Turning on the heat

M0nica

MissInterpreted

Just checked the temperature in our house. It's 15 degrees. But no dampness here. We're just a hardy breed.

How do you know? Dampness in its early stages is invisible. no condensation, no streaming walls, all that happens is that the walls, furnishings( sot and hard) absorb a surprisingly amount of water. This makes the house more difficult and more expensive to heat.

Because we had a survey carried out not that long ago which specifically looked for signs of dampness.

MissInterpreted

Just checked the temperature in our house. It's 15 degrees. But no dampness here. We're just a hardy breed.

How do you know? Dampness in its early stages is invisible. no condensation, no streaming walls, all that happens is that the walls, furnishings( sot and hard) absorb a surprisingly amount of water. This makes the house more difficult and more expensive to heat.

Just checked the temperature in our house. It's 15 degrees. But no dampness here. We're just a hardy breed.

Keeping your house below the recommended temperature also leads to the growth of mould, because the house gets damp and as we know from several recent scandals, mould in a damp house can kill, especially if you have respiratory problems.

I had an uncle who felt faint of the temperature reached 70 degrees and, after his wife died, rarely turned the heating on. After he went into a care home and I was clearing the house, I opened one of the wardrobes in his bedroom to see inside that it was packed with clothes and completly enmeshed in the tentacles of a mould and fungi infestation. The mould held all the clothes together.

All I could do was lay a large plastic sheet on the floor and take the contents of the wardrobe out in chunks, and when finished fold the plastic over the clothes, seal it down with gaffer tape and take the resulting huge parcel to the tip.

The cause was inadequate heating that led to the house getting damp.

rocketstop

watermeadow

I’m surprised no one has asked yet. Here in the south the rain has stopped today but we had a full-on frost last night and I switched on my heating for a couple of hours this morning.
A ‘heating expert’ has said our homes should be 18 to 21 degrees for health and comfort and manageable fuel bills.
My thermostat is rarely above 15 in winter and I couldn’t afford to have it higher. I don’t believe being chilly does us any harm, it’s just uncomfortable.
Modern houses are much warmer. Is your heating on and how high?

I beg to differ re being 'Chilly' If you are fit and healthy and can zip around ok, I'd agree that you can chuck another layer on and it won't do you harm. I have long covid and lots of other health problems and if the temperature is low I start to struggle for breath which then causes my heart to beat too fast .It's dangerous for some people to get cold AND it doesn't matter how many clothes you put on , it's the cold AIR that you are breathing in that causes the problems.

I beg to differ re being 'Chilly'...

Absolutely.

It's obvious that some posters don't understand that being "chilly" can do you harm.

Cold air narrows blood vessels and arteries. That means the heart is under pressure (literally) to pump harder to push it around the body. For anyone with a heart problem, high blood pressure, who's had a stroke, or has diabetes... it's not good. At all.

My heating has not been off all summer. I live in Scotland.

P.S. I am in the North..perhaps we just get colder air !!

watermeadow

I’m surprised no one has asked yet. Here in the south the rain has stopped today but we had a full-on frost last night and I switched on my heating for a couple of hours this morning.
A ‘heating expert’ has said our homes should be 18 to 21 degrees for health and comfort and manageable fuel bills.
My thermostat is rarely above 15 in winter and I couldn’t afford to have it higher. I don’t believe being chilly does us any harm, it’s just uncomfortable.
Modern houses are much warmer. Is your heating on and how high?

I beg to differ re being 'Chilly' If you are fit and healthy and can zip around ok, I'd agree that you can chuck another layer on and it won't do you harm. I have long covid and lots of other health problems and if the temperature is low I start to struggle for breath which then causes my heart to beat too fast .It's dangerous for some people to get cold AND it doesn't matter how many clothes you put on , it's the cold AIR that you are breathing in that causes the problems.

Marydoll, I 100% agree with you about foam cavity wall insulation. My husband was a structural engineer and he told many tales of the resulting damp and faulty wall ties. We did cavity wall insulation in one house, it was was blown fibre by rentokil, that could have been sucked out if there had been a problem. It was effective

Over time and various houses, insulation was always the first thing we improved, the most expensive improvement was an outside `skin` on a detached house.

Here I have just heard the ch come on, upstairs and I scrolled through the thermostat times and temperatures. I am leaving them as is, the extra warmth at this time is lovely for ablutions etc. Overnight I have 18, during the day is 18.5 and 19.5 for 2 hours from 5.30am when I start to wake up. Really it is perfect for me. I went around all the upstairs rads this morning and turned them all on, cold can get very ingrained and best to have some early short-term warmth in all rooms. The thermostat is on the landing and there is a small and very sunny east double window

I think I am sussed wrt heating now, no more changes I think and I have ordered some snag leggings to wear under my cosy jumper dresses. I already have one snag pair, threw the thin cheap ones out

Our heating isn't on yet - I leave it as long as possible and usually manage to get to November! We've started wearing extra layers now and OH also has a hot water bottle, but it's not so cold that your hands feel cold yet. When that happens, I turn the heating on. Once it's on you get used to it and can't do without it, so I like to get there gradually :-)

However we do have a heated clothes drier on in one room and that's taking the chill off a bit in part of the house.

Many thanks….
🥶🥶🥶🥶

Dianehillbilly1957

Our heating goes on usually in the morning for 1.1/2 hours during the winter, currently every couple of days at the moment. Thankfully we have a couple of wood burners, one that we actually had to use during august and now almost daily, living in a Scottish stone cottage in the Highlands and it's only autumn! Did get a good price on our oil bought early on in September, at £434 for 703 litres, which should take us through until next September as I'm very frugal, we have a poor man's Rayburn (Stanley, it's a make) and it's quite good. Bedroom electric heater goes on for ten minutes or so when it's absolutely perishing to take the chill off and electric blanket which has top and lower body settings which is great as it's usually my feet that get cold so often leave it on its lowest setting for the night. Quick morning shower, dog walk, getting in wood and housework keep me warm until lunchtime! I'd like to say a Huge THANK YOU to the labour government for within four weeks of coming into power you dropped this winter fuel bombshell onto us giving no notice or chance to save for fuel. SO glad you didn't get my vote!! I was brought up by my late father to vote for them as they were for the working man, sadly that one has flown the nest!!

I was brought up by my late father to vote for them as they were for the working man, sadly that one has flown the nest!!

The reality is that the Labour party that stood for the working class no longer exists because those days - that your late father probably experienced, where there was a more distinct line drawn between the working man and the owners of businesses have long gone.

And the electorate in general would never tolerate a Labour party that campaigned for the workers, fearing a collapse of the economy that we've been led to believe can only be managed by adhering to free-market principles - otherwise those with the capital will up and leave us all in the lurch. Witness how Corbyn was derided when he campaigned for the many, not the few. Some of the very people who would've benefitted under his government, mocked and scorned him.

Starmer has little choice other than to be 'Tory-lite'. And he knows it, which is why he's following the old austerity, "difficult choices" protocol. He'd never have got into Number 10 otherwise. That's why Blair's New Labour was so successful (at least initially). He ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds.

Our heating goes on usually in the morning for 1.1/2 hours during the winter, currently every couple of days at the moment. Thankfully we have a couple of wood burners, one that we actually had to use during august and now almost daily, living in a Scottish stone cottage in the Highlands and it's only autumn! Did get a good price on our oil bought early on in September, at £434 for 703 litres, which should take us through until next September as I'm very frugal, we have a poor man's Rayburn (Stanley, it's a make) and it's quite good. Bedroom electric heater goes on for ten minutes or so when it's absolutely perishing to take the chill off and electric blanket which has top and lower body settings which is great as it's usually my feet that get cold so often leave it on its lowest setting for the night. Quick morning shower, dog walk, getting in wood and housework keep me warm until lunchtime! I'd like to say a Huge THANK YOU to the labour government for within four weeks of coming into power you dropped this winter fuel bombshell onto us giving no notice or chance to save for fuel. SO glad you didn't get my vote!! I was brought up by my late father to vote for them as they were for the working man, sadly that one has flown the nest!!

petra

Our heating is never turned off
It is set at 21 so even if the temperature drops below that in July it would come on.

Mine is the same but set at 23 degrees, I have rends and feel the cold terribly, I feel positively ill when I am cold and ache all over. The heating obviously regularly cuts out, but comes back on automatically when it needs to. I would rather save on food and EVERYTHING else rather than heating

I've been putting my portable gas heater on when necessary during the day and the central heating for a couple of hours in the morning and then from six am until ten if necessary in the evening. Overnight if it drops below 18 it will click on. I have had an angina attack in the middle of the night when sitting on the loo, I can laugh about it now but it's not happening again if I can help it. I have high BP, Raynaud's, arthritis and COPD, I could go on but it gets boring doesn't it 😂? I know I dare not be cold though and I suppose I'm one of the 'lucky' one's if you count having some of my husband's pension when I lost him three years ago I can eat and heat atm anyway. I expect our new government will cheerfully bung any pensioner in prison for non payment of heating so that's something, eating, heating and the tv all for free. Am I being a cynic? Try and keep smiling everyone maybe we'll get a decent summer next year.🤞

My DH has a lot of health problems, our thermostat is set to 20 all year round, and often gets turned up as he feels the cold dreadfully. Not on overnight, though - clearly being in bed with me is hot enough!!

Thanks for your concern crazyH don't worry the bathroom heater is a wall mounted one.

Extra jumper at moment with a few underlayers

we do the same as petra, it has come on on its own

If money allows have inside insulated. Fortunately I live with a diy supremo who did it. He fixed 4” insulation boards on the 2 outside walls.
The odd thing about them is: the walls feel warm to the touch.

I saw an article and photo yesterday about older people and how they will suffer wth the cold. The pensioner in the photo shown huddled up to a tiny heater was wearing a T shirt with bare arms and no sweater. No wonder he felt cold!

No heating here yet, we live on an estate and have a communal heating system which is off until 1st October.
I’m pretty chilly at the moment but actually prefer sleeping in a cooler room and wear a jumper during the day.

DeeAitch56

Having grown up in a house with no central heating, only 1 two bar electric fire in the lounge, an outside toilet which froze in winter as did the inside of the single glazed windows, whilst I can afford it the blooming heating goes on when I’m cold regardless of the time of year

I have been there! We eventually moved to a flat with acoal fire and an inside toilet. The rest of the house was freezing!

Having grown up in a house with no central heating, only 1 two bar electric fire in the lounge, an outside toilet which froze in winter as did the inside of the single glazed windows, whilst I can afford it the blooming heating goes on when I’m cold regardless of the time of year

My son, a Chartered Surveyor has advised us against cavity wall insulation.

I have seen the damage it has caused when our red brick church had it done. No air flow in the cavity has caused excessive dampness. It is costing a fortune to rectify.
I'm fed up with cold caller salespeople (despite a 'No cold caller' sign ) telling me that they know better.