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It's getting cold... how are you going to keep heating costs low this winter?
(piefed.blahaj.zone)
Lol "keep"
Jeez, people, do you want mold? Cause this all above and below is how you get mold. Keep your outer walls above the dew point.
Throw a few more logs into the stove and keep the doors ajar if electricity or oil or whatever is too expensive, but don't just let your houses cool down like that.
From the winter when I had practically no heating at all:
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thermal base layer (fleece lined compression thermals meant for outdoor exercise, top + leggings). I kept this on at all times and it kept me super warm through the depths of winter. Also super warm thermal socks.
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electric blanket. Once you're going to be sedentary after dinner on the sofa, then this can make you unbearably hot and costs almost nothing to run.
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the kitchen gets heated slightly by cooking appliances and this is a good place to hang out.
Only running my heat for an hour at wake-up and bedtime (and on special occasions), and we all basically live in our oodies.
I might do a pot of bone broth and see how I like having that as a warmer versus too much tea or coffee, which is my usual M.O.
We just looked at the thermostat and it is 16.1C, blanket day for us, and we’re closing all the curtains on the north side of the house to keep the heat in a bit better. We’ve also got a curtain behind the front door to insulate the hallway a bit.
You can buy cheap door brushes that stick to the door edge which work wonders at keeping air out
The silicone draft strips work well too and are virtually invisible. As well as making sure all your weather strips are installed in your door. They’re is usually room for a couple in the PVC doors.
Ooooh curtain behind the door that's a good one
Wool
Those ultra thick socks sold at the winter fair.
Lads.... get a proper job... This thread is depressing
Let's all go down the proper job factory and get one of those fancy proper jobs they just hand out for free down there!
That aside - I do have a proper job. I also have proper debts. Money is tight, and my food bill is rising. My local Sainsbury's has put the price of bread up, the price of fish up, and the price of veggies up. I now walk further to LIDL and while it is cheaper, it's still more expensive than I'd like.
My rent is astronomical. I've been in my flat for three years, and in that time the rent has risen by £250 per month. My wages have not risen by that much. On top of that, I did some freelancing in 2023 and spent the money. Obviously I know I should've kept it, but it's hard to afford things so I dipped in a little bit at a time and before I knew it, bam, all the money gone. Which means HMRC are now garnishing £200 a month out of my wages this year to pay it back. It was £5000, the biggest paycheck I've ever earned as a freelancer (working in the hours after my 45 hours a week full time role). Exhausting and punishing.
Opportunities and money are vanishingly rare these days. I don't drink. I rarely go out. I walk instead of using the buses or trains to save money. So far, since Friday, I've walked around 23 miles. I've got another seven miles to walk this evening, to save myself a fiver.
I'll put on a jumper instead of using the heating. I sleep in a hoodie.
Wtf yikes as a fellow contractor, NEVER dip into your tax pool unless it's a life of death situation. Stick it in an ISA or something for a year to get a few quid extra for the time being.
Oh mate trust me, lesson learned! Absolutely fucking stupid of me, proper kicking myself. Luckily I'll survive but yeah that was a shitter.
tl
dr
tw
at
Snarky comment bros...... it's over.....
Fair enough, only the first sentence was really the response anyway - the rest of it was just me having a moan lol have a good end of your weekend! 🫡
Can’t, disabled and overqualified. No one wants a slow confused lackey with grey hair and a masters degree.
Imagine how depressing it is for us.
The same thing I do every year. Wonder how on earth I can insulate this house better when I've done all of the usual stuff and it hasn't helped. Cavity wall insulation, double glazing, loft insulation, draft-proofing, new boiler. All done yet the boiler has to operate almost continuously just to keep the house at 18 degrees. Need one of those infrared cameras to spot the problem I think.
If you have a tool library or makerspace nearby they might have one you could borrow. The IR cameras are not cheap!
I'm in a middle-terrace house with relatively modern windows and insulation, so I'm lucky that there's only really a few places that heat can actually leak out.
Basically all I do is use a draft excluder for the gap under the front door and be selective about opening windows. Then I basically set the thermostat to 19/20 degrees (and the timer on the boiler set to stop it coming on overnight) and that keeps things warm enough without the heating needing to come on for that long during the day. Obviously in the middle of winter it needs to come on a bit longer, but those would be the days I'd be using the heating whatever approach I went for.
Weirdly I half do it for the house plants, I can always throw a jumper on to a point, but I've got a few plants that really don't seem to like the cold. Might as well make it comfortable for all of us if my house doesn't cost a bomb to keep at a good level.
That's the neat part, I don't. It costs a few quid a day, that's just winter. Summer costs fuck all to balance it out. It is what it is.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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