Heating Rooms with no mains power

[piglet]

How about a sleeping bag suit?
You can carry on doing stuff around the house and stay warm at the same time .
I bought one in the sales a few years ago and it is soooooo warm, even if not very 'cool'
Be warned they don't have ...well let's just call them 'escape flaps'

[featherstick]

A few years ago, SWMBO went away for a few days and we had a sudden snowfall so I couldn't go to work.

I decided to experiment and turned the heating off. The temperature in our small, 2-up, 2-down mid-terrace house fell quickly to about 16C and stayed there. The boy and I layered up as we got cold. Eventually I was wearing longjohns, cords, socks, heavy slipper socks below the waist, and thermal top, shirt, woolen gilet and hat above. The boy was dressed in similar. Going out we put another two layers on. It was ok but coming back in cold and not having a warm house was a drag. Perhaps unrelated, but we both got colds shortly afterwards.

More recently, the boy and I went camping in April last year, when temperatures were getting down to -5C at night. We had about 5 duvets in the tent and it was still cold at night - we slept with hats on. During the day we layered up as the wind chill was significant. It was challenging at times but largely enjoyable especially as we just stuffed our faces for the weekend.

So you can get cold and you can layer up but eventually it will tell on your health - people have forgotten just how common bronchitis, pleurisy and "having a chest" were in our grandparents' generation, from coal smoke, smoking, cold rooms and poor diets.

[jansman]

Featherstick wrote:

So you can get cold and you can layer up but eventually it will tell on your health - people have forgotten just how common bronchitis, pleurisy and "having a chest" were in our grandparents' generation, from coal smoke, smoking, cold rooms and poor diets.


If I remember correctly, a teacher at my school ( a long, long time ago!) when talking about pre NHS mortality, did highlight the fact that people died predominantly of bronchial diseases. Unlike now, where our extended lives expose us to degenerative diseases like cancer, dementia etc.

Environment had to play a part, as featherstick also mentioned. Both my grandfathers died of respiratory diseases. One with pneumonaconiosis ( he was a miner) and the other with throat and lung cancer, brought about by exposure to asbestos. Neither were 60.

[GillyBee]

Interesting article on the topic pointing out that average indoors temperatures have risen dramatically in recent years and also giving the WHO minimum recommended temperatures for room heating for healthy and vulnerable people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12606943

And I have remembered the easy option for indoors, cold and the heating is out. A camping cooker, kettle and a hot water bottle to hug.

[Yorkshire Andy]

And I have remembered the easy option for indoors, cold and the heating is out. A camping cooker, kettle and a hot water bottle to hug.

Simple things sometimes just work but easily get forgotten

[grenfell]

Interesting article on the topic pointing out that average indoors temperatures have risen dramatically in recent years and also giving the WHO minimum recommended temperatures for room heating for healthy and vulnerable people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12606943

I'm reminded of something called Jevon's paradox which basically says that as energy efficiency goes up so does energy consumption. Originally used to describe coal consumption but to put it in modern terms if a car uses less petrol it tends to be driven more and on the whole consumption goes up. Houses are better insulated , coal is relatively more expensive than gas and is certainly less work ( even free wood involves a considerable input of labour) and i suspect there is a similar thing going on. Insulate the house but then still have the same levels of energy input resulting in higher temperatures.
Jevon's paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
I grew up in a house without central heating or double glazing and relatively thin insulation in the loft. As they got older my parents did add all that although they didn't tend to use the central heating that much. Before i married my first house was relatively "primative" . I've had frost on the inside of the windows and would sometimes only light the fire when i could see my breathe.

[ForgeCorvus]

I suppose you could also apply Jevon's to internet connections and computer speed..... The faster average data handling gets the more 'stuff' websites say they need to run correctly

Pick a single room to heat and use proper sized thick curtains on the windows (and doors if you can).
Wear decent clothing in multiple layers .... And don't forget your feet (I've been known to put a small rug on the carpet in front of my chair)
Blankets are your friends...... In fact blankets are almost a prep category all to themselves
Having a cat or a terrier on your lap helps

Then you should only need a minimal source of heat.

[Medusa]

We have oil heating mostly because the former house owners didnt have gas connected despite it being at the top of the drive. I phoned up some years ago to find out that it was going to cost us £3k for the pipes to be installed and the gas to be connected, it wasnt happening then and wont be happening now. People think that gas is expensive compared to oil, I think that we are more aware of how much we use because we can see the sight gauge plus we dont have a daily service charge to pay. Our boiler is old, but all of the working parts have been replaced over the 20 years we have lived here and we have been informed by more than one person that our boiler is more reliable than the newer models although maybe less efficient so we will not be replacing it in the near future. We also have 2 woodburning stoves, no power to rely on and they heat the house, we can cook on them and heat a kettle etc but sadly dont have a back boiler, however we rely on wood, normally free to us from pallets, donated from cut down trees or scavenged from wherever we can so not for everyone. Our house is old, much less draughty than it used to be, but our soon to be replaced double glazing is old and not amazing at retaining heat so we have good, thick curtains. We also cant have cavity wall insulation which causes issues in older houses with damp but do have great loft insulation. If we keep the dining room door open at night with the woodburner lit the whole of the upstairs is kept to a very comfortable temperature and my husband keeps his work clothes next to the chimney breast so they are warm for him to put on in a morning. I am of an age where I remember my childhood home without central heating and double glazing and my Mum used to light the gas fire in a morning so that we could keep warm and dress in front of that. We have quilts here but also a supply of sleeping bags, woollen blankets, hot water bottles etc so that we could keep warm even if the power went out, we are also campers so prepared for cold weather.

[grenfell]

I suppose you could also apply Jevon's to internet connections and computer speed..... The faster average data handling gets the more 'stuff' websites say they need to run correctly

You're probably right . I suppose it's the same thing with mobile phones . People get a phone with so many gigabits of storage ( you can probably tell i'm a bit of a luddite here ) and then clog it up with apps to put rabbit ears on people , make them sound like mickey mouse and other such pointless crap. The most obvious misuse of technology to me is solar panels. Marvellous technology to create ( or rather capture) energy from sunlight but then what's done with it? Garden lights . Nobody had garden lights years ago and it makes me wonder just how much generating capacity all those tiny panels added together would be and how much better use we could make of it.
Perhaps there should be a grumpy old preppers forum .

[Nurseandy]

Grumpy Old Peppers forum? I'm in.