[jambutty]

This point was being discussed on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 today so credit must go to him for me raising the issue on here. It just seemed like a good topic to bring up. One of the pundit suggested that it was better to leave the central heating on 24/7 and just turn the thermostat down overnight. Of course that means remembering to do so. The person argued that it would save around 20% because the house would never get totally cold and thus it would warm up to a reasonable temperature sooner. He has a point I guess. So going away for a couple of days to save on energy would be false economy because when you come back it would take a long while to get the house back up to a comfortable temperature.

As you say SPUGGIE J prepayment meters is the most expensive way of buying gas or electricity. The cheapest way is a quarterly meter with a Direct Debit each month for a fixed amount. Unfortunately the recommended fixed amount usually builds up to a surplus. OK! You can get the surplus back but it’s a bind and often takes at least forever. Not that I have personal experience of that scheme, but my married son did until I managed to persuade him to get off it and control his own money and energy usage.

I don’t do this now but I used to read my meters and make a note of the readings once a week, usually on a Saturday. I knew what I could afford as a quarterly consumption and if one week went over the limit I had to cut back in the following weeks to bring it all back into line. I accept that not everyone is capable of doing that but it worked for me. I have abandoned my old regime because practically each quarter the tariff has small changes, which often turn out to be a hidden increase. I’ve never considered changing my supplier because the new one ends up as dear as the old, so it’s not worth all the hassle. Changing a supplier often brings two bills for the same period and you spend time and money getting the mess sorted out. In the meantime you gets threats of being put on a card meter. Better the devil you know!

Living in a ground floor flat like I do with double glazing and a modern front door recently installed my flat does not suffer from draughts and the upstairs being heated prevents my heat from rising out of the flat. What also helps is low ceilings. Less space to heat up! People who live in the older terraced houses have got high ceilings and the extra two or three feet of space gathers all the heat when you need it at ground level.

I have a radiator in my living room, bedroom, hallway, washroom and kitchen. Why anyone would install a radiator in a small kitchen is beyond me. Apart from the kitchen they are all on and controlled by the thermostat in the hallway. It is turned down during warm days but in winter it is set and left at 19C. The timer is set to come on at about 9:30am, goes off for a couple of hours in mid afternoon and finally off at around 10:00pm. If I get cold outside those hours I put an extra jersey on or if I’m watching telly wrap a blanket around my legs and lift them off the floor.

Apart from that in days of old houses did not have any heating upstairs so going to bed in a cold bedroom and getting up just encouraged us not to dawdle. In later years I used an electric overblanket and that could be left on all night on really cold nights.

Coming home from work and having to light the fire was a bind and the room never got warm until it was time to go to bed.

The good old days??? Maybe not but we weren’t as soft then.