Overnight heating??

BooJewels

I put one of my little thermometers in the bedroom last night.  I have the radiator on low in there (but the heating's off overnight), so it keeps it a bit cooler than elsewhere.   It was 14.7°C as the heating fired up this morning and the thermostat for the heating showed 15.4°C downstairs in the hall.  Much colder last night, thick frost visible this morning, still showing as -2°C.  A smidge of condensation in the corners of the window - Georgian window; lots of corners.

For a long time I had the rad off in the bedroom, but as we have a large landing, it just sucked warmth from there, leaving that feeling cool, so I've found the whole house feels warmer just leaving it gently warm in the bedroom.

Mstty

Interesting

BBC News - UK weather: People urged to heat main rooms as cold snap begins

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63879870

BUFF

FreeBear said:

BUFF said:

nrmsmith said:

How is it flued currently? 

Straight up a vertical flue that runs up a brick chimney straight out to the roof. House was built in the early 1950’s

I wouldn't have thought that replacing it with a modern floor-standing boiler would be a problem then?

If you have a concealed flue, there needs to be access hatches so that joints can be inspected. Without hatches, a GSR engineer could slap an "at risk" notice on the boiler and disconnect the gas supply.

Iirc they varied that advice/regulation for existing/replacement after it was initially brought in  & they then realised how many existing buildings/instalations it affected.
They certainly did in Scotland as we went through it all with my mother's flat (admittedly ~2010).

nrmsmith

BUFF said:

nrmsmith said:

How is it flued currently? 

Straight up a vertical flue that runs up a brick chimney straight out to the roof. House was built in the early 1950’s

I wouldn't have thought that replacing it with a modern floor-standing boiler would be a problem then?

Heating engineer I have discussed this with says the newer condenser boiler would need to be re-sited to an outer wall

Max68

Mstty said:

Interesting

BBC News - UK weather: People urged to heat main rooms as cold snap begins

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63879870

Will just delay the heart attack until the bill comes through!!  Seriously, it's all very well the "experts" advising this and of course people aren't stupid but many are struggling to make ends meet.

[Deleted User]

Max68 said:

Mstty said:

Interesting

BBC News - UK weather: People urged to heat main rooms as cold snap begins

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63879870

Will just delay the heart attack until the bill comes through!!  Seriously, it's all very well the "experts" advising this and of course people aren't stupid but millions just can't afford to do it.

"Millions" can't afford to put the heating on at all?

Nah, don't believe that for a second.

"Millions don't understand or haven't thought about their bills and think they can't afford to heat a couple of rooms"?  That I can buy.

[Deleted User]

Max68 said:

[Deleted User] said:

Max68 said:

Mstty said:

Interesting

BBC News - UK weather: People urged to heat main rooms as cold snap begins

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63879870

Will just delay the heart attack until the bill comes through!!  Seriously, it's all very well the "experts" advising this and of course people aren't stupid but millions just can't afford to do it.

"Millions" can't afford to put the heating on at all?

Nah, don't believe that for a second.

"Millions don't understand or haven't thought about their bills and think they can't afford to heat a couple of rooms"?  That I can buy.

Fair enough, depends on your wage packet I suspect. ;-)

I think you suspect wrong 

"Millions" who cannot afford to heat the main room of their house?  That's plural, so at least two million, and bills are per household, so it's of the 28 million ish households.  Nearly 10% of the households in the country actually can't afford - not "find it a bit expensive" or "have to turn the heating down a degree or two" - but actually can not physically afford to put the heating on?

That's just not true.  Would make a nice headline though.

Look at the people we get here - there have been several who thought they couldn't afford the heating, yet when we've looked at their usage it's been mainly electricity and nothing to do with their heating at all. 

Max68

Deleted_User said:

Max68 said:

Deleted_User said:

Max68 said:

Mstty said:

Interesting

BBC News - UK weather: People urged to heat main rooms as cold snap begins

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63879870

Will just delay the heart attack until the bill comes through!!  Seriously, it's all very well the "experts" advising this and of course people aren't stupid but millions just can't afford to do it.

"Millions" can't afford to put the heating on at all?

Nah, don't believe that for a second.

"Millions don't understand or haven't thought about their bills and think they can't afford to heat a couple of rooms"?  That I can buy.

Fair enough, depends on your wage packet I suspect. ;-)

I think you suspect wrong 

"Millions" who cannot afford to heat the main room of their house?  That's plural, so at least two million, and bills are per household, so it's of the 28 million ish households.  Nearly 10% of the households in the country actually can't afford - not "find it a bit expensive" or "have to turn the heating down a degree or two" - but actually can not physically afford to put the heating on?

That's just not true.  Would make a nice headline though.

Look at the people we get here - there have been several who thought they couldn't afford the heating, yet when we've looked at their usage it's been mainly electricity and nothing to do with their heating at all. 

Ok I'm not going to argue about it, I've changed it to "many are struggling to make ends meet." How many who knows, but I'm one of them.  It's not just the here and now.  Of course many of us could probably afford a December bill of £200 but when you plan ahead it's concerning.  When you are on a low wage and are already spending your income on merely bills, energy and food shopping and you look at Aprils coming rise and in my area an 8% council tax increase coming in the spring for sure you cut back now just in case you struggle even more then. Many people may have a buffer but with all the uncertainty who knows how long that will last.   

Spoonie_Turtle

Max68 said:

Deleted_User said:

Max68 said:

Deleted_User said:

Max68 said:

Mstty said:

Interesting

BBC News - UK weather: People urged to heat main rooms as cold snap begins

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63879870

Will just delay the heart attack until the bill comes through!!  Seriously, it's all very well the "experts" advising this and of course people aren't stupid but millions just can't afford to do it.

"Millions" can't afford to put the heating on at all?

Nah, don't believe that for a second.

"Millions don't understand or haven't thought about their bills and think they can't afford to heat a couple of rooms"?  That I can buy.

Fair enough, depends on your wage packet I suspect. ;-)

I think you suspect wrong 

"Millions" who cannot afford to heat the main room of their house?  That's plural, so at least two million, and bills are per household, so it's of the 28 million ish households.  Nearly 10% of the households in the country actually can't afford - not "find it a bit expensive" or "have to turn the heating down a degree or two" - but actually can not physically afford to put the heating on?

That's just not true.  Would make a nice headline though.

Look at the people we get here - there have been several who thought they couldn't afford the heating, yet when we've looked at their usage it's been mainly electricity and nothing to do with their heating at all. 

… "many are struggling to make ends meet." How many who knows, but I'm one of them.  

Well, fuel poverty is one indicator of people struggling to heat their homes.  The most up-to-date article I could find that takes into account all the government help and the EPG now and next year is this: https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/fuel-poverty-in-the-uk-the-causes-figures-and-solutions/
Key figures: in 2020, 3.6m households were estimated to be in fuel poverty.
By April 2023, it is estimated there will be 8.4m households in fuel poverty.

Current estimation is 7m households https://www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/price-cap-methodology/
This method estimates 8.6m in April.

Of course, being in fuel poverty does not necessarily mean people can't afford to heat the main room of their house, but it taken as an indicator of not being able to afford to heat the whole house to a generally acceptable level as well as have all the other of life's necessities such as, y'know, food.

As with most types of stats there are different degrees of being in fuel poverty, some worse off than others, and different methodologies produce different results.  This page has tables showing some of the variations (scroll down) https://cpag.org.uk/news-blogs/news-listings/fuel-poverty-updated-estimates-uk 
Perhaps pertinent to this specific discussion is that as of May 2022 when the government measures to help were largely irrelevant apart from the £150 council tax rebate, 1.5m+ fuel poor households (or 3.9m people living in those households) were estimated to be neeeding to spend over 30% of their income on energy, or 5.5%.  That's the group most likely to be struggling to heat the main room of their house.

[Deleted User]

The issue with "fuel poverty" is the problematic definition.

A widely used metric says you need to be spending more than 10% of income on fuel bills.

The official definition in England requires some odd EPC-type categorisation.

As you say, it's "taken as an indicator of...", and it's a pretty poor indicator.

It's obvious to anyone that many people are struggling, which is surely why there should be things like the BBC article encouraging people that heating of at least the main rooms of your house isn't this thing you should be cutting out.