How to live without heating - save £000s

WheatOne

Green_hopeful said:

I just don’t understand how anyone can heat their house for 2190 kWh in gas. Looking at the ofgem figures. That’s 1/3 of the average for a one bedroom flat. We have a big house and three people  We are relatively careful and even with the relatively mild winter last year we have used 11500 kWh of gas. In fact 2190 is 6 kWh per day. We use 6kwh a day in the summer just on water heating and cooking  

In 2023 my total gas usage was 3,525kWh. That includes hot water which will be circa 1,500kWh leaving around 2,000kWh to heat the house.

This is a modern 4-bed 3-storey semi-detached.

HertsLad

FreeBear said:

wrf12345 said: If you advertise on Gumtree or FB Marketplace then it is a good way to get rid of waste wood rather than paying some ruffian to come take it away, plenty of people need it for their woodburners etc.

The following is aimed at people burning waste wood rather than those trying to get rid of it - You should never burn treated, painted, or reconstituted (plywood, mdf, OSB, etc). Doing so releases toxic fumes in to the atmosphere and could incur the wrath of your neighbours. If the local council get wind of it, you could face prosecution. Just burn well seasoned & untreated wood.

Thanks. That's a further reason why I can't be bothered with a wood burner.  It's far, far easier to wear enough clothes to remove any need for warm air.

Swipe

I haven't used my stove since winter 2021. The following year I went to stock up and the price of smokeless fuel had doubled. I can honestly say, I don't miss the hassle of emptying ashes and filling coal buckets. I still have a third of a coal bunker left for emergencies in case we ever get hit by another beast from the east.

silverwhistle

I only burn wood and quite appreciate the exercise I get with prepping it: I regard it as green gym and a useful adjunct to my other sports! Ash really isn't a problem, I go weeks without emptying and the garden appreciates it when I do. Lot less work than sourcing, storing, putting on and taking off and washing and drying lots of clothing layers!;-)

Like Freebear the benefit extends to the whole house, and if the stove has been on for a while you can feel where the flue goes in my bedroom chimney breast.

FreeBear

Swipe said: I haven't used my stove since winter 2021. The following year I went to stock up and the price of smokeless fuel had doubled.

I've not purchased any smokeless fuel for about the same time either. Used to get 250Kg each year, but when it went up to £18 per 25Kg bag, I switched to using only wood.

YoungBlueEyes

It looks like I'm an outlier here but I can understand what Hertslad is saying about not wanting to heat one room.

When we were growing up we had a free-standing gas fire thing (SuperSer was it called?) that was lit for the days when it was cool but not cold enough to put the gch on. It actually made the rest of the house feel colder, coming from the one heated room to the other not heated rooms made the difference more discernible. I'll switch the heating on if it's cold enough, but I'd never heat only the one room.

Swipe

I only heat one room but never feel cold outside of there. I wear enough inside that I can go outside and not feel cold with what I have on.

bob2302

YoungBlueEyes said:

It looks like I'm an outlier here but I can understand what Hertslad is saying about not wanting to heat one room.

When we were growing up we had a free-standing gas fire thing (SuperSer was it called?) that was lit for the days when it was cool but not cold enough to put the gch on. It actually made the rest of the house feel colder, coming from the one heated room to the other not heated rooms made the difference more discernible. I'll switch the heating on if it's cold enough, but I'd never heat only the one room.

What you should not do is heat one room to 20C+, dress like it's summer and allow the other rooms to be dangerously cold.  This is what the OP tried.

If you have reasonable insulation, dress for winter and set the thermostat to a more modest level, it's fine. Lots of people heat their living room to 21C+ and  the rest to 18C - a 3C+ difference. I heat my living room to 16.5C and only very rarely  see the difference exceed 3C.

HertsLad

Swipe said:

I only heat one room but never feel cold outside of there. I wear enough inside that I can go outside and not feel cold with what I have on.

Sorry, but I don't understand. If I wore enough to keep warm for, say, 30 mins in other rooms or outside, I would risk heat stroke in the heated room before too long. How do you manage?

bob2302 - from memory, I don't think I was wearing summer clothes back around 2009 when I tried heating only one room. At that time, I hadn't latched on to base layers (thermals) so I would probably have been wearing denims or similar on my legs, with a shirt and wool sweater on my top. I adjusted the temperature in the heated room for those clothes but became freezing cold if I went down to the kitchen, for example, to prepare a meal, especially if I didn't turn on the gas oven as part of food preparation.

Swipe

HertsLad said:

Swipe said:

I only heat one room but never feel cold outside of there. I wear enough inside that I can go outside and not feel cold with what I have on.

Sorry, but I don't understand. If I wore enough to keep warm for, say, 30 mins in other rooms or outside, I would risk heat stroke in the heated room before too long. How do you manage?

Because I'm only heating my main room to 17-18C and the rest stays around 10-13C. When I say go outside, I don't mean extended periods of time, more like just for 5 minutes or so.