Best way to heat a university rented room

My daughter has just moved into a shared house in Aberdeen. Typical student house, not terrible but basic. Her housemates are insisting that, to keep costs down, they will only turn the heating on x2 hrs per day. Clearly this is ridiculous and I’ve tried explaining to them the futility of this approach without success. My daughter though has a largish, north facing dormer room so is getting the worst deal out of this silliness. So I said I’ll buy her a heater.

I’m thinking hot air blower to warm the room up quickly but I am struggling to work out most efficient approach. She likes to sleep in cold room so typically she will only heat it during the evenings she is in and quickly in the morning. Low overall running cost is biggest priority.

Any ideas? Ta.

Tinder?

Camberwell carrot?

If not using the normal radiator, get an electric oil filled one instead?

Or Tinder

I believe the typical choice is Bumble not Tinder these days. Or an oil filled rad? Or just turn the heating on in spite of what the housemates say?!

If they’ve decided they only want to run a tiny amount of heating to save money, I can’t see that running extra electric heaters is going to go down well.

With your connections OP I’d get someone to have a quiet word with a baseball bat.

Are the room mates locals ? They are going to freeze with that attitude up here.

If they’ve decided they only want to run a tiny amount of heating to save money, I can’t see that running extra electric heaters is going to go down well.

Was my thought as well.

I suspect that common sense will prevail. Although “thermostat wars” is at least great preparation for married life….

Install a wood burner.

If they’ve decided they only want to run a tiny amount of heating to save money, I can’t see that running extra electric heaters is going to go down well.

Was my thought as well.

Mine too – they want to keep costs down and you are providing what is possibly the most expensive solution.

Something like this?

https://www.herschel-infrared.co.uk/product/select-under-desk-heater/

We use them at work to keep the receptionists from freezing.

AidyFree Member
If they’ve decided they only want to run a tiny amount of heating to save money, I can’t see that running extra electric heaters is going to go down well.

Probably, but it’s her room so they’d just have to suck it up

I give it until the 3rd of November before the housemates cave in and heat the place properly anyway

2 hours a day and dormer windows… It’s going to be a lot harder to heat when the pipes burst I suspect. I doubt the planned 2 hours included the middle of the night.

I give it until the 3rd of November before the housemates cave in and heat the place properly anyway

Its Aberdeen… I’d give it until Saturday or Sunday at latest

Install a wood burner.

Show me your parent is on STW without saying your parent is on STW

When I lived in a bedsit, bills were all inclusive but we had no control over the heating.

Of course it got very cold in winter, but we did have counter-top electric ovens… so we basically just left the ovens on with the oven doors open*

*deffo a safety hazard, but it worked.

So I said I’ll buy her a heater.

More appropriate maybe to buy the heat rather than the heater. Theres already a heater.

Your ‘buy the heater, make her housemates pay for heat they don’t get the benefit from’ stategy risks your daughter getting into a pretty unpleasant and lonely situation. I’m presuming you’re hoping she sees the course through to graduation.

Something that maybe is a good first step through is to get a little temp and humidity meter. I live in Scotland and I don’t think out heating has been on in total for more than 2hrs so far since the summer. Its not some passivhaus eco temple – its an 70 year old ex-council end terrace but its reasonably well insulated without its ventilation being compromised  and therefore more importantly pretty dry. We don’t put the heating on much because it doesn’t feel cold regardless of that the thermometer says. For me having the heating for 2 hours a day at present would seem like loads, so if it currently doesn’t seem like enough maybe something else is needing addressing. A room at the top of the house would in many cases be one of the warmest so whats going wrong if it’s not?

Multiple occupancy often comes with a lots of sources  of humidity – more showers and baths, more clothes drying, more individual meals being cooked. If your daughter’s room is at the top of the house it’ll be copping a lot of that humidity and damp houses ofter feel a great deal colder than they actually are and damp houses are also more expensive to heat. Monitoring what the temp and humidity actually is might inform a better way of making the room she’s in more pleasant, some of which may not cost anything at all.

Oil filled rad is the best method as it doesn’t produce the nasty dry heat of an IR or fan heater. I use one in my shepherd’s hut plugged into an eve smart socket. This can be m controlled by HomeKit or Alexa so you can schedule it easily and tie it into weather and presence.  The eve stuff keeps track of power used so if necessary you could use it to work out electricity charges.

2hr a day for heating though seriously? The place will be crawling with damp and never truly get warm.

INFRARED heater as mentioned above

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Heat the person not the room 

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https://www.next.co.uk/style/ST086531/T79798#T79798?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organicshopping

As above, oil filled radiator.  Quiet and constant background heat.

A fan heater would be the worst type, as soon as it reaches the set temp and turns off, your daughter will both feel the lack of heat immediately and even if she is not in front of it she will hear it turn off and feel cold.

It does sound like it could cause a falling out with other housemates if they find out (which could be as simple as noticing it’s warm when they pop their head through the door).  But then they could all have a heater tucked away.  More covert options would be a heated mattress protector (ours is amazing) and heated snuggle blanket thing if studying.

joshvegasFree Member
Tinder?

Genuine lol, thankyou JV

Ah, this takes me back. I moved into a gaff in Newcastle donkeys years ago with 3 lads.

We had in-depth discussions about whether it’d be possible to live for a term on a tenner (kwiksave beans being 4p or 7p at the time).

Anyhoo, we tried turning the heating on twice per day for one hour at a time. From memory, this lasted for 1.5 months (and holy shit it was cold – we used to sit waiting for neighbours to start as it was when the heating came on) and the total bill for the quarter (Aug/September/Oct) was a tenner each. We were in residence for 1.5 of those months.

That quickly was canned and we turned it on properly. So a couple of hours in the morning, and from neighbours onwards till about 9pm in the evening. I distinctly remember the next quarters bill being about double the previous one (may have been 23 quid apiece). But the comfort level was off the scale. (So this would have been Nov/Dec/Jan but included Xmas hols when we all went home).

So not scientific, but it appears by leaving heating off, all you’re doing is cooling the building down so that when the heating is on, it’s working to boost the thermal mass temperature. Leaving it on more is just… More pleasant but not massively more expensive within reason.

Or, bumble and spend lots of nights away.

Someone is bound to be selling a job lot of tyres on the Classifieds. Burn them.

These kind of things a good – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cosi-Luxury-Electric-Heated-Blanket/dp/B07FF6B5F9/ref=sr_1_16?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Lte7fAtAkcUWk3SxS9cEMg6Q85k4zQPpjznQsMxOWQ1TGzRv_lJi7WTA6EH8Kss4fs0YlBrZa28NagLlDvytcolnzcKzNCCrJDXouzIxzrDWy9TVuqxsAB5JN-eKBFWU7sr0FleCOxFFORGf9-fFZqI4Z99PoPy0dZ5ZLZaMC_7LmTSWoRciOfZaK_aNS6cntAI-sg-2uh09pqB8x3KcMNgj6b7PhmQHNdjXU9eK77Ibd4ciHBcQmWIHmLTGwKIRuWAI6UTRoqv2Sub2wmvxv_w7-c56Cy3IurpF7C01Mhw.qm8rgiNNj0RN1XnPt_2Fabxr7fFCXaqRB-ypWimdMAw&dib_tag=se&keywords=heated%2Blap%2Bblanket&qid=1728507136&sr=8-16&th=1

Great for WFT or study in a cold room.

And a heated blanket for the bed of course.

And jumpers – and those gopping snoody things. Only snag is you’re not going to score on Tinder in a snoody so she’d need to get that order correct!

As for heating the room/house – have the rads got TRVs?

Can’t believe how long it took to come up with wood burner.

With Rich_s on the whole don’t turn the house into an ice cube approach being more effective for the modest extra outlay.

Oil filled radiator is good for a single room.  If anyone has a hissy then offer another few quid on the electric bill.

As for the two hours thing I doubt that’ll last unless her house mates are very hardy.  They’ll never get laundry dry and the house will end up damp feeling and clothes will smell permanently damp very quickly.

We were pretty tight at uni but allowing the house to be damp wasn’t the answer.

Oil filled heater. Advantage being if she walks out and leaves it on the house won’t have burned down when she returns from being on the lash.

I give it until the 3rd of November before the housemates cave in and heat the place properly anyway

This.

Currently 6c in my neck of the woods with a bitter easterly. There is zero chance of them sticking to that.

Personally I would get use to properly rugging up but the reality is if you don’t heat the house then mould and then freezing pipes will come knocking. You can’t not heat a house and expect things to be ok

Electric blanket. Or a down gilet and fingerless gloves.

I’d be checking the draught excluders first for leaks and cold. Then look at tinder.

Buy her jumpers and an old lady shawl/throw thing to put over her legs.  That approach served my wife well 30 yrs ago in similar situation and son in Glasgow tenement recently.  Make sure she understands about curtains etc (or even invest in better ones).   We could all do with acclimatising to living slightly colder.

Personally I would get use to properly rugging up but the reality is if you don’t heat the house then mould and then freezing pipes will come knocking. You can’t not heat a house and expect things to be ok

but they are planning to heat it – for two hrs a day, and presumably there will be cooker, toaster, oven, kettle, light bulbs, tv?, fridge, laptops, phone chargers etc all pumping out passive low levels of background heat.  If she’s got a dormer presumably there are floors below leaking heat upstairs.  There will be no burst pipes (it’s likely that any heating has a frost stat anyway).   All those things they tell us to turn off to save power are actually slowly warming the environment – she might actually be better with old school lightbulbs rather than LEDs!

Gas central heating is heck of a lot cheaper than heating rooms by electricity.

Oil filled electric heater if cheap night electric on Economy 7/10.

For individual warmth, electric heated pads are cheap to run, but they won’t do much for the temperature of the room.

Some sneaky ways to warm room…

Keep pc and monitor on during day.

Older TVs give off a fair bit of heat.

Toaster in room.

Kettle bad idea due to moisture.

Set up an aquarium! 6 hours of lighting for plants and an external filter will add some heat to the room.

[maccruiskeen]

To follow up what maccruiskeensaid above:

“Something that maybe is a good first step through is to get a little temp and humidity meter.”

You might considerer a dehumidifier too.  If the room gets humid with being at the top of the house, and all the humidity-generating activities, then it might benefit from being dehumified.  Running a dehumidifier will also heat the room.  Think it heats the room more efficiently than a heater (I have the figure four times as much in my mind, but stand to be corrected…)

“Something that maybe is a good first step through is to get a little temp and humidity meter.”

You might considerer a dehumidifier too.  If the room gets humid with being at the top of the house, and all the humidity-generating activities, then it might benefit from being dehumified.  Running a dehumidifier will also heat the room.  Think it heats the room more efficiently than a heater (I have the figure four times as much in my mind, but stand to be corrected…)

Back when I was studying in Cardiff in the last 80s, Students in the street behind where we lived got stoned and one (who was doing the ceramics course at our art college) having thought he was still in college built a rudimentary kiln in his upstairs bedroom and proceeded to fire a load of handmade pots. on the plus side there was lots of heat but it did burn a hole in the carpet, oh and the floor …The landlord wasn’t that impressed, the pots didn’t really work either.

OP, decent oil radiator is the way to go plus, draught excluders and a load of bubblewrap on the window, possibly check the loft insulation and if its lacking, have a quiet work with the Landlord. And as others have said, wait till early-mid November when common sense re. central heating (or hypothermia) kicks in

Also, to pick up on Rich’s point, a decent chunk of the heating bill, either gas or electric, will be standing charges so the relationship between heating on and bill is not linear, it might well be something like four times as much heating time for twice the cost. And if it’s being used for other things anyway, hot water, lights whatever, that will further reduce the proportional effect extra heating has.

Maybe the OP could do maths for them? Eg. Bills £50/month no heating, £55/month minimal heating, £60/month lots of heating, just making numbers up there but you get the jist.

Get better housemates. This is some next level scarcity mindset, not healthy.

Dehumidifier is a clever one.  Ours keeps the room (and even the house) noticeably warmer although it is a bit noisy.  Ours is a 7 litre desiccant type, not sure if the compressor ones provide background heat) And it’s definitely not going to look like a heater 🙂

Turn it on and then break the thermostat

Get better housemates. This is some next level scarcity mindset, not healthy.

It’s just kids finding out how the hell the world works, they’ll work it out.

I don’t actually totally disagree with the concept, having loved in houses with zero insulation and gaps in the windows that whole newspapers fall through when trying to pack them. A blast at wake up time to take the edge off the day then wrapL up warm works pretty well without just posting fivers through the window gap. Character building too.

My housemates and i had an unheated place in the first year, the fire was condemned two days after we moved in and the hot water heater was an un-insulated 25 litre electric heater. Cost about 3 quid to heat up and cooled to ambient in about an hour.

The toilet used to freeze (early morning pee to defrost), the curtains froze to the windows when the condensation got bad (the curtains also used to waft around in the wind when it blew in the right direction). I suspect that the water pipes were on the brink of bursting for the entire time we were there.
I moved out in February, got a student railcard and commuted from home until the second year. Then got my own place. The other two guys moved out a couple of weeks after me.

FWIW, there is a noticeable difference in energy consumption and temperature in my current place, dependant on if it’s just me there, me and the kids, or me, the kids and my partner and their kid… Less energy (for heating), and warmer.
On the other hand, electricity for lights, computers, phone charging, music, hot water all goes through the roof!