Economising

We all have different houses and different priorities. I'd rather spend money on birthday and Christmas presents than on gas. My house is old and listed so no wall insulation or double-glazing. I have no heat on upstairs, ever, and keep windows open except in cold weather. There's no condensation or mould in draughty old houses. I'm not cold, just trying to reduce my bills.

alam2 - Yaktrax have elastic which goes round the welt of the shoe and over the heel and toe, with the springs crossing the sole underneath. You put on your shoes, then fit the toe of each shoe into the elastic and pull the heel bit up over the shoe heel. You do need to sit down for this, unless you can hang onto something and work with one hand, and you need to be able to reach your heel - you'll know whether your 87-yr old MIL can do this. I put them onto a pair of ankle boots and left them on there even when I took the boots off - saved putting them on each time.

If she is using them only near the house, she can sit down in her own kitchen to take them off, supermarkets are a bit trickier. They say not to wear them on hard shiny surfaces as you can skid about, but I found that supermarket floors were no problem if I walked steadily and did not do a sudden turn, so I did not always take them off inside.

It is worth tying them onto the boots somehow with bootlaces if you can, then if one comes off in deep snow (as DHs did) it will still be dangling from the boot.

I believe the Yaktrax spring ones are better than the ones with little studs, but I have only tried Yaktrax so can't swear to that.

They are only about £10, so it won't break the bank if they prove unsuitable.

alam - I only bought mine in the Spring tbh. I was in the shop to get something else and they had them in the sale. So, I haven't tried them out yet. From what Elegran says though, it sounds like they are easy to get on and off. (I hope so)

You don't get as much warmth from logs though. Is really just a top up and decorative.

Oh yes. An open fire is definitely not an economical option for serious heating. Lovely to sit in front of though for a bit of toasting (bread and me). We having been considering a wood burner but the smallest I can find would be 3 kw and to be honest I think that would too much in our living room. Luckily we've got a good source of well seasoned logs at a good price. Don't bother much with coal.

Oh gawd Helshea. Trouble is you don't get a lot of heat from an open coal fire do you? A lot goes straight up the chimney. Much less efficient than a wood burning stove. And calor gas also expensive and kicks out lots of water vapour. Must be a worry for you.

Hi Jangly
Are they easy to put on? Thinking of getting some for my mother in law - she's 87 - for when she takes her dog out during the winter as her drive gets very, very icy. But no good if they are too difficult for her to use.
Thanks

Kahtoola microspikes are even better. Not cheap but better than a broken leg. I wore out my yaktrax in one winter!

We bought these too Jangly, thankfully just before the snow and ice because everywhere was soon sold out of them. They are great, can be moved from one pair of shoes to another and to Wellies, and come off easily when you go into somewhere with hard shiny floors like a supermarket. We were glad of them when the bus to DHs chemo session had to stop at the top of Orchard Brae (traffic at all angles) and we'd to walk the rest of the way to the Western General. We left home at 8.30 that day for an 11 am appointment, at 6 pm found we wouldn't get a taxi for 4 hours so took 2 buses home again, walking through deep snow and slush between bus stops and from final stop to home. Exhausting.

Two days later, DH lost one of his somewhere between the house and the shops. I retraced our steps but it was nowhere to be seen.

We've got an open fire too, although we've got the central heating as well. I can see where your parents are coming from Helshea. I wouldn't want to give ours up (glad of the radiators as well though)

I have bought some of these www.amazon.co.uk/Yaktrax-Walker-Traction-Device-Large/dp/B003ZTONHE/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1310718782&sr=8-11 for the winter in case we get the snow and ice again. I was quite nervous going to the woodshed last winter when it was slippery.

No baggy, not smokeless fuel... Think they need to get some form of water heater though, so that they don't have to knot all those pieces of newspaper and collect coal every day even in summer. They don't have many colds though, so proves something I suppose.

Coal is cheaper than oil. Do your parents have to use smokeless coal, Helshea? I guess it depends where they live.

We are very glad of our wood stove in the winter. It takes the chill off the whole house as well as being the only heating we have during the many power cuts caused by the wrong kind of weather. But, yes, the fuel does need humping. We have crampons for when it's icy outside. DD and I used them to walk to school over several weeks last winter.

My parents (both in their 80's) still live without central heating, and just a coal fire. The rooms are quite big (high ceilings) and my dad who is 84 has to get down on his hands and knees every morning in winter to make the fire, and still has to trundle down the yard to bring the coal from the coal house. I worry about all this because he is not that fit any more and struggles to walk to the end of the road, let alone down an icy yard. However I have tried and tried to get them to have some heating installed and they definitely will not. They do have a calor gas heater which is in the bathroom (which is an old bedroom converted so quite large). I have no idea what their bills are like, but I do know coal is not cheap. If anyone is wondering, they have to light the fire even in summer because it is their only means of hot water. They could quite easily afford to have a water heater or even central heating put in, but "can't be bothered with the hassle, and besides we have managed up to now". Mind you, this should not come as a surprise, because they still have kitchen cupboards made from (I'd guess balsa) wood, which needs painting, and the old formica tops and bakalite handles.

Oh, and *Jess[citationplease]M, I got the body temperature thing from Doctor Spock. In whom I have always been a great believer.

I think we are a little alike Baggy. Both got strong opinions and both pretty "vocal".
My grandparents died of:
After effects of being gassed in trenches
Smoking
Smoking
Liver cancer in her 80s

jess, we are probably good for each other, you and I. Let's look on the bright side.

With regard to 11-13°C for an infirm old person, well it certainly wouldn't do in a living-room, but our grandparents had bedrooms that cold (or that 'not warm') all their lives in winter. It didn't kill any of my grandparents. I'm not sure what my maternal grandfather died of when I was four. He had had a duodenal ulcer all his life which may actually have saved his life as a young man because the forces wouldn't accept him during WW1. My paternal grandfather was a miner and died of emphysema. It took a long time to kill him as he had such a strong heart. My grandmothers both lived to a ripe old age. Neither of them ever had the luxury of a heated bedroom or bathroom.

Once I'm in a warm bed, if I notice the cold air at all it's to enjoy it. It's like camping in Scotland in summer. I joke not: minimum temp outside our kitchen window last night was 10.8°C, so colder on the ground. I don't think we're particularly hardy; we just try to adapt to the seasons. So far we've managed.

I want to say more on this but I haven't worked out how to say it yet without sounding callous, which I'm not. Perhaps it will come up in another thread sometime. In the meantime, cheers, and thanks for all the fish .

You are obviously a very hardy bunch Baggy, but surely you agree that 11-13 deg would not be a healthy house temperature for an inactive older person?
If you read the link posted it mentioned that influenza did not seem to be significant factor that year.
Sorry if you think I sometimes sound preachy. Maybe preaching is another word for disagreeing, or putting an opposing argument. Sorry I used the word as it obviously offended. Not meaning to offend, just challenge.

jess, with all due respect, you are the one who said you were banging your head on a wall about your MIL's bathroom window. I was trying, not too successfully it seems, to subtley suggest that you leave her alone! Preaching? Ha! I actually find quite a lot of posts by you rather preachy but I wasn't complaining, just arguing from a different point of view.

With regard to windows open and heating on, again it depends on the house and on personal preferences, as always. Our house is much cooler than nearly every other house I've ever been into, not because the heat goes out of the windows but because we don't overheat it. As it happens, I have a max/min thermometer near the bed which doubles as my alarm clock. Even in winter the variation in room temperature from maximum to minimum is rarely more than (and usually less than) 2°C so I reckon our insulation (thick walls; it's an old house) must be reasonable. In the middle of winter it's usually between 11 and 13°C, not (to reiterate) because we lose the heat but because the heating is rarely on. We only use it to take the chill off the room, not to raise the temperature to sitting-room warmth. At the moment it's a good deal cooler inside my house than it is outside.

I'm not saying that anyone else should do what we do. That would be preaching. I'm just describing what we do and why. I'm not disputing facts, although I may sometimes put a different interpretation on them than someone else might. For instance, yes deaths from a number of causes do increase over the winter months but flu and colds and other winter-associated illnesses (including complicatiions arising from colds and flu) also increase in winter. I suspect that this has always been the case and always will be. It's the nature of winter. Which comes first, chicken or egg?

I was going to finish with some comment about the benefits of global warming for a fuel-poverty stricken country , but I'll refrain.

and now I'm going to switch off my pooter and find something more interesting to do.

I'M NOT PREACHING!! I think people who preach to others are really boring.

We are told often, on Radio 4 for starters, that modern houses do need some airing. And that bed dust mites are more prevalent these days because of central heating and closed double glazed windows. Where does it say in the Gransnet rules that I have to produce scientific papers to back up every comment I make.

I wouldn't dream of advocating that older people should have cold houses. Of course not.

But I defend my right to post whatever I want to post so long as it is not upsetting to other genuine gransnetters, and it is not offensive.

So right back at you Jess

It depends on the house. If can afford to have your window open and the heating on that is nice for you. But it is really not fair to preach the virtues of this practice on this particular thread. Or to cite "facts" which are just personal beliefs.
I am not seeing the funny side. Feeling a bit .

"Fuel poverty" is a huge problem in this country. It is causes a lot of hardship and illness. One of the vulnerable groups is older people. See this fact from the UK Office of National Statistics:

"In the winter of 2009/10 there were 20,600 more deaths among those aged 75 and over, compared with levels in the non-winter period."
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574

jangly I don't know about dust mites, except that my house has dust bunnies as well (and though people are allowed to touch the dust they're not allowed to write in it! ), but I do have first hand experience of moulds growing in the inadequately ventilated bathroom of a wee house DH rented for a year before we could all move into our current house together. I cured the problem by jamming the automatically closing door open with a rolled up towel when the room wasn't in use, and by securing the window open a crack.

jess, I understand your MIL wanting her bathroom window open. Ours is open nearly all the time too, just a crack. Even in an airy house such as ours I notice the difference in air quality that that makes. The difference it makes to air temperature is far less noticeable, I find. In very windy weather I shut the window. People find what is comfortable for them and do it.

None of which says insulation is a bad thing, just that you need good ventilation (and some of us need it more than others, not to 'stay alive' but to be as comfortable as possible in our own way) as well so I would never advocate stopping up every air intake. Ideally, and especially in new houses, they can be adapted to prevent draughts. Perhaps I'm just a fresh air fiend but I've never found "five minute airings" enough in any house I've ever lived in.

jangly, we love you!

Please can we send the heat generated by the last few posts to apricot? That should bring her bills down a little.

Evidence???! I'm not finding and giving links to scientific papers! I just KNOW its true!!

So there.

(tongue stick-y out emoticom)