"Heating or Eating"

M

mrussell

At the Start
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
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690
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Mostly London
I just don't get it.
With the exception of babies & the elderly, why do we need so much heating?
'Cold' is just another feeling, like 'hot'; as long as neither is excessive, there's no problem.

It makes a nice strap-line, but is there really a dilemma here?
Apart from the underlying one of why people are economically in the position of its being a potential choice (i.e. why are there people who can't afford both?), is it really debatable?

I didn't live in a centrally-heated (or well-heated) place until we as a family moved into a house that already had it -- and our children were in their early teens at that time, too.

What's wrong with feeling the colder air of winter & the warmer air of summer?
Could it be that it's just a matter of being accustomed to a dreary ever-warm inside? Is this where the North Sea gas & oil have been spent?!
:confused:
 
I currently live in a very cold ancient cottage with equally ancient heating. And it is VERY cold. I dress like an Oxfam shop devotee to stay warm, you know the orphan look, big socks, several layers etc. When it gets really bad I wear a scarf, in the house. Taking a shower or bath is not an indulgence it is torture. The water is cold before you get into the bath and you shiver trying to get dry. Getting up in the morning is hard, the bed is warm, and nowhere else is.

Being cold makes you eat more and exercise less ..... so you get fat. But then on the plus side no one can tell because you have so many clothes on anyway .....

My husband says we need more dogs or cats on the bed to stay warm.
 
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When I was a kid in the house I still live in, you awoke to an 1-1/2" of ice on the inside of the windows.......cast your minds back, to have central heating you had to be rich as the rates went up accordingly!And this house in those days was council owned... god I loved those good old days ???????????
 
Michael, have you ever come home from work on a cold winter's evening to a house with no central-heating and no hot water and then have to set a coal fire and light it and then wash your hands?.................that's cold!
 
Colin Phillips said:
Michael, have you ever come home from work on a cold winter's evening to a house with no central-heating and no hot water and then have to set a coal fire and light it and then wash your hands?.................that's cold!
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Yes, Colin, I have.
I've also had the pleasure of raiding nearby houses being pulled down, taking old pine joists home & sawing them up for firewood; plus collecting windfallen logs (bow saw) for same use.

All I'm thinking is that there is too much heating nowadays & people are accustomed to it -- especially the children. I wonder if it does them any good.

The point isn't to ban heating, rather to say the heating is mostly not to avoid discomfort but to continue to provide an accustomed and indulgent level of comfort -- another thing entirely.
 
mrussell said:
The point isn't to ban heating, rather to say the heating is mostly not to avoid discomfort but to continue to provide an accustomed and indulgent level of comfort -- another thing entirely.
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I concur. My heating is set to only work if the ambient temperature is less than 17 degrees. The other week I decided that I was slightly chilly and turned the heating on - needless to say it didn't come on, because the temperature wasn't low enough, and arguably, I didn't require it on.

I think that is the sort of thing being referred to here?
 
I used to make shoes from roadkill, the young lads these days are spoilt with their nikedidas and there rebosics:mad:
 
We never had heating in our bedroom whilst growing up & when I moved out into a new fully central heated flat I turned the radiator off in the bedroom as I could not sleep, no heating in the bathroom is a different matter! its cooler in the tropic than when I have a shower/bath
 
Despite my mutterings that our cottage is just too cold, I agree that you can definitely have too much heating. I prefer my house cooler than most people have theirs. A lot of our friends have t-shirts and flip flops on in house in deepest winter and heating on full blast then wonder why they always have colds, sinus and throat problems. I too always have heat off in bedroom - but in this cottage it is because there isn't any!

My family came over from the States one winter, note 'one' winter, they have since only returned in summer, and despite living in Chicago they froze in my then edwardian house as altho we had full gas central heating we kept it at a temperature lower than in the US. Some people seem allergic to wearing the right clothes for the season too - want to be in summer clothes year round.

I would not want to go back to the old days, however in most homes in those days they used fireplaces in a lot of the rooms and the lady of the house got up very early to light fires. As she would have been home most of the day she kept them going too. I grew up in my Gandmother's house and when we got ready for school we brought our clothes to the sitting room to dress in front of the fire so we did not have to light one in our bedroom. She even had a fireplace in the hallway! Many homes today have ripped those out so we either have central heating on all day, or in old cottage like mine you have to light the fires when you can.

I'd still like a bit more in my bathroom! Maybe I could built a little fireplace on one wall ..... now that would be decadence.
 
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We have a coal fire in the living room which warms the whole place up when its not too cold outside, the silly sods who lived here before ripped out the boiler that was attached to the fire so we could have had hot water & radiators for no additional cost!
 
PS I keep thinking about the title, Heating or Eating. I do think that you eat more when cold, was this part of your theory Michael?
 
I live somewhere that's centrally heated now but when I was growing up our old house was heated with an open fire to keep the living room warm IF people were home and then to just keep the house warm on winter evenings we had a Bosky (sp?) bit like an AGA I guess which was great. The new build I live in now is heated by storgae heaters which if you have a sudden cold snap are crap as they take three days to heat up then the temperature outside goes back up and you can't turn the damn things off!
 
Isinglass said:
PS I keep thinking about the title, Heating or Eating. I do think that you eat more when cold, was this part of your theory Michael?
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Hi Isinglass,

Sorry, I didn't explain very well at the start (one of my many failings! :()

It was a piece on television news yesterday evening -- here's something akin:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7234223.stm
and they used that catchy phrase.

Obviously some people have a very tough time & this shouldn't be a choice: however, that's another, fundamental issue (why there are poor people in any community) -- this 'heating vs eating' just seemed a bit ridiculous, over the top; without doubt it will apply to some people, but not to the great majority, imo, because their heating is on "too" high.

Regards
 
Thanks Michael - no problem understanding what you said, I just wondered if there was also another topic about how people do eat mroe when cold. You know, the old comfort food thing. I love porridge when it is cold!

I agree with you, and also think sometimes when we think we are cold all we need to do is get up and move about. I am guilty of this one for sure. But as you say, people who cannot heating is a different matter. I feel really sorry for the elderly and where I used to live there was an always full day centre for them where many of them went just to be warm for the day for free.

Our cottage is okay downstairs when we have the Raeburn on, but as it is oil fired it is now too expensive to run so we turn it off 6 months a year.
 
I only have oil-fired heating in the flat, and have to be very careful. If I always turned on the heating when it's a bit cold I'd certainly not be able to afford to eat! On the other hand I do have to turn it on when it rains, as the place gets very damp and then I catch cold.... and when I get a cold, I get very ill indeed, bronchitis and the whole bit.

I lived in freezing houses all my youth, and for a lot of my adult life I lived in houses with no heating other than a big living room fireplace. I find most people have their places uncomfortably hot - there are friends I won't visit at all as I can hardly breathe in their places [Londoners especially seem very spoiled!].

In London I kept my gas central heating in winter on a fairly low heat but constant 24 hrs - it's heating up rads from cold which costs the money. I heated the place which had a huge sitting room and very high ceilings for nuppence. Sadly it's impossible to do that with the oil-fired system I have here, which was put in by the landlord on the cheap, and with no thermostat!

A lot of old people do have to choose between food and heating, it's really terrible and it's going to be a lot worse for them this winter. We are going to see a lot of deaths. Many of them live in very damp conditions too, so need their heating. You do need a lot more as you get older, esp as you can't take exercise. The heating allowance for pensioners on benefits and minimum pensions needs to go up substantially
 
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