ENERGY MATTERS

[Stanley]

I am a tad more scientific than that! on the core temperature of the house.... Stove is in 24x7 at the moment on very low draught and front room is about 74F, kitchen 66F and landing where stat is is about the same. Stat is set at 64F so CH isn't coming on. Gas usage will be negligible and leccy well down as 90% of cooking is done on the stove. Wouldn't suit everyone but Jack hasn't complained yet....

[hartley353]

We only heat one room in our home, that is the lounge when we are using it. The gas fire is never raised above minimum,lounge temperature is usualy 18 degrees C and may rise to 20 degrees C, And in all honesty we never feel cold. the CH is switched to water only twice a day. How do we do it just a very well insulated home,and wearing correct clothing. The winter heating allowance easily covers the gas bill, and a good part of the electricity. Like your Jack my Border terriers Charlie and Lucy have never complained,but do enjoy a sheepskin in front of the fire. This is all a long chalk from my boy hood in No 8 East Parade,when ice would form on the inside of the windows and the feel of cold lino on bare feet in the morning was unbearable. My mother would rise early to stoke up the fire, and warm our liberty bodices on the fire guard so the metal buttons wouldn't make you jump with the cold. The breakfast bread would not be spread with butter,it was always to hard and thin slivers would be cut off and laid on the bread. Even in those days insulation was available but never used, unless it was news paper in the window gaps, nobody cosidered it wasteful just normal.

[Stanley]

Ah, the good old days.... I like the whole house warm and the stove usually manages that (aided by waste heat from fridge, computer etc.) I've put the CH on for half an hour this morning to give the core temperature a boost as it could be a windy cold day.

[Tizer]

Hartley, spare a thought for my mum who was born and brought up in South Africa but came to live in Blackburn as a working class wife and mother at the end of WW2!

[hartley353]

Sorry tizer, Your comment has gone over my head, My words were not intended to malign any ones mother, and if this is what i have inadvertently done then I apologise unreservedly...Mike.

[Stanley]

My dad never got used to English winters (Australian) and I always remember the first time we went on to Anglesey for a holiday during the war. He took one look at the hawthorn trees bent over by the wind and muttered "Oh Christ!" We've moved on since the days when I used to put a warm penny against the window to make a spyhole through the frost (inside and out). I can still remember that cold lino when I got out of bed!

[hartley353]

Hartley, spare a thought for my mum who was born and brought up in South Africa but came to live in Blackburn as a working class wife and mother at the end of WW2!

One of my old cogs just turned .Tizer are you referring to the thermal shock, of introducing warm bones to an English winter Stanleys posting pointed me in the right direction.

[Stanley]

CH kicked in again last night to supplement the stove. It's definitely cold!

[Wendyf]

We have burned all the logs intended for this winter and have had to start on what should be next winter's supply.

[hartley353]

Today I eat humble pie,my home which is usualy a comfortable 18 degrees C has plummeted to 16.1 C, and the dogs showed signs of wanting a shorter walk this morning. A quick root in the drawer found my thick fishing sweater,still see no reason to raise the gasfire above notch one,but the better half has used the new babies reason to leave the house,probably for a warm up.

[Stanley]

20C in kitchen, coldest room in the house (apart from the workshop), no CH this morning.
Wendy, don't worry, just keep warm and hope for a fallen tree!

[Marilyn]

Do you think 20C cold?
That is odd to me...we have a removable gas heater that we connect up in winter, but I don't even feel the cold until it gets to under 12C. I only put it on in the evenings in winter for when grumble-guts gets home. He feels the cold, but I don't.
( he generally leaves it up to me to connect it up for the winter, so I delay doing it until the end of May. He don't half complain. Then I whip it out the wall at the end of August, regardless of the weather).

[Stanley]

No Maz, just illustrating how well the house looks after me. Mind you, at 19C or below I need me waistcoat on!

[Wendyf]

I find that when the outside temperature starts to warm up you don't need it as warm inside. I do wonder why we can live quite happily with an indoor temperature of 15 or 16C in summer, when that would be uncomfortably cold in winter. Must be something psychological going on.

[David Whipp]

On Monday, my secondary school kids arrived back home as the high school was shut because of a broken down boiler.

12 year old spent most of the day tapping away on the computer. During the evening, missus reported that 12 year old had been cold during the day because our central heating was off... (After a warm up at getting up time, the timer is set for the heating to be off until tea time.)

It struck me that kids could well have stopped at school!

[Marilyn]

I was thinking...we only set our thermostat to 17 for winter.
That's warm enough.
( and we don't turn our cooler on in Summer until the internal house temp hits 30C)

You lot are a bit soft...

[Stanley]

Wendy, I have noticed that as well. Maz could be right, I am perhaps soft but after a lifetime of being 'hard' it's a nice change and suits me. I just do whatever makes me feel comfortable and keeps me hands warm!

[Tizer]

Hartley, spare a thought for my mum who was born and brought up in South Africa but came to live in Blackburn as a working class wife and mother at the end of WW2!

One of my old cogs just turned .Tizer are you referring to the thermal shock, of introducing warm bones to an English winter Stanleys posting pointed me in the right direction.

I've only just caught up on this...no problem, it was just a passing comment. Whenever anyone says how cold the weather used to be I remind them of my mum coming to a smoggy, cold Blackburn to live in a council house when she'd been born and brought up in the Mediterranean climate of S. Africa (and with a Med diet too). She never did get used to the cold and I think it influenced my tolerance of cold too...which is why I now live in Somerset! I wasn't born in SA but modern epigenetics explains how the mother's environment can affect the child even though it can't actually change the DNA (it modifies the expression of the DNA).

[Pluggy]

My wife complains if I don't keep the living room at what I call 'full fat' 21C. She'd like it warmer than that if she had her way.....

[Stanley]

I must admit I have no problem when the front room temperature gets well above 22C, just take me waistcoat off! Funnily enough, a lot warmer outside this morning, house core temperature up because stove was in all night so I changed my heavy shirt for a lighter one.

[Whyperion]

Britain on brink of running out of gas as weather worsens


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/ ... 719554.ece


As I think I have repeated here as a warning some time ago , and said when Tories encouraged the selling off of former inland gas works/storage sites , and complained at Labour for encouraging Gas Fired electric power stations. Lights ( or heat ) could well go off in some industrial plants . Wasn't the last 3 day week under a Conservative Administration ?

[Stanley]

Our leaders have ensured we are on a knife edge by procrastinating. No gas being burned in the Hutch, have just stoked the stove for the day. I have at least three week's fuel in stock. That's how to run fuel policy!
PS. Must be cold. I noticed an hour later that the CH has kicked in at low level. Warm in here.....

[hartley353]

There were attempts made to expand gas storage in this country, by utilising underground abandoned workings,even talks of excavating new ones around the humber estuary, but to my mind most came to nothing as usual the NIMBY'S came out and said no. This is a very small country, and a very beautiful one, no one ever wants there locality blighting so if we have to import gas so be it, I feel it is a small price to pay. From a personal stand point I always found gasometers attractive but the queue would not be long behind me.

[Sue]

Too cold to learn David, or so they say.i wonder who THEY are?

[Tardis]

My energy company tells me that it is re-introducing the standing charge as a separate item, rather than incorporated within the energy bills. It only matters if you have low bills, below £27/month gas, £18/month electric

Is this another unintended consequence of the government forcing through the 'cheapest' tariffs?