Re: Keeping Warm

I leave my heating on low all the time and as another poster has said it sstops the pipes from freezing up. I also have a hot water bottle which I use all the time. Thank god we have short winters.

Re: Keeping Warm

I've been wearing a thick fleece jumper and a body warmer in the house since November.

Re: Keeping Warm

I can remember many moons ago when houses where cold places to live and beds never felt warm in winter.
Many years later one of the best investments I have made is to splash out on a goose down quilt and pillows.
I am always warm in bed no matter how cold the weather.
How lovely it would have been when I was a young girl to have had this luxury on the nights I was unable to sleep because of the perishing cold.

Re: Keeping Warm

Up until a few months ago I had a faulty central heating timer - well, it was actually broken, and had been for just over a year.

I've never ever set my central heating to come on before about 3 p.m. so that the house would be reasonable warm by 5 p.m. when I get home from work and it goes off at midnight, no matter what the weather.

However, the winters of 2009 and 2010 were even colder than 2008 but by 2010 I got the Winter Allowance when I turned 61 (I'd just missed it the previous year).

I too wear layers of clothing when it's particularly cold, and last year for me was the worst as I also had a blanket around my knees, even with the heating on, as it was just so cold.

Those outside lavvies were terrible though. Newspaper in squares hanging on a nail and you'd come back inside with yesterdays news tattooed to your bum!

So different from the pretty patterns of ice inside the windows which we had in the 50s, with an old style eiderdown on top of the bed and about five woollen blankets.

I'm always warm in bed as well, no matter how cold it is outside, and I wear PJ bottoms and a tee shirt, with the window open, and I'm as warm as toast after about 5 minutes under the duvet.

Re: Keeping Warm

I have the central heating on first thing in the morning-can't abide getting up from a lovely warm bed into cold rooms. Stays on for couple of hours, then doesn't come back on till late afternoon and stays on till I go to bed. During day I wear extra layers, especially when out walking-once I sit down, usually afternoon, and I feel chilly, I'll put gas fire on for a couple of hours.....

Re: Keeping Warm

What's aggravating me is that now I've got a new timer, I HAVE to have it switch on twice a day, which goes against the grain with me. So, I have it switch itself on at 11 a.m. then go off again at 1 p.m. when I go to work, then come on again at 3 p.m.

I can't have mine on 24 hours a day and keep it low, as I would have to go into every room to turn the rad-stats down which is drag if I have to go round to turn them up again.

It was awful for the last two years coming home from work to a freezing house, and mine takes at least two hours to get warm once the heating is switched on.

I do still feel desperately for those unfortunate folk who have to try to survive bad winters living outside and, for the last couple of years, the cold has lasted for three months, not just a few weeks.

I'm also thinking about old people (and I don't consider anybody old if they can get out and about) who perhaps live alone and try to be independent, and are too afraid to keep heating on.

As someone already said, a lot of old people totally rely on their meagre pittance of a pension, yet still have to pay full whack on gas and electricity. It's wrong, it's out of order, and it's unnecessary. Gas/electricity companies are raking in billions in profits every year, so surely to goodness they could at the very least give a substantial discount to the old/infirm.

Sorry, but this makes my blood boil, so rant over.

Re: Keeping Warm

I live in the middle of a terrace block, have other flats on either side of me as well as flats above and below me. As a consequence I only have the front and back walls of my place to heat. I received a Government grant to install gas central heating five years ago so am now sitting in my super-duper recliner chair right beside a double radiator and am supremely warm. During the day I normally set my room thermostat to 19oC and the boiler keeps my room at that temperature. However, in the middle of this very cold snap, I have increased the room thermostat by one degree.

Being awkward, I cannot sleep if my room is too warm, so turn the heating off altogether when I go to bed and have a window open (this morning when I got up room thermostat read 14oC - the coldest its ever been).

Re: Keeping Warm

We have the central heating on in the day. It is on a thermostat.
We invested in a wood burner this year. Which I light around 4pm. Husband gets the wood from work, so cost us nothing to run. So hopefully we should save on the gas bill. Plus its also a lot warmer in the living room.

Re: Keeping Warm

I got t'stats on every radiator ...but the best thing to get is a programmable ROOM STAT all you then do is set your heating on to constant and rely on the stat ..i set diff temps for diff time of the day 18c in eve and early morn..16.5c during day and 15c over night ..its so much easier than getting up and changing the stat every few hours.

Re: Keeping Warm

The strange thing with this house is there's no Room Stat!! Just the ones on the radiators.