Reply With QuoteAs and when to be honest, I am on a fix till May 31st 2023 so not really going to affect me, plus we are in Cape Verde and Spain most of Dec.
November I suppose, but our entire estate (84 houses) gets hot water for heating and bathing from a central boiler that’s fired by wood pellets so we are largely immune from the insane price rises in fuel costs.
Plus the house is ridiculously well insulated.
As and when to be honest, I am on a fix till May 31st 2023 so not really going to affect me, plus we are in Cape Verde and Spain most of Dec.
Yes hear you loud & clear. I don’t pay £40 a day to commute to London, eat lunch out etc but still hate to turn the heat on for some reason.Originally Posted by Adge
Cold in the Borders today, so 2hrs of heating on this evening ..................
Mines been for a few days now
I lit my log burner tonight (28/9), I intend to not use the gas central heating anymore. If the sun is shining I’ll be using the solar to run my air source heat pumps too. I am all for cheap energy now I have invested in the infrastructure at home.
Definitely not until after I've switched from the summer duvet to the winter one.
Was close to giving in tonight but have resisted.
When your profile doesn't say, or you don't mention where you live....................
A late this year as possible... gas prices in the Netherlands have become the highest in Europe!!! (I'll stop here before it's all too much about politics on this part of the forum).
I have tons of logs for the burners in the garden and under/in a specially made storage (thanks to an interesting example shown here on the forum about 1.5 yrs ago). So we heat the living room and my wife's office with the log burners. 3x this week now. Starting around 7 or 8pm. Two or three logs per burner will do nicely for now.
We have smart thermostats on every radiator and no rooms have gone bellow 18 degrees yet and w haven’t had the heating on. When we do turn on it will be for a short burst in the afternoon but our house is very well insulated
Test run this week…
House hasn't moved from 19 all day but maybe the thermostat isn't in the smartest place. Currently 9 degrees outside so not awful, but I am on the sofa with a blanket and my wife has two blankets and a hot water bottle!
It would probably work out cheaper going to the gym in the evenings. I bet the steam rooms and hot tubs are packed.
We had an air frost here last night.
Been on since Monday, but we are in the countryside and the temp falls away at night pretty quickly.
It was 13.8 in the kitchen this morning...her indoors was not happy!
15 year old son moans his bedroom is cold...dressed in shorts and T-shirt.
Hard to believe not that long ago everyone was moaning they were too hot...😂
The last two evenings have been chilly in the house, the sofa (leather) felt cold as does other things throughout the house, once the cold sets in I find it takes a while to warm through so just ran the boiler for a short time to take the edge off..
24C inside and 21C outside this evening - so no heating. The inside temp stays quite constant even when it was 38C outside. Solid thick (3ft or so) reinforced concrete and and high ceilings help. Triple thickness roof with tiled roofs as well all helps with the insulation.
Do have Air-Air Inverters fitted in main rooms now and a log burner in the lounge. Double Glazing should be installed in November ready for winter - we hope. Last year was chilly 14C in the kitchen (cozinha) - we hope to avoid this time round.
Last year we had no heating except for plug in oil filled electric room heaters which doubled our electric bill in Jan - the coldest month. We also burned through maybe 6tons of wood last winter. We burned 1000kWH electricity in Jan.
Martyn
Last edited by MartynJC (UK); 28th September 2022 at 22:15.
“ Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.” HHGTTG
House is mostly heated by the Aga, which stays on pretty much all year round (it's how we cook).
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
My wife mentioned to me she had put the heating on Tuesday night for a few hours and then went through all the reasoning behind her decision (I was on a 12hr night shift). It was like some sort of dirty confession🤣
I have managed to build up around £600 in my energy account over the summer so that should take some of the sting out of it.
No change to my heating habits at all although that probably cos my bills are on a fixed price tariff for 2 more years. Got lucky when I fixed it.
Is that expensive? Read stories of people removing them.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...t-their-stoves
Those that don’t have the heating on at all yet must have either super insulated homes or enjoy the cold. Even in London the nighttime temperatures have been dropping to 6-7c this week. We have a nest thermostat and just leave it to do it’s thing per the schedule and conditions. We also have smart radiator thermostats in some of the rooms so for example we don’t heat the bedrooms during the day and my office isn’t heated in the evenings and at the weekend. Not sure how much difference it will make to our gas usage but it all helps!
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When Eli looks especially miserable.
Ours has been on randomly, an hour here and an hour there for the last 2 weeks but has now been switched to Auto so is now officially on.
Personally can’t stand working from home in the cold so had to go on.
One hour morning and one hour evening, seems unseasonably cold up here in Cheshire over the last few days.
Fire Tuesday night but nothing else, no oil used for heat yet.
I used to work outdoors with a guy who turned up everyday in winter with a t-shirt on. He never once complained lol.
We’re basking in the London heat island effect. 14c in the hallway….
Not yet!
We are very rural East Fife in a mostly stone built cottage. Hasn’t dropped below 16.5° yet.
Our adult daughters moaning about cold a bit, but just wear Comfys to stay warm.
SWBO going through the change so cold is not the problem. She needs fan on at night still.
I wear a jumper & warm hiking troos. One of the dogs usually snuggles as a hot water bottle. 2 dogs = too hot.
Hoping to hold out till November.
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Thankfully I'm in a reasonably recent build. Once the sun shines, the house warms up and holds the heat nicely. The hot water is dealt with by a solar diverter using excess power from the solar panels, so don't need the boiler at all for the summer months: just starting to get to that point that I need to turn things back on to let the boiler kick in for an hour in the morning to take the chill off the house after a cooler night.
Normally I'd just stay under the duvet until it warmed up a bit, but my 3 month old seems to have his internal alarm clock set for 0715hrs, so that doesn't work any more.
Definitely not been one to choose a date - if it gets cold for a few days on the trot, or the solar output falls off for 2-3 days and the diverter can't keep the hot water going, then I'll kick the boiler on.
Ours is on now, well for a couple of hours in the morning but off rest of the day once the sun is warming things up
Lit the wood burner an hour ago as just felt cold to the core. Doing an experiment with the door to the lounge fully open vs my wife liking it pulled to & a small gap.
Interestingly (well maybe!) is that after 60 mins and half way through the 3rd log, the hallway has been heated by 2C to 19. So slowly warming other rooms too.
We disconnected our AGA a couple of years ago as it was not only woefully inefficient, but is absolutely crap to cook with! Trouble-is it's unsellable now, no-one wants them, and on trying to 'sell' to a refurbisher he wanted £250 to take it away!
Doggy-coats FTW - Tara rocking the Harley Quinn look:When Eli looks especially miserable.
(Max is a good deal hardier!)
Paul, that’s a great picture and your hounds are simply gorgeous. Eli has a fair number of coats for different conditions.
Thanks Sean, I guessed he would have, bless 'im! Short-coated sight hounds do really feel the cold IME. Tara's coat isn't even short, but she's a skinny wimp, and so has indoor and outdoor coats!
[Excuse the O/T excursion,chaps!]
For once I actually hit lucky & have a 2 year fixed rate, it does run out In may next year but for this winter at least I can use it as normal.
I've only had it on for an hour or so 3 time's so far but I'm going to try and get used to not using it much if I can.
Sent from a technical device.
How low do you leave the temp in your house before you cave? I'm down to 16c but still resisting. Normally when we hit 17c we switch on.
Heard a bloke on the radio today saying it was 12c in his living room.
Remember that the power required to raise from 16c to (say) 20c (and maintain that difference to outside) isn't too bad.
It's when you are trying to maintain a delta between 5c and 20c that your power usage becomes significant.
I had the CH on for 3hrs this morning - it was dismal, but it's off again.
Usually mid October but looks like its going to be cold this next week so might have to cave in, ofc just as prices go thru the roof but God likes a laugh.
My gas CH is controlled by a NEST stat and fired up about a week ago for the first time since early May. This Winter I have lowered my overall heating temperatures by half a degree and turned the combi water temp down by about 20c and the water heating down by the same amount, radiators in spare bedrooms have the thermostats turned down to 1. I have no idea if I will save anything on my gas consumption and I don’t have a smart meter so difficult to tell with all the price rises.
Loads of people have told me not to install a smart meter and I must admit to being on the fence about it, any thoughts?
^ On usage, can’t you just compare latest usage to the same period from the previous year (from past bills)? I’m similarly holding off on the smart meter, like you I’m not convinced.
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Yes it's hard to figure out what is the best course of action. I was cold tonight and would of caved especially with it being Friday but the Mrs said noooo it's ok... And that was surprising seems she will put a blanket over her on the sofa during summer.
Trouble is it's not just about being cold. When we have a shower condensation is rife when it's cooler and also the towels do not get dry. This also leads to mould growth. So it's not just about the temp but also drying and health.
If you have a smart meter you do not need to take your readings today... But apparently most smart meters are in "dumb" mode which do not relay the readings back to the supplier.
Pretty good advice if you are happy with actual usage
So - put the heating on (manual), while thinking about desired temperature. If it takes 3hrs heating in the evening - so be it. Not going to bankrupt you. Outside temp 13c, inside 21c? not a huge difference to maintain for 3hrs?
Your shower room will have an extract fan? Use it and have your towel rail there - on. Perhaps reduce the flow and/or temperature in your shower?
I regularly shaved in the shower, which I realise is pretty wasteful having the water playing on me while shaving - I don't do it so often now.
There are lots of differences you can effect without changing from last winter's practise...................... (note that we are doing it for financial reasons, rather than environmental reasons)
Was just thinking earlier today why isn't there a thread about turning heating on (I hadn't seen this)...
We have put the upstairs on for a limited time in the evenings, mainly due to kids or we may have braved it.
Downstairs, we have an issue as it is under floor heating, basically like a radiator under the whole ground floor, in pipes = expensive.
Even in normal times and normal charge rates, we could easily spend £12 a day on gas. Now, I don't even want to do the maths.
We have managed to keep the ground floor off for now and will definitely aim for another week or two. As a substitute have plugged in a convector electric heater in the lounge which does work wonders and is doubtless saving us £££ per day.
What absolute fun!
Is that last onee a Saluki?We disconnected our AGA a couple of years ago as it was not only woefully inefficient, but is absolutely crap to cook with! Trouble-is it's unsellable now, no-one wants them, and on trying to 'sell' to a refurbisher he wanted £250 to take it away!
Doggy-coats FTW - Tara rocking the Harley Quinn look:
(Max is a good deal hardier!)
Why is the underfloor expensive? As long as it is insulated from conduction to 'below' - it is heating your ground floor and by convection - your upper floor.
What is inherent in an underfloor system is 'slow response'. But if you set the ground floor thermostat to a comfortable temperature, there is no reason that it isn't inefficient. While it doesn't reduce overnight by much/any - while your upstairs radiators are off overnight - that heat simply convects upstairs. Keep your bedroom doors closed overnight - and your heat loss is minimal?
Was there a lot of blood?
I don't know why, but it is...yes fully insulated from underneath. We are used to the slow response and try to plan for it usually.
Maybe when we do put it on I need to monitor how much the meter moves...you are absoutely correct in that when it is on the upstairs is heated from downstairs and we tend to be able to switch off upstairs heating at times. Thanks for your post, I will keep an eye on it when we next use it.
Now that is one beautiful whippet. GorgeousWhen Eli looks especially miserable.
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