The heating is officially on is yours?

techno12

Nope it's still pretty warm here (Midlands, basement flat).

Been at my place for 15 years now the heating normally goes on sometime in November but I think I won't need it till December at least if this mild weather persists.

I've yet to get to the "2 jumpers and thermals" stage yet and that usually lasts a month before I cave in, it gets too cold and the heating is required.

I never have it on a timer - I always manually switch it on and off via my phone or Google Assistant thingy (eg at work before my 20min walk home) I probably save a fair bit doing that as my gas is never above 3000kWh/yr.

jadey2024

Not yet, though would have put the living room storage on last night for first time this side of the year but turns out it is broken so I'm in living room extra wrapped up. It's in the low 14 degrees in here right now. 
My daughter is away this weekend but her room has dropped to  low 12 degrees now so will need hers on before bed when she gets back home and before waking up. (Panel heaters in bedrooms and we are on E7 so I can't put them on much on the on peak rates so she mostly be in cold bedroom throughout winter)

My bedroom is about average 2-3 degrees warmer than hers. Last night it was in the low 15 but I managed perfectly fine with extra layers and thick duvet. Just the toilet trips were little shocks to the system lol as had no heating on in bathroom either (Cold seats 🥶) . I have a low watt towel rail and may put it on in time for off peak later as it does well in heating my bathroom up a little.

Spoonie_Turtle

techno12 said:

I've yet to get to the "2 jumpers and thermals" stage yet and that usually lasts a month before I cave in, it gets too cold and the heating is required.

I'm so jealous.  I was wearing 4 layers (including 2 jumpers and thermals) by the middle of September, before the heating kicked in!  Even now with the heating I'm wearing 2 fleecy jumpers, just not necessarily the thermals every day.

JGB1955

Our heating is always on 24/7, but only cuts in when it gets below19C during the day and 15C at night.  We were away on holiday over half-term and the house temperature never dipped below 16.5C, so a bit of saving there!

Shedman

Well I would have stuck it out but SWMBO got back from a few days away in an AirBnB yesterday and has got used to using someone else's energy and got used to it being toasty so I have had to concede and finally put the heating on.  Trying to keep it between 18° and 19° but keep getting comments that she's cold.  Trying the scare tactics now by showing her that yesterday we used a third of the gas in one day that we had used for the whole of October but not sure that's working lol.  

techno12

Spoonie_Turtle said:

techno12 said:

I've yet to get to the "2 jumpers and thermals" stage yet and that usually lasts a month before I cave in, it gets too cold and the heating is required.

I'm so jealous.  I was wearing 4 layers (including 2 jumpers and thermals) by the middle of September, before the heating kicked in!  Even now with the heating I'm wearing 2 fleecy jumpers, just not necessarily the thermals every day.

I guess being a northerner with a 70s/80s "no central heating" childhood has helped as I don't feel the cold too much. Most folk are wrapped up like Scott of the Antarctic on my walk into work but I was shirt sleeves rolled up until this week, when it's became just that bit colder, so the coat is on, but it was too warm walking in yesterday so I may have to ditch it again next week :-)

My flat, despite being single glazed, seems to lag and retain heat in the bricks....

Spoonie_Turtle

techno12 said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

techno12 said:

I've yet to get to the "2 jumpers and thermals" stage yet and that usually lasts a month before I cave in, it gets too cold and the heating is required.

I'm so jealous.  I was wearing 4 layers (including 2 jumpers and thermals) by the middle of September, before the heating kicked in!  Even now with the heating I'm wearing 2 fleecy jumpers, just not necessarily the thermals every day.

I guess being a northerner with a 70s/80s "no central heating" childhood has helped as I don't feel the cold too much. Most folk are wrapped up like Scott of the Antarctic on my walk into work but I was shirt sleeves rolled up until this week, when it's became just that bit colder, so the coat is on, but it was too warm walking in yesterday so I may have to ditch it again next week :-)

My flat, despite being single glazed, seems to lag and retain heat in the bricks....

I grew up without central heating too, frost on the inside of windows and Dad having to light the fires of a morning (this was the 90s though, so school had heating) - we didn't get proper heating until we had the heat pump and radiators put in a few years ago. 

I guess I am still a softy Southerner though, a cold childhood was utterly miserable (then even more so since having had a virus in my teens that left me feeling the cold and later developed into disabling chronic illness 🙃).

KevinG

Ally_E. said:

It's been on since September when temperature in the living room, office and bedroom started to go down to 16.5C. This morning I woke up to it being 14C just because I had the heating off during the night 🥶 I'm in London in a solid wall house that seem to lose heat pretty quickly 

Wow, it must lose heat badly, mine (in the South East) didn't go below 20 until late October.

EssexHebridean

jadey2024 said:

Not yet, though would have put the living room storage on last night for first time this side of the year but turns out it is broken so I'm in living room extra wrapped up. It's in the low 14 degrees in here right now. 
My daughter is away this weekend but her room has dropped to  low 12 degrees now so will need hers on before bed when she gets back home and before waking up. (Panel heaters in bedrooms and we are on E7 so I can't put them on much on the on peak rates so she mostly be in cold bedroom throughout winter)

My bedroom is about average 2-3 degrees warmer than hers. Last night it was in the low 15 but I managed perfectly fine with extra layers and thick duvet. Just the toilet trips were little shocks to the system lol as had no heating on in bathroom either (Cold seats 🥶) . I have a low watt towel rail and may put it on in time for off peak later as it does well in heating my bathroom up a little.

I’ve been doing some cost testing on our towel rail recently which might help - ours uses between 300 - 350 watts to run for 2 hours which on our night rate (just under 15p/kWh) costs around 5p. It definitely takes the chill off, and that’s a decent price for a nice cosy warm towel too! Do your bedroom panel heaters run at the off peak rate if you have them on at the right time? If so then you might find even a half hour burst at the very end of your E7 overnight period is enough to ensure that the room is warm for getting up (obviously depending how early you get up and exactly when your off peak timings are!)

Cautiouslyoptimistic

It's not going on.

From October this year we are heating the living room using a 5 Kwh log burner which is now on most days with doors open allowing the heat to move around.   

We have 2 x 1 tonne builders' bags of chopped wood logs delivered each month for £110 and that is currently doing the trick, albeit October was mild we are now starting to notice the colder temperatures. 

However, just to put it into perspective, during October and November last year we used 5,860 Kwh of gas (about £630 at today's prices) mostly for central heating, whereas this year using gas just for hot water and some limited cooking our anticipated use will be around 655 Kwh (about £75). It jumps slightly if turned on for an hour in the morning but I'm going to try and avoid that. 

It's turned into a bit of a money saving crusade now and the log burner is just a far cheaper heating solution for us, mainly because we have a cheap source of wood and because I've written off the log burner installation costs from a few years ago.