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My heating is set for 18°, and it’s been coming on occasionally for the last couple of weeks. Fortunately, I had all my double glazing replaced a couple of years ago, along with the very old and rather draughty front door, so that’s improved things quite a lot.
and colleagues just told me there would be a freezing winter this year.
I’ve been wondering about that, my Pyrocanthus hedges out front are covered with berries, and what’s unusual is that the regular pigeons and blackbirds are out eating them; that rarely happens, except when it’s really cold, and we start getting the continental thrushes coming in from the fields. Which drives the male blackbird, who considers my house and garden a significant part of his territory, absolutely nuts!
You know plants produce fruit based on what the weather is/has been.. They can't predict the future.
The heat has come on a few times (thermostat set to to 19 degrees).
Log burner hasn't been lit yet though.
Same here.... The last 2 years the log burner has been lit from the beginning of October so I'm viewing this as a win.
My log bags inside are still empty, had no need to fill them. Saying that, i'll be filling them tomorrow when i get home from work! Due to be below zero every morning for the next few days.
We put ours on for an hour on Sunday night as the temperature inside had dropped to 15deg, but it's switched back off again now.
might be time to bring out the extra blanket for the bed
That's one thing I never do – we have a summer-weight duvet on all year around. If it is cold, I wear a tee-shirt. If it is *really* cold, then I sometimes wear PJ bottoms too. Ohh, and we never have heating on in our bedroom either.
Had the CH on for an hour or so about three times this week, and wearing wool socks today.
As a resident scrawny STW wuss, it was 18.5C in my office (aka the spare room) this morning, which calls for a T, plus a long sleeved T, plus lambswool rollneck jumper. And the heating is on for the time being.
Haven't yet broken out the big chunky wool socks though, although I am looking foward to that soon
Heating is set to 20C all year round, so it's been coming on now and again the last week or 2. Most mornings this week. We don't 'turn the heating on' as such.
Possibly an insulting thread to those people genuinely not able to afford to put any heating on? My thermostat is set at 20 so goes on based on that, all year around. Not sure what you are trying to win by not having it on.
Mine came on for the first time this morning in sunny Essex. My house is a shitty old 1950s build with solid walls.
It goes mouldy if it gets too cold, as a result the thermostat is set to 17.5 and is set to 'on' year round.
I borrowed a colleagues IR camera and found a few cold spots, so looks like I'll be doing some DIY to remedy the work done by incompetent tradesmen.
Possibly an insulting thread to those people genuinely not able to afford to put any heating on? My thermostat is set at 20 so goes on based on that, all year around. Not sure what you are trying to win by not having it on.
this.
Though ours is on a Nest and set temperature varies from 20 in the mornings to 22 in the evening.
Yeah, don't understand the whole turning heating on/off thing. Each room has an appropriate schedule set up, and I let it do its thing all year.
Gave in the other night and put the karkelugn on. The downstairs part of the house is generally warm enough with the radiators on (especially now that the cat has a second catflap and I do not have to leave the inner door open for him), but I wanted to sit in front of the fire for a bit and warm up the upstairs a bit.
I have even, finally, closed my bedroom window. Not yet put the inner windows back in, but that will happen soon enough.
15 mins to dismantle a pallet and cut it into 500mm lengths with just a hand saw, keep the beech, ash and oak logs for decorative basket until the real cold comes in
Firelighters from B&M but can't believe £5 for a wee bundle of kindling, so easy to pick up or chop your own
21° so easy in one room with others progressively cooler as I like a couple of windows slightly open
Kids including mine were brought up with too much central heating but they pay for their own now
Same here, round at my place i like the bedroom cool, my partner complains about this when she gets into bed (with her own, seperate, winter weight duvet) come midnight she's got the duvet almost on the floor complaining about the heat i'm kicking out.That's one thing I never do – we have a summer-weight duvet on all year around.
At her place i loose about a third of my body weight to sweat every night. The minimum temp for the apartment is about 22 degrees.
Yeah, don't understand the whole turning heating on/off thing. Each room has an appropriate schedule set up
Erm, some of us just have a single dial (probably from the 1980s min my case) and valves on the rads.
I only flick it on when I actually feel chilly, but that doesn't always happen at the same temperature.
I sometimes set it to a minimum when it gets really cold though.
I’m reeling from two things:
- people have heating on during the day
- that they let a thermostat decide to put the heating on in September
While I agree, there is nuance there. A really well insulated house = heating on all day can work well.
Also, our heating has outdoor temperature sensor and is smart enough to calculate when the heating may be needed and fully modulate the boiler.
All that said, I am too tight arse to have the heating 'on' by default at a particular date and try to push to mid October and get it switched off by 1st of April...
Ours is on a fairly standard split system with a thermostat upstairs and downstairs, with TRVs on all the radiators, bar the two rooms with the thermostats.
However our combi boiler does have a toggle letting you enable the heating and hot water or just the hot water.
The thermostats also have an away mode which doesn't let the temperature drop below 15 Celsius I think.
So I do choose to actively turn it on and off in a sense, normally at the start and end of winter.
I did look at going down the whole smart thermostat and TRV route but the initial outlay was too high, it would have taken me several years to recoup, and we don't plan on being here that long.
A really well insulated house = heating on all day can work well.
In a really well insulated house just living in the house keeps it warm enough. In a fairly well insulated house there will be less energy loss if the temperature is allowed to drop a little at night or when unoccupied.
Currently 22°C in the middle of the house with no heating. In the sunniest room it's 28°C. We've only just gone from leaving shutters closed on the sunny side to keep the house cool and it'll be a while before we light the wood burner. One of the nice things about living 43°N is the short heating season.
No gas central heating for me this year. Combi boiler broken.
I shall be relying on cheap or negative octopus agile electricity pricing, the log burner and heating the person not the room. 🔥🔥
Currently 14°c indoors and cooling slowly ❄️❄️☃️
Heat pump at its lowest setting is holding the house at between 20-21C. Radiators in the bedroom are switched off and there have been a few nights where the air con upstairs is running to cool the bedroom while the downstairs is being heated.
Combi boiler broken.
must be difficult to have a shower or a bath ?
Our heating goes on if Mrs Zip decides it looks cold outside!
Combi boiler broken.
must be difficult to have a shower or a bath ?
Cold shower after a warm water wash at the sink ❄️🔥.
Only I has to deal with the broken combi. If there were more in the house I'd get it fixed.
I'm also considering going full electric for my heating and hot water needs so repairing or replacing the gas boiler seems like it could be money spent elsewhere.
17c and moist. Had a week of nice weather but chilly and damp today. Office aircon is on toasty.
Has anyone used a radiator booster fan? Did make any difference? Would you recommend?
Our kitchen is always a bit on the cold side while the rest of the house is at a reasonable temperature. I think the radiator is a little under sized. Not sure whether to get a larger / higher output radiator installed or try a booster fan on the current radiator.
I’m reeling from two things:
- people have heating on during the day
- that they let a thermostat decide to put the heating on in September
While I agree, there is nuance there. A really well insulated house = heating on all day can work well.
Also, our heating has outdoor temperature sensor and is smart enough to calculate when the heating may be needed and fully modulate the boiler.
All that said, I am too tight arse to have the heating 'on' by default at a particular date and try to push to mid October and get it switched off by 1st of April...
1) some people work from home (both of us in our case now), in a well insulated house heating on all day (possibly with setback periods at a lower temperature rather than off) works well
2) why wouldn't you have the heating on if it's cold in September?
Ours is driven by a outdoor stat and the Underfloor runs whenever the outside temperature is below 13C but because it runs at a very low temp - the water flowing in it is only 21C when its' that warm out - it costs a negligible amount to run. I leave it 'on' all year unless we go on holiday for more than a week at a time in winter. Our gas bill for this calendar year is looking like it will be about £600 (and c35% of that will be from hot water based on previous years). We built our house well beyond the building regs insulation and airtighting requirements so its far from typical but I'm still amazed when I hear about people building extensions (or even whole houses) and complaining about how much insulation they have to install or doing the minimum they can get away with. Why wouldn't you want your house to be warm and to minimise the costs of heating in future?
How much are other peoples heating bills? I was always amazed at my ex brother in law. Flashy car on finance, fancy watch, expensive holidays but refused to put the heating on and had a cold house. It seemed a weird set of priorities to me.
A really well insulated house = heating on all day can work well.
In a really well insulated house just living in the house keeps it warm enough. ....One of the nice things about living 43°N is the short heating season.
As you've said, that clearly depends on where the house is. Passive house standard still has heating input - just not much.
As my heating bills have increased quit a bit this year, I was looking at taking some extra steps, I was wondering if using something like tessamol thermo cover would make much difference to an already double glazed window?
I am in a rented apartment so am limited in how much I can do, but am planning on getting some reflective insulation behind the radiators and while browsing saw the plastic film that is usually used to make a single glazed window double glazed and wondered if making the double glazed upvc windows into triple glazed windows would be cost effective or just pointless.
The heat pump decided to stop working on Hogmanay - fortunately the hot water is still working. Managing to keep the temperature in the low teens with fan heater and bioethanol stove.
We were at the in-laws for Christmas. They're in a 17 year old? SIP self build with 3g windows. I don't know the full specs and whether insulation was at or boyond building regs but it's got mvhr so airtightness should have been decent (though front door and folding sliding door seals have not done well - latter gets gaffa taped for winter)
Their pellet burner broke a little while before christmas so it was pretty chilly. Luckily still had electric immersion, and the pellet burner might have been doing something (it was cutting in and out - how much actual heating it did is debatable. The radiators upstairs never got hot).
What it did show was just how poor an open fire* is - we were burning an enormous amount of wood and it was OK if you were in front of it, but did next to nothing for the rest of the house.
(yes, architect was head in hands about open fire in a modern, airtight, house, but old farmer won out. Supect a lifetime of open fires is very likely reason he only has one lung now due to cancer)
Supect a lifetime of open fires is very likely reason he only has one lung now due to cancer
There's other more likely causes TBH.
What it did show was just how poor an open fire* is - we were burning an enormous amount of wood and it was OK if you were in front of it, but did next to nothing for the rest of the house.
Yes, open fires are suck a huge amount of air out of the house and out through the chimney - which is why stoves are so much more efficient as the air intake can be throttled down to draw the minimum amount from the room while radiating much more heat than an open fire ever could.
(and the truth is that wood alone isn't the best fuel)
As my heating bills have increased quit a bit this year, I was looking at taking some extra steps, I was wondering if using something like tessamol thermo cover would make much difference to an already double glazed window?
We have some DG units with a narrow air gap dating from back in the 90's and sometimes I can feel the cold air falling down from them. Especially in my office which is pretty small but has two fairly large windows.
A little research seems to show that simply changing the DG units to Low E glass (preferably filled with argon) should make a pretty big difference without the disruption and cost of entirely new windows.
But you're a bit more hindered...
I am in a rented apartment so am limited in how much I can do
Supect a lifetime of open fires is very likely reason he only has one lung now due to cancer
There's other more likely causes TBH.
It's a significant risk factor, and they've always lived rurally so other sources of air pollution are low.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/sep/how-air-pollution-can-cause-lung-cancer-non-smokers-revealed
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/sep/indoor-wood-burners-linked-decline-lung-function
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412023004014
Has anyone used a radiator booster fan? Did make any difference? Would you recommend?
Our kitchen is always a bit on the cold side while the rest of the house is at a reasonable temperature. I think the radiator is a little under sized. Not sure whether to get a larger / higher output radiator installed or try a booster fan on the current radiator.
Yes, I made one out of PC fans, it has helped for sure. It increases the effective output of the radiator by something like 50% at low temperatures. The problem is now that the flow rate isn't enough because this particular rad is at the far end of the loop. However, I found you can get radiator flow booster pumps: WRIGHT Pumps
Our heating failed on Friday last week, luckily I was able to get a decent heating engineer out on Saturday. Smart heating controls were all fine and boiler was working fine (still had hot water) but actuators were not opening to either of the two separate heating zones. Motors replaced in each and a couple of hours labour, we were back up and running and £200 worse off (pretty reasonable for callout, labour and parts I thought).
The weird thing is how both actuators failed on exactly the same day. One linked the the radiators in the old part of the house, the other to the UFH heating in the extension. They have sperate thermostats and come on and off independently of each other. Seems a hell of a coincidence for them to both fail on the same day,
It's a significant risk factor, and they've always lived rurally so other sources of air pollution are low.
I was thinking more along the lines of smoking and passive smoking.
I'm sure you'll probs say they've never smoked or been in a room where someone was smoking 😉
I thought you were alluding to farmers lung
I really enjoyed the time I spent outside de-icing the condensate pipework today (I also lie). Turns out the solution to a cold house is go outside for a bit. Indoors feels lovely and warm then.
My stove in living room hasn’t been off since before new year, i pile it up at night with door shut and mum piles it up in morning and opens door so my 1bed bungalow is warm enough for me to get up and get moving, currently only 22° in living room and 18° in bedroom, it should get up to around 24° or hopefully more if I throw on more coal
Thankflly no snow here in Galloway but it’s still bloody cold
mum piles it up in morning and opens door so my 1bed bungalow is warm enough for me to get up and get moving
Where does your Mum sleep if you both live in a one bed bungalow. Are you 'very close'?
they've always lived rurally
More likely pesticides, herbicides, fungicides... that have caused the cancer.
It's currently 15°C in the house. Sometimes only having a small wood burner lit when we're in isn't enough, but it'll do, I've put long Johns on 🙂 . A friend has lent me a thermal imaging camera. This tells me that the house has nasty thermal bridges where inside brick walls meet outside brick walls and has also some walls where I need to improve the wall insulation. It was interesting comparing different types of glazing in the same room.
Triple units 15.6 °C
Triple seconday (above door) 15.1°C
Double secondary (door) 13.6
The extension I've built to modern insulation standards has no thermal bridges and it seems however good the windows/doors they're the main source of heat loss. In the old retro-insulated part of the house the triple glazing units with shutters barely show warmer than th ewalls from the outside and the thermal bridges around the frames I can't do much about show warmer.
I was a bit disappointed till I pointed the camera at some neighbouring houses.
Had the karkelugn on yesterday and will have it on again tonight. It was cold enough the other night I put a fire on in the bedroom (-15c outside, 4c in the room) but it has warmed up enough now that I won't need to worry about that today (only -10c).
Inside is currently about 16c, so I should really put my slippers on, but the radiators are holding off me getting out my work blanket. I really should get a air source heat pump installed, but that means getting a new floor fitted in the kitchen and lounge to seal up the gaps and draughts.