How to live without heating - save £000s

HertsLad

silverwhistle said:

...But browsing this thread I see some houses get down to ridiculously low temperatures, which mine never does: I've seen 14 in my lounge after a freezing cold night but never lower than that. I'd be busy with the insulation if I saw some of the figures quoted!

Insulation can only hold in warmth which has been generated by using energy, with some heat from a greenhouse effect, of course. When my house was 1C indoors, last December, it seems unlikely the temperature could have be increased to 14C, or anything near, by improving the insulation, especially in north-facing rooms. 

LessImpecunious

silverwhistle said:

Seems a bit early for this thread to be resurrected: the temperature in my (north facing) lounge today was nearly 22 degrees and I'm still in summer trousers and sleeveless tops.

As I get older I tend to like it warmer so in last calendar year, in addition to evenings with the wood burner, I've used under 2200KWh of gas, which also does my hot water when there's not much solar and a deep post sport bath is called for.

But browsing this thread I see some houses get down to ridiculously low temperatures, which mine never does: I've seen 14 in my lounge after a freezing cold night but never lower than that. I'd be busy with the insulation if I saw some of the figures quoted!

HertsLad has already explained how insulation works; plus, you only have to look at a map of UK temperatures - e.g., its currently 11C outside where I am, and even a couple of degrees lower in some parts of Scotland, but its already a steamy 17 or 18C in Kent, while our maximum forecast temperature for today is 15C  - to see that not everyone is dealt the same hand in terms of the air temperature they have to contend with... On the other hand, we'll be laughing here in upland Britain next summer!

HertsLad

Here we go again, with what I regard as partial information; not very helpful at all if you can't pay or won't pay. Why on earth can't they mention alternative approaches, notably keeping yourself warm, rather than keeping the house warm? I sometimes wonder if there's a vested interest in the energy companies.  See here:

NHS reveals minimum temperature you should heat your home - and never go below (msn.com)

MultiFuelBurner

HertsLad said:

Here we go again, with what I regard as partial information; not very helpful at all if you can't pay or won't pay. Why on earth can't they mention alternative approaches, notably keeping yourself warm, rather than keeping the house warm? I sometimes wonder if there's a vested interest in the energy companies.  See here:

NHS reveals minimum temperature you should heat your home - and never go below (msn.com)

I suspect their are legal ramifications if institutions or governments start saying turn your heating off and any future damage to the house structure etc.

masonic

MultiFuelBurner said:

HertsLad said:

Here we go again, with what I regard as partial information; not very helpful at all if you can't pay or won't pay. Why on earth can't they mention alternative approaches, notably keeping yourself warm, rather than keeping the house warm? I sometimes wonder if there's a vested interest in the energy companies.  See here:

NHS reveals minimum temperature you should heat your home - and never go below (msn.com)

I suspect their are legal ramifications if institutions or governments start saying turn your heating off and any future damage to the house structure etc.

If there are structural risks to heating below 18C, then they could just say that, but it would fly in the face of their advice that 16C is safe for parts of the home that aren't used most regularly. An 18C minimum seems reasonable advice for the frail, but not everyone.

I suspect that there is no structural risk to the home when allowed to cool below even 16C, as it would be infeasible to maintain many homes without central heating at even this lower temperature.

(writing from my living room, which is currently 16.1C and 42%RH)

dealyboy

If people remember I went a bit too far last winter and ended up with undiagnosed chilblains in the fingers of my right (mouse) hand, so I vowed to be sensible this winter and although I'm still in the 'heat the human' camp, I would strive to keep the temperature above 15C indoors.

Well last night it was forecast to go down to 0C in my town in Hertfordshire so I set up two portable oil filled radiators to run on a medium setting and my dehumidifier to run on Smart overnight during the E7 hours. (I live in a small park home). There had been condensation on the inside of some (double-glazed) windows yesterday morning and the night and day temperature were higher than today, but this morning there was just a little condensation on one or two windows at the bottom.

I must say I felt incredibly warm last night and it was 18C indoors at 07:00 this morning. I am with EDF and can see my hourly usage on the 'Energy Hub' and will report back my extra usage in a couple of days (that is if I'm able to get into my account ... they seem to have messed up an update this weekend ... it's OK now).

Edit 18th October 2023: Thanks @mmmmikey, @masonic, @QrizB, @HertsLad, @Scot_39 ...
Well my extra usage is just under 1kWh per hour off-peak (01:00 - 08:00) so 6kWh = 50p, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Each day it was 18C at 07:00 inside, outside low single figures.

One thing I saw on the Hub was an extra 0.7kWh between 00:00 and 01:00 ... lesson learnt - to check the accuracy of my manual settings on the plug-in timers, those dials and switches can be fiddly.

HertsLad

I failed to heed the warnings of the weather forecasts, so I wasn't ready for the sudden drop in temperatures. For weeks now, until 1 or 2 days ago, it has been at least 18C inside my house. I was basically in summer clothes.  The temperature is now 12.5C. I started to shiver, which is unusual for me. So I grabbed two thinsulate jackets and hoped being a bit OTT with insulation above my waist would compensate for wearing just denins on my legs. Not so, because I continued to feel cold. Once I had put effort into finding my base layers, and added my standard two layers, top and bottom, plus a thinsulate hat, I started warming up rapidy, even though I have removed one of the thinsulate jackets. 

nickwong

I make only two exceptions: (1) I use an electric blanket to pre-warm the bedding for 20 minutes and (2) I use a fan heater in the bathroom but only for about 10 minutes at a time. I sleep under two 13.5 tog duvets, one on top of the other. 

this is also unnecessary. The main thing is hot water in the shower.

HertsLad

nickwong said:

I make only two exceptions: (1) I use an electric blanket to pre-warm the bedding for 20 minutes and (2) I use a fan heater in the bathroom but only for about 10 minutes at a time. I sleep under two 13.5 tog duvets, one on top of the other. 

this is also unnecessary. The main thing is hot water in the shower.

I think you may be right.  Last winter I managed OK by using neither heating in the bathroom or any use of my electric blanket. But neither do I use hot water in the shower.

Markc0011

Which talks about draught excluders:

https://twitter.com/WhichUK/status/1715473386212557297