Thursday 2 February 2017

Heating.

I am in the process of having Gas Central Heating put into my cottage in the village.   At the moment it is Oil Central Heating (which we have here on the farm, along with an oil-fired Aga) but the boiler is not fully efficient so I decided to change over.   It will be more efficient and - I am assured - cheaper to run. 

The gas has already been brought to the house so now we are waiting for the inside work to be done.  This is scheduled for the week after next and I understand that the weather is scheduled to turn wintry that week - sod's law I suppose.   My son and daughter in law live there and as my daughter in law is in poor health I am quite worried.   Various friends have offered electric appliances and I too have an electric convector heater they can have, and they also have an open fire in the sitting room and an open staircase to upstairs from that room, so perhaps things will not be so very bad.

I was talking to a lady yesterday who does not have central heating - from choice.   She does not care for it being too warm.   Each downstairs room has a fire place and she takes a hot water bottle to bed.   This time of the year we have our heating on from 6am to 10am and from 4pm to 8pm.   In addition we have the Aga going all the time and a woodburner in the living room.   We still have an electric blanket which goes on an hour before we get there and if my feet turn cold in the night I have been known to switch it on for a few minutes then!

Are you a cold person or can you manage with less heat in the winter?   I am sure I have got worse as I have aged - perhaps my blood is thinner.

Although the temperature here (according to the car dashboard) today was nine degrees at lunch time, because it is dull and damp with a sharpish wind blowing, it seemed cold to me.  I suppose that proves that it is all in the mind.   A bit more leaping about would probably warm me up - but you can rest assured that my leaping about days are well and truly over (if they ever began).

29 comments:

Derek Faulkner said...

Gawd Pat,
Being a warm to hot weather person myself, I detest the winter and do feel the cold but I couldn't live in a house with that amount of heat throughout the day, that seems an awful lot and would be too stuffy. As for electric blankets, no,no,no, just the odd hot water bottle from time to time.

libby said...

I can't bear to be cold, in fact as I type this I'm sat wearing a cashmere cardigan, with a blanket over my legs and the chair is next to a radiator, the electric blanket is already on, I've just had a cup of tea and I'm only now beginning to get warm. My Ma calls me a coldcrust and cannot believe just how terribly I feel the cold, although she says even as a child I was the same. I'm sure that your son and daughter in law will be ok...I don't think that week is going to be as bad as predicted..fingers crossed.

Sue in Suffolk said...

This bungalow is our first ever place with proper central heating - gas boiler. We just have it on first thing 7am - 9am and then 4pm to 6pm with a boost for an hour midday and mid evening if we need it, and most of the radiators are turned off.Hot water bottles for bed time
It just gets too hot when its on any longer. we will have oil boiler at the cottage and a woodburner again- hooray

Jocelyn is Canadian Needle Nana said...

Hello,
I found this post about heating interesting. We take furnaces for granted here but since living with Hubby we mostly heat with wood. We have a large wood stove in the basement and a wood stove insert in the fireplace in the living room. Together they are perfect. We do also have a propane furnace that is set for very cold nights to come on if the temp. gets too low and it has cut in several times so far. I don't mind the work with feeding the stoves and enjoy the feeling of wood heat. Of course, hot water bottles are a must and we are always layered.

Sue said...

I don't tolerate the cold very well outside, my hands and feet go numb. Indoors I like a warm sitting room but a cold bedroom. If it's very cold I wear my alpaca bed socks.

donna baker said...

Central heating in my neck of the woods is hooked up to natural gas. I keep my thermostat on 65 degrees 24/7. If I get cold, I toss a throw over myself. People say it feels cold, but it saves on the gas bill and I don't have to haul wood, etc. And, I am not a winter person in any way.

Heather said...

We didn't have central heating until we moved south to Devon and it was already installed in the house we bought. I usually feel the cold but this winter I have turned the heating off in the middle of the day as, generally speaking, the weather has been so mild. We have a coal effect gas fire in the living room which hasn't been used for ages, and I can't remember the last time I needed a hot water bottle.

justjill said...

We have in this part of the North East of Scotland not much choice. If you live in a rural area as we do then it is liquid gold =oil for the heating. We have central heating from oil. Plus the odd electric fire in the cold spots. But as we have frequent power cuts we are thankful for the wood burning stove.. Once there is a power cut the oil fired central heating packs in too. As does the cooker, the lights etc. Ironic that out there in our North Sea the gas comes in but we dont have any access to gas anything. And this is 2017. But we survive.

Chris said...

Here I have gas powered central air with vents in all the rooms. I turn the thermostat down at night (to 14C) and, unless I am to be out all day, turn it back up to 16C in the morning. The bedrooms get quite warm (hot air rises, I guess) and I have a gas fire in the living room for when I am sitting watching TV or reading in the evening. If it is mild out ( e.g. over 14C) the thermostat keeps the furnace turned off so no need for me to change it.

angryparsnip said...

I don't like the heat at all. If I get cold it is my feet and hands. I can't bear a hot stuffy home or shops.
Of course I do not live where it rains and snows for several months. Damp cold is bad I think.
My thermostat is set to 62 normally or 65 at the most. I would rather wear a sweater or some socks.
But I do have a small electric heater that i set up at night on the very lowest setting just to warm up the air a bit when thehamish and I sleep.

But several years ago when that awful hard freeze came down from Canada (18) I kept the heater on a bit higher so the inside pipes would not freeze. The outside ones are wrapped.

Stay Warm
cheers, parsnip

Mac n' Janet said...

We have electric central air and heat, plus fireplaces in 4 rooms. It usually doesn't get awfully cold here but when it does we use the heat. We have an electric blanket too and I nap with a heating pad. But the heat gets me worse than the cold so we use far more air conditioning than heat.

jinxxxygirl said...

Well like mac n' Janet we have electric central heat and air... and the heat gets to me far worse than the cold... so the air condition gets run quite alot in the summer... I put off turning it on for as long as i can because usually once its on its on for the summer.. Last year i didn't have to turn it on until June 1st... thats pretty good considering when we lived in Tx turning the air on in March was not unheard of..

Back to heat... okay central heat and air.. at night we turn our heat down to 60 .. We sleep on a full bed size heating pad NOT electric blankets... it was a suggestion from my sister in law and the best thing we have bought ourselves in years.. cost about $60. We turn it on about an hour before bed and has the bed nice and toasty...we turn it off once we crawl in and our combined body heat keeps us quite warm... During the day I run the heat about 64..and run it all day. We have two gas fireplaces but i don't run them often... I find they keep the room they are in quite warm but then the rest of the house feels cold.. Hugs! deb

krishna said...

We have central heating in our home.. we like central heating.. hopefully you will find a good solution very soon...

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

Central heating is pretty much a must, here. We turn it on usually in October, depending on when the cold sets in and it continues until roughly April, again it depends on the weather. We live in an old house (maybe about 115 years old) with high ceilings. It costs a mint to heat it. Husband keeps it cooler than I like it. Our upstairs rooms (bedrooms) are always much colder than the main floor. For very cold nights, we have electric space heaters to turn on in the bedrooms if necessary. I have been known to wear socks to bed. My feet and hands, (and arms) frequently feel cold. -Jenn

Cro Magnon said...

No central heating here, just fires and an electric blanket. I changed the Gas boiler in my Brighton house (which is let) and have just had to have major repairs done; it is just a few years old. They may be expensive, but they're certainly not made to last!

Rachel Phillips said...

Two pairs of socks downstairs and many layers. Bedrooms cold. Electric blanket for warm bed to welcome, two duvets and blanket on top and socks if toe cramp.

Librarian said...

A few decades ago, a big effort was made in Germany to switch as many households as possible from oil central heating to gas or electric. In this house, we have gas. (It was done for environmental reasons; emissions from oil burners make for rather bad air quality.)
I suffer the cold a LOT and have trouble keeping my body temperature at a tolerable level. If I do not sit near the radiator, as when I am at the computer, I have a blanket wrapped around me on the settee. But I feel best when I move about, and when I start feeling cold, I get up from my chair for a little rope-skipping. A few minutes is enough and I feel warmer again. A mug of hot tea or broth helps, too.

thelma said...

Well I like the cold, could it be being brought up in a house without central heating? This new house we live in retains the heat, we keep it at 20 deg. on the thermometer during the day but off at night and then we have the wood burning stove when really cold. Don't get a noisy boiler, the gas one at the old cottage used to sort of make an expelling noise every so often through the night, as it was in the bedroom cupboard was very annoying.

The Weaver of Grass said...

What I really didn't mention was that we live in quite a large house. We face due South to North and the big bay windows face the sun (when it deigns to shine). In the Summer it is beautifully warm - so much so that I often open the front door and the back door so that the breeze can blow through. But the rooms are large, the ceilings are high and the hall and staircase take up a large area. It is therefore a large area to heat and to keep warm. This morning - at on ly 8-30, as I write this, the sun is up and is shining through the house, making it beauutifully warm - but had it been a damp, cloudy morning, as it has been for the last week, it would have been a different . Thanks for popping in.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Linds (Colorado Farm) - I am sorry. I still read and enjoy your posts every day but for some reason I am just unable to put in a reply. When my son calls I will ask him to sort it out for me. Meanwhile, thank you for continuing to visit.

Gwil W said...


Our gas comes from Russia.

Fortunately Mr Putin is still supplying us despite EU idiocy.

Fairtrader said...

Heating is a great privilige, I for one have great diificulties with the cold. It's okej with a shorter period of real, thick snow and clear blue sky, but this damp, windy, grey winter is no good for anyone. I suffer from fibromyalgia and must keep warm in order not to become one, large aching statue, making a fuzz about everything and nothing. If I could I would be moving somewhere warm, so I wouldn't considder those beautiful dales of yours!
We have a discussion right now concerning gaspipes from Russia, I say this as a comment to Gwil. The discussion is hotter than the heating right now. In our house we have mountainheating, drilled down the bare rock!!
You are probably right, many people feel the cold worse the older they get, so I am glad that you have alternate heatsources and your physicsclass to help blood pumping , Weaver. For cold feet, a dog or a cat is quite helpful. I use those beanbags you can heat up in the microwave, they are good to place in the armchair too. I wish you a promising breeze and blackbirdsong!

Rachel Phillips said...

We have gas line from North Sea gas terminal passing right through this county and the helicopter flies along it to inspect it but no gas for anyone here either unless you live in large town or the city. It went right across our farm, in one side and out the other.

Elizabeth said...

I must say, I LOVE centrhalheating - having spent my youth and schooldays without it.
Hot water bottles saved our lives.
Hope all goes well with the renovation at the cottage.

The Broad said...

We have the central heating come on twice a day. Sometimes if it is extra chilly my husband puts on the hot water, which heats up the radiators slightly. Our house is Victorian with high ceilings and largish rooms so the house is quite a chore to heat -- not to mention expensive! During the day I spend most of my time in my study and have an electric heater which I turn on and off as needed to keep warm. I need more heat than my husband seems to and he always complains that it is like a sauna in here! I found it quite a challenge when I first came to Britain in 1980 as the houses are so much cooler inside than I was used to in the centrally heated homes of New England! Surprisingly, I was not used to having to wear a sweater when inside the house! Now that I am 37 years older, I am less tolerant of the cold, though I still like the bedroom to be on the cool side.

Coppa's girl said...

During a recent spell of very cold weather we had snow, followed by continuous rain for almost a week. We have oil central heating (radiators)Which was on all day, from 6 a.m. and off again at around 11 p.m. in the evening. On a normal winter day the heating is on for an hour or so in the morning, then either comes on around lunchtime until 11 p.m. or on a warmer day, comes on at around 4 p.m. until late evening. Electric blanket on the bed......perhaps I should mention that we live in Spain !

Yorkshire Pudding said...

As long as the windows are closed and draughts have been attended to, I find that I am okay without heating even on the coldest day. The residual heat from the morning blast of central heating is sufficient and I just don a fleecy jumper... but Mrs Pudding, now that's a different story.

Jennyff said...

Definitely not a central heating person, we hardly use ours though the flat is warm being in the centre top of our building. We once spent a winter in a holiday rental between houses, it was the coldest I've ever been with only a useless wood burner for heat. We used to go for a walk to get warm and the bathroom was regularly frozen. However we suffered nothing that winter, no colds, nothing and felt great. I wouldn't recommend wearing 3 jumpers and sleeping under two duvets for 3 months but it didn't harm us.

lynda said...

My dad and uncle sold fuel oil. The motto in our house has always benn" go modern. Go gas. Go BOOM"........!