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Living without central heating this winter?

existentialist said:
You're going to need to do a LOT more than that, if you want your van to be passively warmed. Off the top of my head -
  • You are going to need to create an absolutely impregnable vapour barrier between your interior and the structure of the vehicle - not just because of insulation, but because any moisture that makes it into the insulation space and thereby in contact with the body of the vehicle WILL corrode it. Fast.
  • Everything inside the vehicle needs to be insulated from the bodywork of the vehicle. Everything. Any exposed metalwork will suck the warmth of your interior out into the freezing wastes beyond.
  • Door seals are fine for normal daily use, but they are never going to be good enough to prevent draughts enough to leach out your passive heat. You'll need to beef those up, and keep them well maintained.
  • You'd better seal off the cab area (with a well-insulated barrier), because the windscreen will be like having a gaping cave mouth open, as far as heat loss is concerned. Also, the driver's cab is almost certainly going to leak heat anyway - there's no way of insulating that, what with all the various bits coming through the bulkhead, gear linkage, etc.
  • Floor. Underneath you is effectively a big radiator. Your floor will need to be well isolated from that, with something that's at a minimum equivalent to 50mm of Celotex, or whatever that works out in wool. Your floor needs to also be completely isolated, heat-wise, from the body - wooden battens (with the insulation between them) are traditional.
  • Windows - most campervan windows are fairly basic plastic jobs. They're going to leak heat. You're almost certainly going to need to have top notch ones for a passively heated van, and they're going to have to be mounted in a way that ensures all your insulation goes right up to them - any uninsulated (or weakly insulated) bits between your main interior insulation is going to create a) a condensation zone, and b) a heat leak.
However, you also need to be aware that a van is a lot smaller than a home, and (at least potentially) capable of being hermetically sealed. You might need to think about some kind of airflow, which is of course going to negate all your efforts in regard to heat, but being warm is no good if you're suffocating yourself. And that's true in spades if you're considering doing any cooking inside the vehicle.
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Re the corrosion, could you offset that with zinc blocks?
 
scifisam said:
It doesn't work. It will just make you look like a crazy person with tinfoil on their windows.

I know (and you know I know!) social housing can be shit, but how come they didn't put heating in till 2008?
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Ah well, that would be me being awkward. I haven't had anything done in my house apart from basic checks cos I am disinclined to let workers do anything...mostly because, looking at my neighbours 'improvements', they tend to make everything worse. Horrible kitchen cupboards and nasty little sinks (instead of my lovely enamel ones). I lost my fireplace and had a horrible gasfire instead. I did have the ghastly windows changed (and they were/are a disaster because they got the measurements slightly wrong so now my house, along with every other house on the estate, have badly cracked windows because of thermal expansion. No more money to put right although the council seems to spend baffling sums on frankl;y ridiculous projects such as painting white fascias above all opur windows (while most of us have terrible broken cills). A few years ago, we had all our roof slates replaced. Really good Welsh slate, swapped for crap, cheap Spanish stuff...and a whole bunch of damage because the roofing contractors were imbeciles.
I have worked in building and sweetheart is a tradesperson so I am just not keen on the mediocre level of work, since the council no longer have their own maintenance teams but accept the lowest tender for everything.

But mostly, I accept I am a bit mulish and truculent so I really do not blame the council for any shortcomings in my power set-up.
 
I went most of February without heating... can't exactly say it was pleasant. I've bought a couple fleeces in preparation for multi-layering this winter and minimising use of central heating.. but I'll stick it on if it gets too miserable.

Are oil heaters a good option for just heating one room?
 
Um, I also have a dog-door...perfectly positioned to channel howling, Siberian winds through the madly flapping flap. Lashes the backs of my knees as I huddle in front of the oven. Almost as bad as having the back door open. Will have to trample on canine liberty or investigate some spendy e.flap.
I took up sewing during lockdown, so find myself considering designing knickers which can be whipped on and off without having to remove your trousers/woolly tights. Poppers would feature. And they would be wool (cashmere, obvs, with silk gussets) - warm knickers with no gaps for drafts. I find the whole winter dressing game to be quite tedious (because I wear many layers and my bedroom is cold) There is often not very much difference between my days clothes and night clothes, which is very handy...and would be especially so with quick-remove knickers.
 
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Last winter I had the storage heaters downstairs on at a low heat from December 1st - March 1st with afternoon boost. Had the plug in booster on when it was cold. However barely any frosts in my part of the country as it was a mild winter.

This winter my house faces the SW and I’m higher up and a few miles from Dartmoor so potentially a fair bit wetter and colder. On the plus side I have radiators / boiler which should be more effective (though also more expensive)
 
Hollis said:
I went most of February without heating... can't exactly say it was pleasant. I've bought a couple fleeces in preparation for multi-layering this winter and minimising use of central heating.. but I'll stick it on if it gets too miserable.

Are oil heaters a good option for just heating one room?
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We have an oil heater, actually the SAME oil heater I had in my housing association place without central heating - it's been going on for 25 years (oh my god! time flies). It's very energy efficient. We also recently bought a new one - same brand DeLonghi - with a thermostat and a timer.
 
girasol said:
We have an oil heater, actually the SAME oil heater I had in my housing association place without central heating - it's been going on for 25 years (oh my god! time flies). It's very energy efficient. We also recently bought a new one - same brand DeLonghi - with a thermostat and a timer.
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All electric heaters are 100 percent efficient at converting electricity into heat.
 
I can handle the cold after a lifetime of training but I wouldn't put my teen and cats through that. Saying that, we never have our heating on blasting or anything. I'm not tight but I live in Wales and don't need tropical temperatures in the house like. I'm happy to dress up all cosy and keep the air coolish. I never heat my bedroom.
 
My house never had central heating until I had it installed in winter 2021 (Biomass, on the RHI).

I do, however, have the luxury of cavity walls and double glazing - something I'd never had (in my adult life) until moving here in 2019.

I had two fireplaces - one in the living room, one in the dining room, both with woodburners in, its possible to scrounge/nick a reasonable amount of wood.

I can't say I was ever hugely cold - I have good blankets. It was a faff lighting a fire (or two fires) every night, but you get used to it, and if you can be arsed to cut kindling/chop logs in bulk at the weekend makes it less hassle - although there were plenty evenings when I hadn't done so I had to walk dogs and cut wood in the cold before lighting the fire and making tea.
 
existentialist said:
any moisture that makes it into the insulation space and thereby in contact with the body of the vehicle WILL corrode it. Fast.
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Why such a corrosion problem? I mean, cars go out in the rain, and it takes them years to rust. I must be missing something important. Is it that there'll be a permanent layer of moisture on areas which aren't rust-proofed?
 
David Clapson said:
Why such a corrosion problem? I mean, cars go out in the rain, and it takes them years to rust. I must be missing something important. Is it that there'll be a permanent layer of moisture on areas which aren't rust-proofed?
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Similar happens in houses. When you insulate you need to make sure there's a vapour barrier to stop moisture hitting the cold wall.
 
Artaxerxes said:
Given that gas prices are what’s causing this that may change.
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But a large percentage of electric in the UK is generated from gas powered stations.

Just looking now, it's almost 40%, because renewables/wind are currently do well producing over 50%, but the other day that was down to just over 10%, and gas was on around 65%.

Per Kwh, I am paying 28.08p for electric, and only 6.97p for gas, so there's a very big gap.

grid.iamkate.com

National Grid: Live

Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network
grid.iamkate.com grid.iamkate.com
 
gentlegreen said:
Similar happens in houses. When you insulate you need to make sure there's a vapour barrier to stop moisture hitting the cold wall.
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Unless the walls need to be breathable as in some old houses like mine. I'm not sure how that works with the Sempatech insulated wallpaper but it does seem to.
 
gentlegreen said:
really ?

Good grief. If I was that fragile I would give up on life.
I hate to sound like a boomer, but I was raised in an uninsulated unheated home in the 60s and 70s when we actually had winters.
I was a baby during one of the worst winters of the last century.
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Yes...well...that bolded bit? Smacks of a high level of ignorance...in my opinion..speaking as someone who could actually get very unwell in the cold...

I grew up in a house with no central heating. We had an open fire and wore extra layers of clothes to try to keep warm. Bedtime meant double pjs and wooly socks in winter and ice inside the window.

As a child...you do not notice or feel the cold as much as an adult let alone an adult with underlying health conditions.

Some of us will need to be in the warm. Doesn't mean we should "give up on living".
 
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The implication was it applied to pretty well everyone.
Doubtless when I get properly old I will need to wrap up more.
 
Aladdin said:
Yes...I know. This is what galls me. The "blanket" approach. Like we should all just put up and get on with it. Regardless of underlying health conditions 🙄


you think you have to be old feel the cold...
😳
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I know it's a massive rabbit hole, but once you eliminate psychology, we all know that a very substantial amount of chronic illness and weakness is self-inflicted.
I'm no athlete, but what massively helped me with the cold was cycling to work and back all year from 27 to 60 and I fully plan to replace that exercise before it's too late. I used to return to my unheated house in the winter and have to cool down with no top on for ages.

I would like to think I might be one of those 80 year olds who take a dip in the Atlantic on NYD.

Heating entire poorly-insulated homes so you can swan around in your pants is quite frankly obscene.
 
gentlegreen said:
I know it's a massive rabbit hole, but once you eliminate psychology, we all know that a very substantial amount of chronic illness and weakness is self-inflicted.
I'm no athlete, but what massively helped me with the cold was cycling to work and back all year from 27 to 60 and I fully plan to replace that exercise before it's too late. I used to return to my unheated house in the winter and have to cool down with no top on for ages.

I would like to think I might be one of those 80 year olds who take a dip in the Atlantic on NYD.

Heating entire poorly-insulated homes so you can swan around in your pants is quite frankly obscene.
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You know that estrogen affects how cold the body feels when it spikes i.e just before the period, right?
 
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