indoor evening temperature and likely asked before but do you run a dehumidifier. Thanks

The current temperature in the bedroom I use as a study is 13C at 4pm.  As forecast, the weather has warmed up a bit. For the previous couple of days it was 11C. I had started wearing a single down-filled jacket but took it off this morning to go for a cycle ride as exercise. I haven't felt the need to put it back on but remain perfectly warm with two base layers top and bottom, plus shirt, pure wool jumper, and fleece. And with denims over the base layers on my legs.

Sorry but wearing all of those clothes to sit in your house sounds thoroughly miserable.

We heated our home to 21 degrees yesterday and it took 15kWh of gas (less a bit for cooking but we wont split hairs on that small amount).  That cost us £0.88. I certainly won't be wearing a whole wardrobe to save 88p!!

I think your position is probably shared with something like 90% of the population who can justify heating the home rather than simply keeping themselves warm, something like I do. Except they don't risk being accused of troll-like behaviour by positing negative comments. You may know you would be miserable much below 21C, but I know I am absolutely not. I am perfectly happy, comfortable and all the rest of it. 

What type and size of home do you have? It's hard to believe you can be heating much more than a single room to use so little gas. I may have been at risk of becoming miserable when I experimented with heating a single room about 15 years ago. I really didn't like it.

You finish by linking your suspiciously low energy cost with wearing 'a whole wardrobe'. I doubt if you would be as warm as I am even if you tried wearing everything. It's not that simple. You need to wear the right type of garments. 

RavingMad

If gas were free, we'd all be cranking it up - but it's not.

And I suspect it'll to cost a lot more than 88p for the majority of us to get their homes up to 23⁰.

Herts has been kind enough to share his journey of how he can live without heating and I've enjoyed reading it and taking tips on what to buy for when I was WFH alone during the day and didn't want to heat the house unnecessarily these last winters

I've not read the whole thread but I don't think he's been telling us this is what we should all be doing but no doubt we'll see on the news in the coming months of the people unable to afford to heat their homes because the govt took away the allowance, but perhaps if they took a page out of Herts survival manual, it needn't be life or death 

matt_drummer

RavingMad said:

If gas were free, we'd all be cranking it up - but it's not.

And I suspect it'll to cost a lot more than 88p for the majority of us to get their homes up to 23⁰.

Herts has been kind enough to share his journey of how he can live without heating and I've enjoyed reading it and taking tips on what to buy for when I was WFH alone during the day and didn't want to heat the house unnecessarily these last winters

I've not read the whole thread but I don't think he's been telling us this is what we should all be doing but no doubt we'll see on the news in the coming months of the people unable to afford to heat their homes because the govt took away the allowance, but perhaps if they took a page out of Herts survival manual, it needn't be life or death 

You miss the point.

@hertslad makes his way of living sound enjoyable, I asked if he would still do it if gas were free or would he prefer to heat his house. If his way is that good, that comfortable and convenient, then I assume he would carry on even if gas was free. Otherwise, it must be less comfortable, inconvenient and a pia to do it this way and it can only be to avoid paying.

@hertslad also didn't believe you could heat a whole house for 88p.

It may cost most people more but that doesn't man it isn't possible.

You are scaremongering.

It still doesn't cost very much to heat a home if the home is of an appropriate size for the number of people living it.

Of course, if you are single and live in a huge mansion the cost per person would be quite large.

People don't heat their homes because other people keep telling them they can't afford to.

12,000 kWh of gas will heat a four bedroom detached house and the hot water tank and costs less than £50 a month.

If you lived in a smaller home it will cost even less, and then even less than that if you didn't heat to 20c.

It isn't very much more than it was 5 years ago, no different to three years ago.

It really isn't that much more than gas being free!

HertsLad

matt_drummer said:

12,000 kWh of gas will heat a four bedroom detached house and the hot water tank and costs less than £50 a month.

If you lived in a smaller home it will cost even less, and then even less than that if you didn't heat to 20c.

It isn't very much more than it was 5 years ago, no different to three years ago.

It really isn't that much more than gas being free!

It may surprise you to know I keep busy at home with lots of hobbies and interests. But none of them depend on a normal room temperature, with the possible exception of wood glue which the bottle says will not set properly under 10C. So far this Autumn. it hasn't got down to 10C but, if and when it does, I bring anything which needs drying close to the gas cooker when I am cooking a meal.

Something else which surprised even myself when I thought about is that I never get depressed on the last day of staying in a hotel or anywhere else which is heated, at the thought of returning home to my freezing cold house. I just accept it, subject to putting enough layers back on. 

I should probably start using exercise machines which I bought, such as a rowing machine. I may well need to remove layers to avoid over heating but I am fairly sure the slight bulk of various layers would not prevent me using the machine. I now wear almost as much when skiing as in the house at 1-2C and it doesn't hamper me from walking around, walking up and down stairs, getting on to chair lifts or anything. But I no longer get cold, like I used to (a bit) in the 80s and 90s.

I'd be surprised if I could heat my house for anything like £600 a year. I think it might be nearer £2000. When the temperature dips close to 0C, I might trying firing up my gas heating for the first time in years (a) to see if it still works and (b) to knock the worst chill off the house temperature. I could increase the temperature to 12C for a few days (the duration of a cold spell) and see how much it costs. My guess is I will consider it poor value for money, i.e there won't be any improvement to my standard of living but I will be spending money.

FreeBear

matt_drummer said: It still doesn't cost very much to heat a home if the home is of an appropriate size for the number of people living it.

A fairly typical 3 bed pre-war semi here with just me and one cat. Today, internal temperature hit 20.3°C, and even now is at 19.6°C. Heating hasn't been on at all, so cost to me is zero. But it has been a fairly mild day (max of 15.8°C outside & now down to around 10°C). Also been quite sunny which is a major plus with the south facing windows.

matt_drummer

HertsLad said:

matt_drummer said:

12,000 kWh of gas will heat a four bedroom detached house and the hot water tank and costs less than £50 a month.

If you lived in a smaller home it will cost even less, and then even less than that if you didn't heat to 20c.

It isn't very much more than it was 5 years ago, no different to three years ago.

It really isn't that much more than gas being free!

It may surprise you to know I keep busy at home with lots of hobbies and interests. But none of them depend on a normal room temperature, with the possible exception of wood glue which the bottle says will not set properly under 10C. So far this Autumn. it hasn't got down to 10C but, if and when it does, I bring anything which needs drying close to the gas cooker when I am cooking a meal.

Something else which surprised even myself when I thought about is that I never get depressed on the last day of staying in a hotel or anywhere else which is heated, at the thought of returning home to my freezing cold house. I just accept it, subject to putting enough layers back on. 

I should probably start using exercise machines which I bought, such as a rowing machine. I may well need to remove layers to avoid over heating but I am fairly sure the slight bulk of various layers would not prevent me using the machine. I now wear almost as much when skiing as in the house at 1-2C and it doesn't hamper me from walking around, walking up and down stairs, getting on to chair lifts or anything. But I no longer get cold, like I used to (a bit) in the 80s and 90s.

I'd be surprised if I could heat my house for anything like £600 a year. I think it might be nearer £2000. When the temperature dips close to 0C, I might trying firing up my gas heating for the first time in years (a) to see if it still works and (b) to knock the worst chill off the house temperature. I could increase the temperature to 12C for a few days (the duration of a cold spell) and see how much it costs. My guess is I will consider it poor value for money, i.e there won't be any improvement to my standard of living but I will be spending money.

None of what you say is a surprise, we all know it works for you.

Wood glue like pva takes hours and hours to dry, I doubt you cook for that long.

Your house must be quite large?

£2,000 would buy you 40,000kWh of gas on Octopus tracker.

That's a lot of gas, do you actually know how much it would cost to heat your house?

RelievedSheff

HertsLad said:

RelievedSheff said:

HertsLad said:

Topiary said:

HI Hertslad just a couple of questions what is your current indoor evening temperature and likely asked before but do you run a dehumidifier. Thanks

The current temperature in the bedroom I use as a study is 13C at 4pm.  As forecast, the weather has warmed up a bit. For the previous couple of days it was 11C. I had started wearing a single down-filled jacket but took it off this morning to go for a cycle ride as exercise. I haven't felt the need to put it back on but remain perfectly warm with two base layers top and bottom, plus shirt, pure wool jumper, and fleece. And with denims over the base layers on my legs.

Sorry but wearing all of those clothes to sit in your house sounds thoroughly miserable.

We heated our home to 21 degrees yesterday and it took 15kWh of gas (less a bit for cooking but we wont split hairs on that small amount).  That cost us £0.88. I certainly won't be wearing a whole wardrobe to save 88p!!

I think your position is probably shared with something like 90% of the population who can justify heating the home rather than simply keeping themselves warm, something like I do. Except they don't risk being accused of troll-like behaviour by positing negative comments. You may know you would be miserable much below 21C, but I know I am absolutely not. I am perfectly happy, comfortable and all the rest of it. 

What type and size of home do you have? It's hard to believe you can be heating much more than a single room to use so little gas. I may have been at risk of becoming miserable when I experimented with heating a single room about 15 years ago. I really didn't like it.

You finish by linking your suspiciously low energy cost with wearing 'a whole wardrobe'. I doubt if you would be as warm as I am even if you tried wearing everything. It's not that simple. You need to wear the right type of garments. 

We have a modern (5 year old) 3 bed detached house in the East Midlands. Total gas consumption per year is usually within the 5500-6000kWh range which includes the hob for cooking and boiler for hot water.

We heat the whole house. No point creating cold spots in the house which suck the heat from the heated rooms.

The house stayed above 21 degrees last night and above 19 degrees this morning so no heating required.

Our estimated gas cost for 12 months is £450 (including standing charge) which works out at £37.50 a month. We won't be scrimping and sitting in the cold to save such a small amount of money.

RelievedSheff

matt_drummer said:

RavingMad said:

If gas were free, we'd all be cranking it up - but it's not.

And I suspect it'll to cost a lot more than 88p for the majority of us to get their homes up to 23⁰.

Herts has been kind enough to share his journey of how he can live without heating and I've enjoyed reading it and taking tips on what to buy for when I was WFH alone during the day and didn't want to heat the house unnecessarily these last winters

I've not read the whole thread but I don't think he's been telling us this is what we should all be doing but no doubt we'll see on the news in the coming months of the people unable to afford to heat their homes because the govt took away the allowance, but perhaps if they took a page out of Herts survival manual, it needn't be life or death 

You miss the point.

@hertslad makes his way of living sound enjoyable, I asked if he would still do it if gas were free or would he prefer to heat his house. If his way is that good, that comfortable and convenient, then I assume he would carry on even if gas was free. Otherwise, it must be less comfortable, inconvenient and a pia to do it this way and it can only be to avoid paying.

@hertslad also didn't believe you could heat a whole house for 88p.

It may cost most people more but that doesn't man it isn't possible.

You are scaremongering.

It still doesn't cost very much to heat a home if the home is of an appropriate size for the number of people living it.

Of course, if you are single and live in a huge mansion the cost per person would be quite large.

People don't heat their homes because other people keep telling them they can't afford to.

12,000 kWh of gas will heat a four bedroom detached house and the hot water tank and costs less than £50 a month.

If you lived in a smaller home it will cost even less, and then even less than that if you didn't heat to 20c.

It isn't very much more than it was 5 years ago, no different to three years ago.

It really isn't that much more than gas being free!

Our monthly direct debit is now almost to the penny the same as when we moved into our house in 2019.

People like a drama!!

Green_hopeful

@RelievedSheff Its nice that some houses can be heated with very little gas and thus cost. Sadly the UK has plenty of buildings that are not so easy to heat. There are many people that can’t afford to move to a well insulated easy to heat property and plenty of new properties that should be easy to heat but are not because they haven’t been built properly. The varied responses to heating or not heating shows it’s not an easy one size fits all situation. One option is to wear different or more clothes. Many other options are available.