Central Heating - on yet?

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Ming the Merciless

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Photo Winner
Location
Inside my skull
KnittyNorah said:
I dug out my room thermometer last night as my bathroom in this place always feels as if its at a comfortable temperature - it was nicely warm when I had a shower early yesterday morning, although there was a definite nip in the outside air, but during the warm spell last month it felt pleasantly cool. It's an 'interior' room with a ventilation fan linked to the light, and its 'outside' wall is alongside the block's corridor.

At 11pm last night it was about 6deg outside; my bathroom was 19deg and my living room 18deg. At 7am this morning, it was approaching-but-not-quite a frost outside after a clear night and my livingroom temperature had dropped to ~15deg, although the bathroom temperature was 19deg still. This (living room temp) felt a bit chilly with bare feet and just my summer short-sleeved pjs on, so I made a quick trip back to the cosy bathroom for my fleecy dressing gown and a pair of socks

However, I have a very large window and fully-glazed door in the living room which - for a variety of reasons - are not yet curtained, so I consider that to be a very small loss of heat overnight. The sun has risen and is warming the living room - 8am and it's 17 deg already in here; I'm confident that once I'm properly curtained (next week!) I'll still not need the CH on for a while unless there's a sudden early cold spell. Although I might dig out the fan heater so it's handy for a 15 minute blast, first thing.

I suppose if I really felt seriously chilly :cold:, but was determined not to switch on my CH, I could go and sit :reading:on the toilet seat all day!
Click to expand...

Thought you’d written -15 for a moment 🥶
 
johnnyb47

johnnyb47

Guru
Location
Wales
It's that long ago I've almost forgotten, but casting memories back to when I was young, our old house used to be freezing to the bone in the winter.It was a big old three bedroom house with solid walls with a giant wash/coal house joined to it.
That's all we had was a coal fire in the living room and a paraffin heater in the hall to keep it warm.Steel single glazed windows and winters that where a lot colder back then.
I always remember the thick condensation on the inside window panes ,would freeze up so you couldn't see outside.
The down stairs toilet would sometimes freeze up as well as the metal drain pipes.
The aroma of paraffin at night wafting upstairs whilst the coal fire died down throughout the night left the early hours feeling very cold.I remember that my bedroom was above the living room,so I had the luxury of the warm chimney breast wall in my room.
With a roaring fire going in the living room it was like a focal point in the house.The cat and dog would hog the fire and the sofa and chairs where arranged around it.
When we eventually had double glazing fitted and central heating it completely transformed the house.
 
K

KnittyNorah

Über Member
Location
The Frozen North (of England)
johnnyb47 said:
It's that long ago I've almost forgotten, but casting memories back to when I was young, our old house used to be freezing to the bone in the winter.It was a big old three bedroom house with solid walls with a giant wash/coal house joined to it.
That's all we had was a coal fire in the living room and a paraffin heater in the hall to keep it warm.Steel single glazed windows and winters that where a lot colder back then.
I always remember the thick condensation on the inside window panes ,would freeze up so you couldn't see outside.
The down stairs toilet would sometimes freeze up as well as the metal drain pipes.
The aroma of paraffin at night wafting upstairs whilst the coal fire died down throughout the night left the early hours feeling very cold.I remember that my bedroom was above the living room,so I had the luxury of the warm chimney breast wall in my room.
With a roaring fire going in the living room it was like a focal point in the house.The cat and dog would hog the fire and the sofa and chairs where arranged around it.
When we eventually had double glazing fitted and central heating it completely transformed the house.
Click to expand...

Yes, those were very like my memories of a childhold in the 1950s. Simply beautiful frost designs on the inside of my bedroom window - I remember having to breathe hard on them to melt patches so I could see what the weather was like outside!

Coal fire in the sitting room was the only inbuilt heating source and means of getting hot water for baths, washing, washing up etc (other than laboriously boiling it up in a kettle on the stove) BUT we were considered very 'luxurious' as my aunty who worked in Nigeria used to come to stay with us when on leave, so we had a pig lamp In the upstairs bathroom, a paraffin heater on the upstairs landing (where my dad had carefully fixed brackets and a railing so the heater could not be knocked over or be caught by trailing clothes) AND a second paraffin heater in the dining room, where aunty used to play her piano - and, to top it all, an immersion heater so that hot water wasn't solely dependent on the fire's back boiler. What luxury - both heat AND hot water in the bathroom, whatever the weather!

Of course once aunty had stayed with us the first time in winter, and mum and dad had got used to these decadent levels of warmth and convenience, there was no way they were going to revert back to the realities of 1950s so-called 'home comforts', even if they did have to scrimp and save to afford an extra few gallons of paraffin and a slightly higher electricity bill.

We kids knew no different, but 'playing out' most of the time certainly helped acclimatise us to these wildly varying temperatures!
 
E

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
johnnyb47 said:
It's that long ago I've almost forgotten, but casting memories back to when I was young, our old house used to be freezing to the bone in the winter.It was a big old three bedroom house with solid walls with a giant wash/coal house joined to it.
That's all we had was a coal fire in the living room and a paraffin heater in the hall to keep it warm.Steel single glazed windows and winters that where a lot colder back then.
I always remember the thick condensation on the inside window panes ,would freeze up so you couldn't see outside.
The down stairs toilet would sometimes freeze up as well as the metal drain pipes.
The aroma of paraffin at night wafting upstairs whilst the coal fire died down throughout the night left the early hours feeling very cold.I remember that my bedroom was above the living room,so I had the luxury of the warm chimney breast wall in my room.
With a roaring fire going in the living room it was like a focal point in the house.The cat and dog would hog the fire and the sofa and chairs where arranged around it.
When we eventually had double glazing fitted and central heating it completely transformed the house.
Click to expand...

Similar when I was growing up. No central heating but an open fire in the lounge. We'd get dressed in front of the fan heater, until dad told us to shut it off because it was too expensive.
 
numbnuts

numbnuts

Legendary Member
Location
Gone over the hill and far away
When I was a child we had an Aga Cooker which was on 24/7 so loads of hot water and warm if we kept all the doors open, but still got ice on the bedroom windows. It ran on coke and later had it converted to oil, it would cost a small fortune to run that now.
 
johnnyb47

johnnyb47

Guru
Location
Wales
I remember my mum sending me down to the old Burma petrol station to buy paraffin.They dispenced it by the pump back in its day.The paraffin heater was an old Aladdin jobbie which used to give off a pungent smell and blue flame.
I few years back I got interested in paraffin heaters again and got sold on the Idea of using them again.I splashed out on a Corona inverter paraffin heater.It cost a bit of money for what it was,but it was all high tech and electronic ,stating it was virtually odourless.
Well what a waste of money that was.It was brilliant whilst it worked, it gave out a fantastic amount of heat, virtually silent even when the fan was running flat out and no smell to mention..The problem was that there was so many sensors and fail safes it was constantly throwing error codes and would refuse to fire up.
You had to use (I think the name was Tozane) paraffin to keep the warranty and that stuff went ridiculously expensive.In the end the company exchanged it for a new one, but that went the same way too.
A shame really as they where really good when they worked properly.
 
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