Economising on heating: miserly scrooge or just plain common sense?

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Frightening energy prices. What am I doing? Putting layers on, laying under blankets, cuddling the dog/cat, exercising.

Maybe get an electric blanket..but what happens if you shit the bed on drugs and theres 100 watts wrapped round you?

Incineration?

A steamed shit sandwich.

 

[Zopiclone bandit]

At -10 and lower the air humidity is very low hence the perception of it feeling cold kinda vanishes

I live & learn each day.

Plus when you breathe -20 air in it will take your breathe away so to speak.
You need a scarf in front of your mouth.

Yep, I know that feeling. Taking in breath actually hurt & I had an issue with my eyes kinda freezing when I stayed out till 3am in December.

 

[Forever Changes]

I checked - and I did not see it.

It went straight into my bank account rather than to my account with my energy supplier

 

[Fertile]

It went straight into my bank account rather than to my account with my energy supplier

Wow - I did the opposite. But my energy supplier gives 5% interest on credit which is a good rate for the UK. There is some tax loophole that allows them to do this.

 

[Forever Changes]

Wow - I did the opposite. But my energy supplier gives 5% interest on credit which is a good rate for the UK. There is some tax loophole that allows them to do this.

erm, I was just talking about the first £66 payment we're all going to get. Rather than money off my energy bill, it turned up as a credit in my bank account. But if you haven't recieved check with your supplier. Or maybe Rishi Sunak has already cancelled it....

 

[moonyham]

See, a lot of people don't seem to understand the importance of a heated home and think 'layering up' is a comparable alternative.

Short story, it's not. There are a bunch of very good reasons to heat your home. One being that breathing in cold, moist air is not good for you long term. You will get sick more often. How much is a week off work worth to you because you are sick trying to save some money on heating?

You also can't think well as your body diverts energy to your muscles to warm you up abs you get brain fog. your extremeties like fingers and toes do not keep warm enough and you put extra wear and tear on your cartilage because of this. Layering doesn't help this.

The you've got the health of your home. Cold attracts moisture. Moisture attracts mold and mildew. Mold and mildew destroy your possessions, as well as make you sick. Again this costs you money. If you own the home and aren't renting then the damage from moisture is no doubt way more than anything youll save.

Honestly saving money by living in perpetual cold has to be one of the absolute worst ways to 'save' said money. Absolutely the last thing you should be cutting, with the only thing more important and a higher priority being food.

Best thing most people can do is invest in a dehumidifier. Dry air is easier to heat, so you use less power to get the same amount of warmth and your home and you are healthier for it too.

 

[Fertile]

erm, I was just talking about the first £66 payment we're all going to get. Rather than money off my energy bill, it turned up as a credit in my bank account. But if you haven't recieved check with your supplier. Or maybe Rishi Sunak has already cancelled it....

Ah - well in that case, I ended up further in credit.

I'm housebound so the best I can do is to keep the temperature at about 11-12C. That's enough to stop damp and such, but I do have a proper Norwegian winter outfit which I sleep in. So I do not get cold.

I am aware that one loses heat via respiration - which is why losing weight has been so valuable. Slower respiration.

It's all a balancing act.

 

[Forever Changes]

See, a lot of people don't seem to understand the importance of a heated home and think 'layering up' is a comparable alternative.

Short story, it's not. There are a bunch of very good reasons to heat your home. One being that breathing in cold, moist air is not good for you long term. You will get sick more often. How much is a week off work worth to you because you are sick trying to save some money on heating?

You also can't think well as your body diverts energy to your muscles to warm you up abs you get brain fog. your extremeties like fingers and toes do not keep warm enough and you put extra wear and tear on your cartilage because of this. Layering doesn't help this.

The you've got the health of your home. Cold attracts moisture. Moisture attracts mold and mildew. Mold and mildew destroy your possessions, as well as make you sick. Again this costs you money. If you own the home and aren't renting then the damage from moisture is no doubt way more than anything youll save.

Honestly saving money by living in perpetual cold has to be one of the absolute worst ways to 'save' said money. Absolutely the last thing you should be cutting, with the only thing more important and a higher priority being food.

Best thing most people can do is invest in a dehumidifier. Dry air is easier to heat, so you use less power to get the same amount of warmth and your home and you are healthier for it too.

Very good advice. I recently moved into a basement flat - as well as the annoyance of not getting a mobile phone signal - there's the damp to contend with in basements, I didn't realise how destructive it was until after about 6 months I noticed lots of my clothes covered in mildew! Now I clean mould of the walls as soon as I see it and I monitor the humidity al the time. It's not just in winter, the humidity can be high in summer too. I have a de-humidifier and run it to keep the moisture down, although as it's electric I expect it's expensive to run, but as you say, better than ruining your health with mould.

 

[Forever Changes]

Ah - well in that case, I ended up further in credit.

I'm housebound so the best I can do is to keep the temperature at about 11-12C. That's enough to stop damp and such, but I do have a proper Norwegian winter outfit which I sleep in. So I do not get cold.

I am aware that one loses heat via respiration - which is why losing weight has been so valuable. Slower respiration.

It's all a balancing act.

11-12C is too cold to live in. Read the post by Moonyham above - your health is more important than anything. If you're really struggling financially there is govt help available

 

[moonyham]

Very good advice. I recently moved into a basement flat - as well as the annoyance of not getting a mobile phone signal - there's the damp to contend with in basements, I didn't realise how destructive it was until after about 6 months I noticed lots of my clothes covered in mildew! Now I clean mould of the walls as soon as I see it and I monitor the humidity al the time. It's not just in winter, the humidity can be high in summer too. I have a de-humidifier and run it to keep the moisture down, although as it's electric I expect it's expensive to run, but as you say, better than ruining your health with mould.

I had a similar experience years ago. A very expensive, no longer made Jacket that was in my closet had mold all over it. I was living where I had no control over temp/moisture. But that jacket was worth more than anything extra we would of spent on power that year - ignoring everything else in the house that was destroyed.

Dehumidifiers actually use surprisingly little power for what they do. Definitely the best way you can spend energy in terms of a healthy home. I have what if call a medium sized unit that takes about 5-10l out of the air a day if high moisture. It only uses 300w on its highest setting which is only 7kwh a day. You won't get anywhere near the benefits you get from that dehumidifier spending 7kwh on anything else.

Main issue with them is they are quite expensive and most people aren't educated on the matter so don't appreciate the value.

 

[Forever Changes]

I had a similar experience years ago. A very expensive, no longer made Jacket that was in my closet had mold all over it. I was living where I had no control over temp/moisture. But that jacket was worth more than anything extra we would of spent on power that year - ignoring everything else in the house that was destroyed.

Dehumidifiers actually use surprisingly little power for what they do. Definitely the best way you can spend energy in terms of a healthy home. I have what if call a medium sized unit that takes about 5-10l out of the air a day if high moisture. It only uses 300w on its highest setting which is only 7kwh a day. You won't get anywhere near the benefits you get from that dehumidifier spending 7kwh on anything else.

Main issue with them is they are quite expensive and most people aren't educated on the matter so don't appreciate the value.

the dehumidifier came with the flat but I wasn't educated about using it until the mould problem hit! UK is a naturally damp country but it's especially a problem in basements. As the machine pumps out a lot of hot air I assumed it would be quite expensive to run - I've always been told it's more economical to have radiators on in the home than to use electric blow heaters.

I don't keep the dehumidifier on for hours, just enough for the room humidity to get down to around 50%. As I have a device that shows both room temp and humidity it's interesting to watch the natural humidity throughout the year - it can range from less than 30% to more than 70%

 

[moonyham]

the dehumidifier came with the flat but I wasn't educated about using it until the mould problem hit! UK is a naturally damp country but it's especially a problem in basements. As the machine pumps out a lot of hot air I assumed it would be quite expensive to run - I've always been told it's more economical to have radiators on in the home than to use electric blow heaters.

I don't keep the dehumidifier on for hours, just enough for the room humidity to get down to around 50%. As I have a device that shows both room temp and humidity it's interesting to watch the natural humidity throughout the year - it can range from less than 30% to more than 70%

Yeah NZ(where I live) is quite similar to the UK in that regard. Country is very rainy and damp and unless you have a very new house that was built above minimum standards, you will get crying windows and humidity issues.

The thing about dehumidifiers is they aren't actually making any heat(well, a tiny amount as a byproduct) so the energy compared to a space heater/electric fan heater is nothing. You could literally run 5-8 dehumidifiers for the price of running a single 2kw(standard power) fan heater.

I can't tell if you are saying you limit usage purely because you don't 'need' to use it more or because of power concerns but personally, unless you are really tight for money, I'd run the dehumidifier constantly - or at least from 10pm to 10am, the dampest hours of the day. There are advantages to doing this kind of consistent usage - everything in your room/house dries out once the air is below the level of humidity in the furniture/bed/clothing and so on. If you only run it enough to reduce the airs humidity but not long enough for it to get lower than the fabric/moisture wicking items in your house, then you don't get nearly the same benefits.
I don't know what radiators the UK uses or how they are powered or if they are metered differently but my experience with them in NZ is they use quite a lot of power, just not as much as a fan heater does. Eitherway you get more 'bang for your buck' by having drier air for the radiators to heat.

 

[Forever Changes]

hmmm.... we must have different types of dehumidifiers because mine pumps out a shedload of heat - it's part of the point of this model I believe - you can use it to dry laundary. So that's why I figure it's expensive to run, plus in hot weather it's not good to use obviously. It's also probably an oldish model

 

[Zopiclone bandit]

11-12C is too cold to live in. Read the post by Moonyham above - your health is more important than anything. If you're really struggling financially there is govt help available

In regards to "the communist begging bowl" folks on Universal Credit etc can get another £400 towards your heating btw.

Heard about this yesterday and it's legit folks. May as well get your snout into the trough before The Great Reset really kicks in I say.

 

[Fertile]

11-12C is too cold to live in. Read the post by Moonyham above - your health is more important than anything. If you're really struggling financially there is govt help available

I get government help because I'm classed as severely disabled. But they have a blind spot for people who are more or less housebound. I THINK I'm also liable to a further £150 Warm Home discount (because I'm classed as severely disabled) but the latter should be paid in March.... but I will believe it when see it.

So I live on £2.20/day for food. That cost of living payment people got, well £300 out of the £324 went into energy account.

I presume the idea is that the elderly and disabled will simply die off. Actually, after this winter, I think there WILL be a large number of excess deaths due to people freezing.

But the 'keep warm now - worry about paying later' is going to see a stack of people on prepayment meters.... which cost more.

But I cannot increase my income so I have to do the best I can. Simple.

 

[Bleaney]

See, a lot of people don't seem to understand the importance of a heated home and think 'layering up' is a comparable alternative.

Short story, it's not. There are a bunch of very good reasons to heat your home. One being that breathing in cold, moist air is not good for you long term. You will get sick more often. How much is a week off work worth to you because you are sick trying to save some money on heating?

You also can't think well as your body diverts energy to your muscles to warm you up abs you get brain fog. your extremeties like fingers and toes do not keep warm enough and you put extra wear and tear on your cartilage because of this. Layering doesn't help this.

The you've got the health of your home. Cold attracts moisture. Moisture attracts mold and mildew. Mold and mildew destroy your possessions, as well as make you sick. Again this costs you money. If you own the home and aren't renting then the damage from moisture is no doubt way more than anything youll save.

Honestly saving money by living in perpetual cold has to be one of the absolute worst ways to 'save' said money. Absolutely the last thing you should be cutting, with the only thing more important and a higher priority being food.

Best thing most people can do is invest in a dehumidifier. Dry air is easier to heat, so you use less power to get the same amount of warmth and your home and you are healthier for it too.

Yeah, you're right. My plan is to save at the milder ends of the winter, where it's not too uncomfortable or impractical to layer up. In the depths of winter-proper the heating will be on. This will usually be December through to the end of Feb in the UK, although this year I'll likely be going more off the external and internal temperatures than whichever month of the year it happens to be.

 

[Jackal]

100% not joking or trolling

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^ look at all of these free pallets. If you have a solid fuel stove or a fireplace/range etccollect all the free pallets you can.

Two pallets is a days heating

OR

Begin dismantling pallets and filling bags with the wood - sell bags for whatever you think is a good price £3/4 per bag. Easy money

I found the link above by googling "free pallets west midlands" - and it was the first result - modify to suit your geographical lokation

 

[Fertile]

In the UK almost NOBODY has a solid fuel fire and you can only burn smokeless fuel in them.

I'm doing the same as Bleaney. Nice thermal clothing for now but then I can afford to heat my home properly when it gets REALLY cold. I mean, Todays maximum temperature is 11C, minimum 4C so ones room can get reasonably warm with a BIT of heating - then I just set it so that if the room get's below 10C, the heating kicked it. It kicked in last night, but only for 10-15 minutes... but that made a difference.

 

[acieed_ed]

I'm €200 in credit with my Lecky bill and about to get a €400 bonus so I bought a mobile plug in radiator and use that as much as needed and the original for showers and washing up

 

[Fertile]

I'm €200 in credit with my Lecky bill and about to get a €400 bonus so I bought a mobile plug in radiator and use that as much as needed and the original for showers and washing up

I have a small oil filled radiator. I wonder if they are safe to use lying down? If so, I can put in next to me in bed. After all, isn't that the deal? Heat the person, not the space?