Author Topic: Heating on?  (Read 60653 times)

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #25 on: 20 October, 2011, 12:12:15 am »
16c inside, 9c outside.   I'm comfortable in a sweatshirt & boxers at the moment, though I suspect you don't really want to know that !

Top floor of a purpose built 1930'sblock of flats with double glazing & decent loft insulation.
Not fast & rarely furious

tweeting occasional in(s)anities as andrewxclark

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #26 on: 20 October, 2011, 01:41:23 am »
Those with central heating but with it switched off (or only switched on very recently):

1.  Do you have any supplementary little electric/gas heaters that you have been using a bit?

2.  Is your home very, very well insulated?

Otherwise I think you're being too harsh on yourselves!

Mrs Nutty is away for the evening.  The second she left the house I turned the heating off.

I hate having the place at an uncomfortable temperature.  What is the point in heating the whole house when I'm only sat in one room watching TV?

Yes it got slightly cool around midnight, so I put a jumper on*.  Perfectly comfortable.    As opposed to when she's home and you get hot/cold spots through the house depending as to your proximity to a radiator (or that untraced draft).




* queue shock horror from those that know me.  A jumper?  In October?

Steph

  • Fast. Fast and bulbous. But fluffy.
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #27 on: 20 October, 2011, 04:50:25 am »
Heating not on at all, and no supplementary devices. Generally just get by with a T-shirt, sometimes a sweatshirt, and as it cools a long skirt. I'll put the heating on when it gets COLD.

At work, others in woolly pillies in fleeces, me in a short-sleeved shirt. I have started wearing a long-sleeved shirt for the commute, though, but still in shorts.
Mae angen arnaf i byw, a fe fydda'i

Andrij

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Re: Heating on?
« Reply #28 on: 20 October, 2011, 07:11:13 am »
Been getting down to 4/5 overnight, but flat hasn't been below 18.  It was only Tuesday evening that I finally closed a window which has been open for months.  The heating remains off and I continue to lounge about in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Heating on?
« Reply #29 on: 20 October, 2011, 07:18:12 am »
I've had the dehumidifier on for the last couple of weeks - helps to take the chill off.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #30 on: 20 October, 2011, 08:04:46 am »
It was 2 degrees C here last night. I went to bed wearing my Superman tshirt and an hour later I was still awake and cold. So I got up and found my wheatbag and went back to bed after microwaving it.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Re: Heating on?
« Reply #31 on: 20 October, 2011, 08:04:49 am »
We have one of those new heating controls the instructions for which taught me the meaning of one of my favourite words: hysteresis.

Under the controls the system is constantly on, striving to maintain our environment at a steady 18ºC.  I did try to rewrite the instructions so they could be understood by someone less intelligent than Einstein but I failed and we now just leave the thing to do what it wants.
Move Faster and Bake Things

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
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Re: Heating on?
« Reply #32 on: 20 October, 2011, 08:09:00 am »
Min Temp of 3.5°C here, at 6.59. It's now 4.4°C but 15°C inside. I'm still in my shirtsleeves but I have consumed a large bowl of piping hot porridge.

From 9 a.m. Dez will have the house to himself. I'd wager the heat goes on before very long. He's under instructions to check the header tank in the loft and bleed the radiators.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #33 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:19:13 am »
This week we've reached a domestic compromise; boiler runs for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. This brings the sitting room temp up to about 19 for a while.

Basically, we start squabbling as a family at around 17.5 degrees.

Only the sitting room, kitchen and bathrooms have the radiators on.

Occasionally, we have a clothes drying crisis and have fire up the boiler to dry clothes (we are tumble drier free here). The maze of unlagged pipes, a hot water tank and the boiler itself ensure that the utility room (aka "boiler room") heats up pretty promptly and clothes are soon dry. Although a bit bonkers doing this on a wet summer day, I think we're on a sounder environmental footing than if we replaced our defunct tumble drier.

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #34 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:24:00 am »
No heating on here, I'm not saving the planet, I'm saving money  :thumbsup:

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #35 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:28:14 am »
No heating on here, I'm not saving the planet, I'm saving money  :thumbsup:

You're doing both. :thumbsup:

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #36 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:33:31 am »
Those with central heating but with it switched off (or only switched on very recently):

1.  Do you have any supplementary little electric/gas heaters that you have been using a bit?

2.  Is your home very, very well insulated?

Otherwise I think you're being too harsh on yourselves!

No and no.  We only have the central heating, and the house is an 1840's 9" solid brick construction end of terrace farm cottage with an empty property adjacent. Heating went on last weekend.

But we've recently had the back door replaced (it's in a 70's extension out the back) with a UPVC unit, and it's made a huge difference. We're managing with the 'stat set at 16 - though hysteresis means a range of 14-18.

This weekend we may well have our first log fire of the season (open fireplace - yes we know stoves are more efficient, we just don't like them very much).  Cost of logs up from £75/load last year to £93 this, due mainly to huge consumption last winter running down stocks.   Must order a double load soon.  the fire means we don't have the heating on except for a short burst to warm the bathroom.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #37 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:34:36 am »
Last night I felt the cold for the first time this Autumn as I waited for the call to go out and collect Miss P'wit after her trip to listen to that Dawkins chap.  But I couldn't be bothered to go and get a jumper.

The other P'wits had the gas fire on in the living room one evening recently.  Munching through 7kW for about three hours.

Methinks heating will be put on before the weekend.  Must get bleeding and refreshing the inhibitor, checking which radiators we need to have on and balancing the system.   Lots of running up and down the stairs, so I'll be warm enough not to need the heating.

Chris S

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #38 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:38:18 am »
Logs are getting very expensive. If you have the room to store them and the wood burners to burn them (ie: not open grates), then heat logs from (eg) http://www.durhamheatlogs.co.uk/ are hard to beat for raw KWh/Tonne value.

Morrisette

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Re: Heating on?
« Reply #39 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:41:46 am »
Three degrees outside? OH YES THE HEATING IS ON!!

I don't find being 'a cyclist' makes any difference to my temperature regulation - it is still set to 'cold'. I wish I was one of those people who is always warm, but since I've been cold for over 30 years, I don't think it is going to happen!
Not overly audacious
@suffolkncynical

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #40 on: 20 October, 2011, 09:45:23 am »
No idea of outside temp, but heating is, or rather was, on last night.

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #41 on: 20 October, 2011, 10:51:11 am »
When I return to France in Feb to resume work it'll probably be around -6ºC and I will live in a 7x3m,  draught-free*, windowless enclosure with one insulated wall and 3 50cm stone walls.  The ceiling has 200mm of insulation. 

Once the stone walls are warmed up (after 3 days) my small 3kw paraffin stove will easily keep the temp up to around 18ºC.  Were I to insulate the floor and 3 stone walls (fairly cheap and easy) I would need hardly any heating at all.  Frozen external pipes were the main problem last year but I spent a frantic few days fixing it. (Had to wake every 2 hours during the night to run the water :(  )

Working outside, long-johns are vital!

*other than ventilation for cooking and heating.
Move Faster and Bake Things

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #42 on: 20 October, 2011, 10:52:35 am »
Three degrees outside? OH YES THE HEATING IS ON!!

I don't find being 'a cyclist' makes any difference to my temperature regulation - it is still set to 'cold'. I wish I was one of those people who is always warm, but since I've been cold for over 30 years, I don't think it is going to happen!

I feel the same. When I was single I used to sit in my lovely sleeping bag in the evening, but now we need the heating on to keep the damp away so that clothes dry and clarion can breathe so I mostly manage with a blanket. I seriously considered a hat in bed last night though.
Quote from: Kim
^ This woman knows what she's talking about.

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #43 on: 20 October, 2011, 11:28:03 am »
I closed the window in the bedroom yesterday because it was a touch nippy. 

My neighbours will continue to heat our house for a couple of months, then we'll probably have to run ours for a couple of hours a day December to February. Our energy bills are still eye watering though, so our neighbours must be paying thousands to keep their place so warm.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #44 on: 20 October, 2011, 11:51:00 am »
We don't "put the heating on" as such - it works out for itself when it needs to come on, being operated by a zoned thermostat system, with timing bands to set different temperatures for different parts of the house for different times of the day.

So it stays off overnight and during the day, unless the temperature drops dangerously low (ie cold enough to freeze the pipes), but on days like today, it comes on in the morning to make the house warm enough that I can contemplate getting out of bed.

It actually works quite well.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

ian

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #45 on: 20 October, 2011, 11:52:49 am »
I was trying to hold out till the end of the month. Last night was defeat. Thirteen degrees in the kitchen.

I work from home, but never have the heating on during the day (goes off between 8.30 and 5pm), but my office is on the second floor of a tall, thin house, so all the heat rises and makes itself at home in my office. If I make the mistake of turning on the thermostat in my office, it rapidly gets warm enough in there to roast a chicken.

Interestingly, I discovered last winter that we have the coldest house on our street. When it snowed, it melted on all the roofs (of twelve identical houses) other than our house. We had a nice thick blanket of snow. Which froze. And the fell off one night, taking all our gutters with it.

Re: Heating on?
« Reply #46 on: 20 October, 2011, 12:00:27 pm »
We don't "put the heating on" as such - it works out for itself when it needs to come on, being operated by a zoned thermostat system, with timing bands to set different temperatures for different parts of the house for different times of the day.

So it stays off overnight and during the day, unless the temperature drops dangerously low (ie cold enough to freeze the pipes), but on days like today, it comes on in the morning to make the house warm enough that I can contemplate getting out of bed.

It actually works quite well.

d.

So just the North wing on so far..?   ;)
Cycle and recycle.   SS Wilson

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #47 on: 20 October, 2011, 12:07:28 pm »
So just the North wing on so far..?   ;)

The North Wing is my mother-in-law's quarters and she has her own heating controls. Being in her 80s, she has special dispensation to have the heating on in the middle of summer.  ;)

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #48 on: 20 October, 2011, 12:08:55 pm »
The room I'm in is south facing with a large expanse of glass. The low sunlight is streaming in and warming things up nicely; temp now reads a perfect 18. As the room has lots of solid walls and floors, this sunlight tends to be absorbed and the room will stay warm (my definition, not Mrs P's) for quite some time into the evening/late afternoon. I do have to remember to draw the curtains (v thick and heavy) when the room loses the sun. It's a cheap and efficient form of solar heating; no need for panels or pumps.

This thread has me keeping glancing at the thermometer. In the interests of adding more complexity to my life, does anyone know of a datalogger thermometer? Or something I can plug into a PC? Or, even better, wifi into a PC?

CrinklyLion

  • The one with devious, cake-pushing ways....
Re: Heating on?
« Reply #49 on: 20 October, 2011, 12:19:36 pm »
I only ever buy really cheerful bright coloured plastic ones like these

http://www.tts-group.co.uk/shops/tts/Range.aspx?search=datalogger

 :D