heating

If there’s one thing worth spending on it’s the heating. We’re not those hardy kids any more. Yes, I remember thick ice on the inside of the bedroom window. You need to keep your house at, at least, 18oC. The trouble with getting cold is that you can suddenly go past just feeling cold to being hypothermic.

I agree that rather than turning up the heating too high a thick jumper can do the trick. And wear layers too.

19-21oC sounds ideal.

My heating is on 24/7 and clicks on and off controlled by remote thermostat.
15 degrees is way too cold to be comfortable or healthy.
I remember ice on the inside of the windows and I also remember feeling thoroughly miserable and poorly.

My heating comes on at 7.30 and goes off at 10pm. Its set at 20 and when we are sat down in the evening I turn that up one or two degrees. I would add we live in a very insulated modern house. We are advised this is the most cost effective way to run the heating. Having spent a freezing cold childhood and now with arthritis I would rather spend the money on heating than anything else.

The last couple of weeks I have been leaving the heating on low over night. It makes all the difference to the house, especially our chilly hall and stairs. When my children were little I would only heat the Lounge and we would spend the day in there. Like most people, I grew up without central heating or any heating in the bedrooms but I wouldn’t want to go back to those days.

We don't have central heating so nothing on here until really needed. Usually put the living room fire on early afternoon if it's really cold (as last couple of weeks) or late afternoon when a bit milder. Small oil rad in shower room/loo as needed. My son has oil radiator on low in his bedroom, plus his tv gives off lots of heat.
OH has oil rad in his room for when he's watching something on telly in the afternoon or evening.

We have our heating set at different temperatures at different times of the day. It is set to come on over night if the temperature goes below 5 degrees. First thing it is set at 20 degrees and at 4pm it goes up to 22.

I would hate to live in a house where some rooms are out of bounds because they are too cold and bless all the innovations that allow us the luxury of living the way we do. And i am grateful that we can afford it.

I find my daughter's home stiflingly hot while her family potter around in t-shirts.
When dgc's are with me I do turn heading up a bit but also suggest cardi's or sweaters.
I admit I 'm rarely cold but do wear a couple of layers.
The other day I was wondering if I 'm unusual in keeping the heating around 17/18° and regardless of dis/comfort should I be turning the heating up a couple of degrees.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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??

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.

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.

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?

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.

True

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.

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