The Great British "not put my heating on yet" brag

B0bbyEwing

I'm sure you all know someone who says this. You may even say it yourself & while I can't say how everyone up & down the land intends to mean it, for those people I come across it's almost always said in a bragging puff the chest out sense.

But it made me wonder .... the knock on effects.

Last year I tried to hold off as long as possible & when the heating did go on, it went on later, came off sooner & it was set lower than previous. I used the fire (multi fuel stove) a lot more often since I get wood for free for the time being, but then unfortunately that only really heats the living room, even if I leave the hall & kitchen doors open. I suppose it'll impact them too but it doesn't feel like it does much. The living room though gets toasty, obviously. 

But what I noticed last year - black mould around the house, more than years gone by. 

Is this just something all the "not put my heating on yet" people battle or am I just unlucky that I was experiencing this mould more than usual?


Another thought that crossed my mind - is not having the heating on at all even good for the whole heating system? Go months & months, let's say April-October/November without putting it on because the temps are warm & then battle through December-March to not put it on or put it on very very little. Is that even good for the heating system? Maybe it makes no difference, I've really no idea - that's why I'm here asking these Qs.

vic_sf49

Oh, I snorted with laughter at your title. Bragging rights for those who can afford* to whack the heating on, but seem to sit in freezing cold lounges, just for bragging rights.

I definitely don't play that game. I don't care what month it is, if I'm cold while wearing suitable layers of clothing, the heating goes on.

Last year, there were lots of people posting on mse, about having mould problems, in the DIY section iirc. I think the mild weather, then sudden cold spell, meant people had issues for the first time, especially streaming windows and mould spots.

* Sorry if you're having to choose between eating or heating. This is not a criticism of your choices. 

sevenhills

I waited until it got cold, now I have the central heating on at 18* and its not too bad.

It's off at night, but if I am at home most of the time, the heating is on. We haven't used the tumble dryer, I don't think we used it much last year.

MultiFuelBurner

A lot of people were scared by the endless propoganda of high energy costs including dare I say it Martin Lewis himself. The knock on effect wasn't so much "haven't got my heating on" puff out chest. More likely I've been sacred to death by the media I darent out the heating on. Luckily last winter was very mild and the hand outs ended up making it very cheap for many to heat their homes.

This year we went early with the hearing the first dip mid October and have left it on. 

No black mould here although I will puff out my chest due to having a smart meter and currently only paying on average 18p kWh for electricity for our all electric house so this year will probably end up cheaper than last year even with all the handouts.

elsien

No mould here, but I did start to get chilblains a couple of weeks ago.  Which was a bit worrying given that it’s not been that cold yet.
I was being careful because I don’t qualify for any support this year, and I am worried about my heating bills. I have decided to be slightly less careful and see how it goes.

debitcardmayhem

Sorry but our heating has been on all year, it’s not a case of we can afford it, or we are rich it’s just because someone in the household has inoperable cancer. Money saving doesn’t apply in this situation, although it does help, So no we don’t care whether it’s cold or hot outside, but we do try to make it difficult for mould to grow. Burn your wood by all means 
(even though it’s not very environmentally friendly, nor are most forms of power) and enjoy your ability to “hold off as long as possible”, we just want to live as long and comfortably as possible together.

Spoonie_Turtle

Warning: longer ramble than I anticipated.  Tl;dr: no heating meant lots of damp and mould for us, for decades.

We didn't have central heating until 2019.  Prior to that we tried to muddle on for a few years with old storage heaters (unfortunately it's only since coming to this forum that I realise my parents probably didn't know how to use them effectively, most likely nobody taught them and they didn't know where to look to find out, and weren't even aware that there was a way of using them effectively) so resorted to plug-in heaters, 2 or 3 of them, to warm up whichever rooms were being used at any time.  I was always cold and miserable during … well, not just winter but it was of course worse then.

I remember as a child trying to warm up my school uniform under the duvet before changing into it in the mornings, and in the worst of winter I plugged a heater into an extension cord to try and warm the bathroom up before washing.  (Before being old enough and having a light enough portable heater to do that I would run a hot bath a while before I planned to get in it, so it would earn the room up … no I didn't realise the steam would create mould, and I certainly want going to open the window to let the cold air in!)  I didn't get a hot water bottle until my late teens, that was revolutionary in that I could warm the bed a little before I got in!  And I hated having a cold nose dripping and my hands hurting from the cold.  Though it was easy to distinguish between my nose running and a nosebleed, as one was warm and not the other …

To your actual question, our house has always had damp problems since before we moved in nearly 30 years ago.  When my parents viewed it the wallpaper was peeling off the walls with damp, and this was at the time we still had two open fireplaces downstairs.  Not long after we moved in the Housing Association blocked those up, put in the storage heaters and cavity wall insulation (which blocked up the air bricks), and the damp and mould got worse within a few months.  And at that time we did use the storage heaters, so there must have been some heat, just not what we needed to be comfortable.  We had no extractor fans so cooking and bathing/showering created steam that had nowhere else to go, and add we didn't really realise that's what created damp and mould, and it was too cold in winter anyway, we didn't open windows to try to let it out.

None of us are particularly healthy now, although we don't actually have respiratory problems!  Nor immune system problems.

We've had the heat pump with central heating since summer 2019, and the first few years didn't touch any of the settings because that's what the installers told us.  (Which is one reason I would not be surprised the storage heater installers didn't explain anything either.)  So we know that the heating naturally tends to kick in during September, and runs until any time between April and June, depending on the weather.  We're fortunate to have been able to afford it - it's not horrendously expensive but it did use more electricity than we needed it to the first few years before I learned a bit about the basic settings.

We still have mould, but absolutely nothing as bad as it used to be.  In fact the first year of having the heat pump, it got better in some areas without us doing anything to it (it was always a losing battle before, spending money that wasn't spare on trying to treat it and it just coming back the next winter, every single time so we gave up in the end).  Now, my clothes don't all go mildewy in the wardrobe any more!!  And we can put shoes away for a season without them automatically being mouldy when we get them out again.  Plus because the fabric of the house is warm enough - it never ever felt comfortably warm with the storage heaters, even when we first got them - it means we actually can open the windows for ventilation now and then in the winter without getting cold to the bones and taking hours to warm up to even just a tolerable temperature again.  And two working extractor fans as of this year are very helpful too!

Our experience will have been worse than for people who know what they're doing and make sure to use dehumidifiers and extractor fans, but heating has been life-changing.  We still wear layers and don't have it tropical - set to 18℃, the lowest we can tolerate even with the layers - but we're done with being cold and miserable if we don't have to be.  We can, fortunately, afford it (in large part due to my benefits, for which I am indebted to the experienced and knowledgeable members on the Benefits board on this forum otherwise I would not have known what to apply for or how to apply to get what I'm entitled to) and the two of us in the worst health actually can't afford to get cold like we used to, health-wise.  But we fully appreciate how fortunate we are to be able to not worry about how much it costs since that's not the case for a lot of other people who need to not get cold.

RedFraggle

I'm all electric with NSH and put them on 3rd weekend of October. My flat is well insulated and that was when it felt cold. I figured if I let the fabric of the dwelling get cold it'd just take more energy to get it back to my comfort level which is 18 to 20C

CrispyChris

My heating just comes on when I feel cold, and has been on for a few weeks already, life's too short to sit around in the cold unless you really have to, had enough of that growing up in a house with no central heating.  Being on the winter support tariff from Eon helps, and the £500 winter fuel allowance this year, will pretty much cover the extra cost.

Chrysalis

B0bbyEwing said:

I'm sure you all know someone who says this. You may even say it yourself & while I can't say how everyone up & down the land intends to mean it, for those people I come across it's almost always said in a bragging puff the chest out sense.

But it made me wonder .... the knock on effects.

Last year I tried to hold off as long as possible & when the heating did go on, it went on later, came off sooner & it was set lower than previous. I used the fire (multi fuel stove) a lot more often since I get wood for free for the time being, but then unfortunately that only really heats the living room, even if I leave the hall & kitchen doors open. I suppose it'll impact them too but it doesn't feel like it does much. The living room though gets toasty, obviously. 

But what I noticed last year - black mould around the house, more than years gone by. 

Is this just something all the "not put my heating on yet" people battle or am I just unlucky that I was experiencing this mould more than usual?


Another thought that crossed my mind - is not having the heating on at all even good for the whole heating system? Go months & months, let's say April-October/November without putting it on because the temps are warm & then battle through December-March to not put it on or put it on very very little. Is that even good for the heating system? Maybe it makes no difference, I've really no idea - that's why I'm here asking these Qs.

I have mould, but I dont think my heating would fix it as the insulation is so rubbish in this property, that central heating just makes it not as cold, its not warm like when I feel in other people's houses.

The problem with heating is its performance and efficiency is so dependant on the insulation of the property as well of course the efficiency of the boiler.  I dont like the idea of running expensive heating in inefficient situations.  If I owned my home, there is no question I would have invested in insulation at this point, but I dont and am at the whim of my landlord.

Instead I focus on heating myself rather than rooms I dont use, and its far more efficient.  I settled on using an electric blanket, although if I feel the temp is really extremely cold that my health is at risk I will turn on CH like I did in the unusually cold spell last December.  Room temp is 15.8C which to me is way too high to run expensive CH. 

Now as I am getting older i cant tolerate late autumn and winter temps as much as I used to, my torso, arms and head is fine, but my feet are vulnerable now, they can get cold whilst the rest of my body still feels warm.  I am curious how much a device that keeps a bowl of water hot for feet to stay in would cost to run, kind of like a mini hot tub I suppose, or if it would be silly money like portable heaters.  After a hot bath yesterday my feet stayed warm for about 4 hours.

Seems such a product exists.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Massager-Vibration-Electric-Temperature-Removable/dp/B097NC68QM/

B0bbyEwing

Thanks for the responses. I did wonder if some would get the wrong end of the stick with my OP but thankfully no MSE'ers seem to have been offended

I agree with one of the comments above - in my opinion it's not been cold yet*, but unlike last year where I hadn't had it on at this point, I've said sod it & on the days where there's been a bit of a nip, the heating has gone on. 
As I understand it, heat and air flow help with the mould so through the day we have our windows open on 'night lock', not that I suppose it'll do a great deal but it's better than nothing. The bathroom is quite bad for the black mould though.

* I appreciate everyone is different. Not cold to me could be freezing to others. I work with a few young lads & their teeth get chitter-chattering when it's about 10c complaining it's freeeeeeeeeeeeezing whereas I was brought up on no CH, single glazed housing with thick-thick ice on the inside.

sevenhills said:

I waited until it got cold, now I have the central heating on at 18* and its not too bad.

It's off at night, but if I am at home most of the time, the heating is on. We haven't used the tumble dryer, I don't think we used it much last year.

I'm curious - how do you get your clothes dry then?

I've read on here before of people leaving them out because "they'll dry eventually". I wonder what some peoples take on eventually is because I don't have time to wait until next summer. Even my mother says it - refuses to put the drier on.

The other week I put a wash load on through the night, pegged it out when I got up at 6:30am, got it in at 5am & it was still wet. I have 1 maybe 2 days where I can peg stuff out but at this time of the year it just isn't drying & I've got to be in work the next day so the stuff is on a limited timeframe. 

So then it's either go to work in wet clothes or use the tumble drier or dehumidifier. 

RedFraggle said:

I'm all electric with NSH and put them on 3rd weekend of October. My flat is well insulated and that was when it felt cold. I figured if I let the fabric of the dwelling get cold it'd just take more energy to get it back to my comfort level which is 18 to 20C

Interesting what other folks comfort levels are. 
I used to set mine to 18c before prices went crazy.
Have since dropped that to 17c & find it acceptable for us. Radiators all got turned down a notch too.