heating

I can't sleep with heating on as asthmatic and the dry heat of central heating makes it worse. I do however have electric blanket on in bed. First thing in morning we switch on central heating at 21 degrees. If very cold we also put on gas fire in lounge. Sons get cold in loft extension so have oil radiators in room they leave on overnight as well as central heating during day. We are lucky we can afford to have heating on when we want to and I won't sit around cold.

Set at 21c and on all day from 6.30 to 8.30.

DH has a heart condition and we keep to the recommended temperature. We also have the gas fire on in the sitting room during the times we are sat, during the colder days.

We have oil fired central heating set at 18% . It is set to come on 2hr in the morning and 2 in the evening. We try to manage with that. However we have a very efficient log burner in the sitting rom . When that is lit and the door to the hall left open the heating does not come on, as the thermostat is in the hall. However the rest of the house is warmed also.

I have the age UK thermometer in my hand. 21 is the ideal temperature for the living room. 18 for the bedroom above 21 is warm and below 15 is cold. According to them 15 and below thickens blood and increases blood pressure which can be bad for your health.

So much depends on your house. Modern well-insulated homes stay warm. Mine is old and draughty with insulation only in the roof space and, when the heating clicks off, the temperature immediately drops.
My thermostat is at 16, I can’t afford it any higher. I need it on most of the day now I’m old.

We don't have central heating, but do have a set routine of heating rooms in a sequence...electric fan in the bathroom while we shower and dress, electric ceramic panel in the kitchen while we breakfast, then gas fire in the living room if we are staying at home. OH feels the cold, but will happily sit watching TV with a blanket over his legs, a hot water bottle, mittens on his hands and a hat on his head. The hat is the key element; without it he complains constantly, even when the temperature is in the 20s. I can't stand the heat in there because I am dressed for the ambient temperature in the rest of the house as I potter. Half an hour before he goes to bed (at 9pm) I put the heater on in the bedroom, and once he is in bed with a fresh hot water bottle, I turn it off. I also turn off the heating in the living room and then settle down with the blanket and my hot water bottle to watch my choice of TV.

Kitty, regarding thermostatic valves for your radiators, buy the best you can afford, my latest ones are Honeywell and so far all working well. After I moved here I had new thermostatic valves fitted on all but one radiator which already had one. I wasn't knowledgeable enough at the time to realise that there are some cheap ones around which fail after a season or so and these were what the plumber supplied. When they do fail, they prevent the radiator heating up, not something you want to happen mid-winter. I ended up having to replace them all in 2015 using a new plumber. So far all are working well. I hope this helps.

Thermostat is set for 22 degrees in this house, I would freeze to death at 15 degrees...and if the heating isn't on for any reason and I start to feel chilly, when I look at the thermostat it's always 18 degrees, so that's obviously my limit when it comes to feeling cold..

Justnoneed I m like you no central heating I think we are a dying breed so few of us around I heat my two main rooms with gas fires and it gets warm The rest of the house is as it is my kitchen thermometer reads 7 degrees at the moment
I have two duvets and hot water bottle at night and I m snug as a bug in a rug I get out of bed into a hot shower whose heat last through getting dressed and getting downstairs to put the gas fire on, instant heat I m ok but others seem to think I ve got two heads I live in a big old. victorian house and there’s no way I could afford to have central heating put in or afford to run it for just me it would be daft

We are conducting an experiment this Winter by leaving our heating on 24/7 (we used to turn on and off morning and night) We now turn it down at night to 14* then when one of us gets up to make our morning cuppa up to 16* then up to 18* which suits us both hardly ever have it higher.

I've compared our usage on our power supplier website and so far we are under the usage for last Winter. So it does appear leaving it on all the time works better. I'll keep it on this Winter and keep an eye on it.

True

If your house is well insulated you are not going to save money by letting the temperature drop down to a low heat and then have the boiler come on at full power for 30 minutes - 1 hour to get it up to an acceptable level.

Set at a steady temperature, that is comfortable, but not too warm and then leave it on all day and just up the thermostat if you need it slightly warmer in the evening or other time because you are sitting down and feeling cooler.

It must depend on where your thermostat is really. Ours is in the hall and seems to be where it works best for us. We had it in the lounge and the rest of the house was freezing, in the dining room and we sweltered everywhere else.

Our house is old, with draughty bits (despite our best efforts) and is also sort of open plan. So, even if our thermostat is set at 22 degrees, it would be very unusual if the whole house was that temperature.

Our radiators have very old thermostatic valves on - we are debating changing them - anyone have any experience or advice about more modern ones?

Not sure our thermostat is correct because 21 degrees is too hot in our house but in the car not hot enough.

We change the thermostat as and when we feel too hot or too cold and family know they must do the same when here and not sit there feeling cold when we are feeling OK. I really don't like the stuffy feeling of very warm heating and far prefer to add layers.

When some Canadians came to stay 3 were cold and the 4th had an English mother! They have hydro power there which is either free or very cheap.

If my house was 22 degrees I would never get anything done, would have to keep stopping to cool down lol.
One of the ladies I help out had her thermostat set to 26 last week - nearly melted and she wonders why I only ever have a skirt/t shirt on lol.

I'm always cold so keep the heating on from very early morning until about 10 pm. In extremely cold snaps I leave it on low all night just ticking over. I don't see any virtue in being cold and would never cut back on it. After all by your 70 s what are you saving for - old age??

By the way, no radiator on the landing sounds like poor advice to me - that cold central area will suck the heat out of the bedrooms.

Our thermostat is out in the hallway and we click it up and down as needed - usually trying to keep the living room at about 20. We also switch off radiators in rooms we are not using, e.g. bedrooms, and use the wood burner in the late afternoon and evening, opening the doors to spread the heat around, so the heating clicks off of its own accord. 15 is far too cold in my opinion.

Got up to , not git, as in stupid old !

Kittylester, I was so relieved to read your post, as I was beginning to think that we were the only ones whose heating is higher than most on here. When it comes on in the morning, it is set for 19.5, and that is usually fine until after lunch. Especially in the afternoons, the temperature drops and we gradually turn it up to where we are comfortable. Last night it git up to 22.5 . I suppose we are lucky in that our solar panels generate enough income to cover all the utility bills.

We keep our heating on permanently, it clicks on if it gets below 16 overnight and is usually between 18 and 20 during the day. Also love the bright winter days when we can open the south-facing fan light windows. Do appreciate a bit of fresh air! We make use of jumpers too, strikes me as strange when some people have the heating on full blast and wander around in t shirts.

If I turned ours up to 22 we would die of heat exhaustion! No wonder it is always too hot in hospitals! The only room in this house which doesn’t have a radiator is the kitchen. There is no room for one, but in the very small utility room next door, there is a radiator, which never gets turned on. Why would you? Must have been designed by a man!

I too keep heating on around the clock, turning up a little late afternoon and down a little for nightime. I was advised this is more economical as it takes less time to heat up to temperature. Also NHS advises ideal room temperature is 22°. 16° is too cold and could be a danger to your health. When cold is makes your heart work harder. Ok for younger adults maybe but not as you get older and equally not good for the very young.

Ours goes up automatically to 20 at teatime, which is usually too warm for us and we put it down to 18/18.5 after a while. It's on at 16 during the day which suits us - it probably depends on where your thermostat is. Unless the temperature goes below 12, ours isn't set to come on automatically till noon as we don't have a set routine. I usually persuade DH We take it in turns to dash down and click it on in a morning then snuggle down again till it's warm enough. Bliss. And like kitty, I'm very grateful we have it.

We do have a cold spot though, on the landing, because we were told we wouldn't need a radiator there. The upside is we get some good exercise running up and down to the bathroom.

We have never had our heating set higher than 16 in this house, even in the coldest weather. We put this down to the house being well insulated. I am a chilly soul, so if it needed to be higher then it would be. We don’t heat bedrooms we aren’t using, but the only room we don’t use much in the winter is the conservatory which, despite having a solid insulated roof, is still too cold for me at the moment even with the underfloor heating on. I am still training DH to shut doors when he leaves a room to keep heat in, but it is an uphill task!