What kind of heating apparatuses or equipment do you have in your home? Or are you one of those lucky people with a super well insulated home so you don’t need much heating?
I’m guessing quite a few of you have central heating, no? That’s not really a thing here. I have: 2 small electrical ovens (one under each window in the kitchen/living room) and one of those oil based ones on wheels which is nice cause I can move it around and keep it close to me when it gets really cold. Also have an old wood stove which heats up the place in no time, so saving that for the proper cold weather. In the bathroom there is one of those little wall mounted heaters and sadly no floor heating in there which is challenging on some cold Norwegian winter mornings for sure. (Apparently they did have it installed a few years ago but it was a really shoddy job so the heater things malfunctioned or exploded or something.) Oh and another small electrical radiator in the room facing the balcony. Nothing permanent in my bedroom, but I tend to sleep with the door open into the living room and I can always bring in the wheely one if needed.
Now talk us through YOUR heating devices if you’d be so kind.
Hang on, wait, you live in Norway and the building doesn’t have proper central heating? Do you not have those massive heating plants for whole buildings/blocks like the other Scandis?
Gas central heating. That’s it. Although in the long term, I am considering getting the fireplace reinstated in the front room (there was one originally, but it was taken out at some point).
aye, have central heating. Once lived with a guy who had an electric heater for his teeny tiny room which he claimed cost 1p an hour.
Have used an electric blanket in the past, but no great shakes tbh
omg that sounds tough! i’m not good with the cold.
we have central heating but it’s not really powerful enough for our house. I live in a terraced Victorian house but at some point someone tore down the internal walls downstairs to make it all open plan. The front door is drafty too, so the heat just goes once we turn the heating off.
Wow that’s weird, thought they’d be well into that with such cold winters and large amounts of available fuel. Lots of other snowy countries in Europe do that. They have giant industrial boilers everywhere connected up to buildings. New York does it too.
In Germany/Austria adverts for flats talk about the Warmmiete and Kaltmiete- Hot and Cold Rent, and the heating’s included for a set amount per year. I lived in a building in London with the same system, and it was great. You didn’t have to worry about unexpected bills, and they set it on a sensible schedule, and we had great hot water pressure.
Have central heating but the boiler broke 3 weeks ago and I haven’t been at home long enough to sort out getting it fixed (plus I’m being quite lazy). I’m a Scot living in the south of England so I’m actually doing just fine by wearing a jumper.
nice gas central heating here. my old house across the road had oil heating instead of gas so it was awful, you had to remember to order oil and then someone had to be home from work when it arrived - and as the back alley was so narrow they had to bring the hose through the house. there was a little electric heater for the living room to huddle round for warmth when we had no oil, unless someone lit the fire which would heat the living room but leave the rest of the house freezing. we used a previous resident’s copy of The Da Vinci Code to light the fire when we didn’t have any coal
My old man reckons central heating’s one of the best things to happen in his lifetime. Listening to him and my Mam going on about how when they were kids and someone had to get up at the crack of dawn to light the range so there’d be hot water and at least one warmish room by the time everyone else got up, I can kind of understand where he’s coming from.
Our end terrace, solid brick-walled house was really bad and a lot of the systems were on their last legs when we moved in, so one of the things we did was completely overhaul the insulation and heating system:
Insulation between the ground floor floor joists, and around the perimeter of the first floor, in between the floor joists.
Insulation to the inside of all external walls, and lining of the party wall and dividing brickwork walls.
New external doors and windows.
New central heating system, with eco-radiators and low energy boiler
The above, plus the fact that we wear jumpers and stuff before we turn the heating on, means that our house is super toasty, and the heating only really comes on if it’s below about 5 degrees outside.
The previous owner was spending about £1500 a year to heat three rooms of the house. We now spend £300 a year to heat all of it.
Our heating system is practically antique. It uses a backboiler and has a big hot water tank in the kitchen. Our house was built in the 1820s and has all the limitations you’d expect: single glazed sash windows, Flemish bond walls, plus a relatively modern kitchen and bathroom extension built with a single skin of brick.
Nevertheless, we’re usually warm enough when the heating is on as we are mid terrace and have thick curtains.
Additional appliances: we have a little oil filled radiator that I’ll sometimes use if I’m WFH (saves heating the whole house). And a gas fire linked to the backboiler which I’m always a bit scared of using.
There are a whole load of things we need to do to our house that we’ve been putting off due to the cost of parenthood and my lack of job security. But we’re going to tackle them all next year! Oh yes.
A few years ago British Gas gave us free cavity wall insulation, definitely made a difference. We also lagged the loft as well.
Also the boilers only 18 months old and we’ve got Nest Thermosrat. Was handy last night coming home from a gig when it was cold. Turned the heating on so it was warm when we got home.