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Living without central heating this winter?

teuchter said:
This stuff?

www.sempatap.net

SempaTap: thermal insulation and soundproofing for walls and ceilings

Discover SempaTap, a thermal insulation and sound absorption solution. Ideal sound absorption and thermal insulation for walls and ceilings!
www.sempatap.net www.sempatap.net

Doubt it's breathable - it's a kind of rubber foam. Your walls may still be able to "breathe" towards the outside though.

Do you feel it's made a difference? I'm always a bit sceptical about these insulated wallpapers because (at least in theory) the amount of insulation they can provide is really quite tiny.
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Yes that's it. It says breathable on the website and felt as if it was when I was putting it up.

It's made a real difference - the room warms up a lot quicker. If you hold your hand against it, it gets warm quickly while the house walls are cold to the touch. I've just got it on the external walls, which are rab construction (stone/clay/stone) and so no chance of cavity wall insulation, and external wall insulation would cost £10,000 or so and would fuck up the look of the house.

It used to be bitter in winter but that and the secondary glazing has made a real difference - I've got just about the only wood sash windows where I live and I didn't want to lose them. The conservatory has also made a real difference, heats up the house too.

The fan heater now warms the room up quickly when it used to be on all the time in midwinter. The link David Clapson put up from Friends of the Earth said "internal thin wall insulation which can be as much as 70-80% as effective" as proper internal insulation which I presume means batons against the wall and insulation/plasterboard. My rooms are just too small for that.

I'm plugging up any holes I can find in the building fabric now so hopefully it'll keep the heat even better,

Eta I find the 70-80% difficult to believe though, would like to see test results
 
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mentalchik said:
As someone who is watching their lifelong, fit, slim active mum being ravaged by the end stages of Alzheimer's i find this fairly offensive...think this line of thought needs re-thinking mate
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It happens all the time - even more so if you are young, I think.

I was a student when I had my ileostomy due to UC, a biochem lecturer (and postdoc) informed a couple of my friends when they informed him that I was in hospital that my condition was down to "a poor diet, lacking in fibre and fruit and veg" (he had no idea how I ate).

I have a feeling my 70s F plan diet mum (wholewheat pasta anyone?) would have lost her shit if she'd heard that. I put that theory to the specialist consultant I was under and he said that was utter rubbish - it's an autoimmune disease, which they think (or thought) was triggered by food poisoning.
 
Funky_monks said:
It happens all the time - even more so if you are young, I think.

I was a student when I had my ileostomy due to UC, a biochem lecturer (and postdoc) informed a couple of my friends when they informed him that I was in hospital that my condition was down to "a poor diet, lacking in fibre and fruit and veg" (he had no idea how I ate).

I have a feeling my 70s F plan diet mum (wholewheat pasta anyone?) would have lost her shit if she'd heard that. I put that theory to the specialist consultant I was under and he said that was utter rubbish - it's an autoimmune disease, which they think (or thought) was triggered by food poisoning.
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Liked in solidarity
 
The word lacking from your posts is empathy, gentlegreen. It's sorta irrelevant, whether we 'did it to ourselves' or if it's all in our heads, misery is misery and it doesn't take much to have a kinder view of those who are suffering. I have a nicely insulating layer of flob but my poor starveling lover is really going to feel the cold. Could certainly blame our terrible bad habits...or even our impoverished state of affairs because we are shit at being capitalists but finger pointing is a particularly unhelpful response here. Just sayin, cos I don't really want to be confrontational and I was surprised at your hardline thinking - hadn't really come across it before (although you are certainly one of life's eccentrics).
 
Funky_monks said:
It happens all the time - even more so if you are young, I think.

I was a student when I had my ileostomy due to UC, a biochem lecturer (and postdoc) informed a couple of my friends when they informed him that I was in hospital that my condition was down to "a poor diet, lacking in fibre and fruit and veg" (he had no idea how I ate).

I have a feeling my 70s F plan diet mum (wholewheat pasta anyone?) would have lost her shit if she'd heard that. I put that theory to the specialist consultant I was under and he said that was utter rubbish - it's an autoimmune disease, which they think (or thought) was triggered by food poisoning.
Click to expand...
[GG mode]So it's your fault for eating [/GG mode]
:eek: :(
 
I wouldn’t do this. Our heating is on for two hours in the morning and two in the evening in the winter, and if we get cold at the other times, we just put more clothes on.
 
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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Fella, your house is your mausoleum - you are already in poor health and you’re going to get ill one cold winter and die in your house of exposure and probably lie there for years before being discovered. Don’t be dishing out advice, just get a grip and sort yourself out.
 
two sheds said:
Yes that's it. It says breathable on the website and felt as if it was when I was putting it up.

It's made a real difference - the room warms up a lot quicker. If you hold your hand against it, it gets warm quickly while the house walls are cold to the touch. I've just got it on the external walls, which are rab construction (stone/clay/stone) and so no chance of cavity wall insulation, and external wall insulation would cost £10,000 or so and would fuck up the look of the house.

It used to be bitter in winter but that and the secondary glazing has made a real difference - I've got just about the only wood sash windows where I live and I didn't want to lose them. The conservatory has also made a real difference, heats up the house too.

The fan heater now warms the room up quickly when it used to be on all the time in midwinter. The link David Clapson put up from Friends of the Earth said "internal thin wall insulation which can be as much as 70-80% as effective" as proper internal insulation which I presume means batons against the wall and insulation/plasterboard. My rooms are just too small for that.

I'm plugging up any holes I can find in the building fabric now so hopefully it'll keep the heat even better,

Eta I find the 70-80% difficult to believe though, would like to see test results
Click to expand...
I think Friends of the earth are giving slightly misleading advice there - I also don't really believe the 70%-80% nor is it clear what that's actually supposed to mean.

The thin insulation they mention is aerogel which is around twice as effective as the sempatap stuff (and more expensive).

Even aerogel, as a thin layer like that, is not loads more effective than conventional rigid board insulation and they are talk about installing a layer that is less than a tenth of the thickness you'd ideally go for with regular insulation.

Anyway, if what you've got works for you then that's good.
 
This putting the heating on thing to avoid damp. Do people here really put the heating on every day even for just half an hour? I have my windows open all the time even just a crack. Assumed this was enough. Obviously winter is different.
 
xenon said:
Fortunately I have not put the heating on for several months.
Click to expand...

Yeah, nobody has. Which is why (along with the next cap raise not being until October) there is a hiatus in people's personal energy crises. It's still somewhere 'over there' in people's minds. But this is big bad shit coming. And it is coming. Not something a lot of people will have any choice about whether or not to 'give it a go'.
 
Anyhoo, I'm another one who grew up in a single-paned draughty damp council house with no central heating and with a coal fire in one room, ice on the inside of the windows in winter. On Sunday bath night, we'd have the paraffin heater in the bathroom, and if you were REALLY ill, you could have it in your bedroom.

I then lived in a series of similar places, all freezing cold and black moldy, couldn't dry washing in winter, turned purple just going the bog, and had a perma-wheeze that started in childhood and continued.

I didn't experience double-glazing or central heating til I moved into my current house in 2002. For the first time in my life, I actually felt warm in winter, it was a revelation. Washing dried pretty much overnight, and it was so quiet!! Single panes let in so much noise!

We've plans to layer up and sit in our 4 season sleeping bags whilst watching telly/reading this winter, but we will be having the heating on if it's baltic, no question.
 
planetgeli said:
Yeah, nobody has. Which is why (along with the next cap raise not being until October) there is a hiatus in people's personal energy crises. It's still somewhere 'over there' in people's minds. But this is big bad shit coming. And it is coming. Not something a lot of people will have any choice about whether or not to 'give it a go'.
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Consumers need to just not pay en masse, forcing the energy companies to make up the shortfall themselves with their billions in profits
 
Orang Utan said:
Consumers need to just not pay en masse, forcing the energy companies to make up the shortfall themselves with their billions in profits
Click to expand...

I'll happily support this campaign not to pay.

But, it's worth pointing out that most supply companies are not making much, hence why so many have gone bust, most don't produce energy, it's the produces like Centrica (owners of British Gas), Shell and BP that are making the billions.
 
xenon said:
This putting the heating on thing to avoid damp. Do people here really put the heating on every day even for just half an hour? I have my windows open all the time even just a crack. Assumed this was enough. Obviously winter is different.
Click to expand...


Oh..no.
Heating only goes on here if possible in November and is off usually from April. When it is on its for 2 hours in the morning and depending on how cold it is maybe 3 hours in the evening.
Its set to kick in if the temperature drops below 16 degrees in the hall.
But we often over ride that if someone is feeling very cold like my soon to be 83 yr old mum.
 
Orang Utan said:
Consumers need to just not pay en masse, forcing the energy companies to make up the shortfall themselves with their billions in profits
Click to expand...

Spoken like a man who won't have to apply for a mortgage, bank loan, car finance or even mobile phone contract in the next five years, or indeed worry about whether the heating and power to cook will work when you get home in a cold, wet November night...

Something needs to happen. I can pay these bills, but most can't. Leaving it to random families to take the lead, and the risks accociated, is not on.
 
Orang Utan said:
Consumers need to just not pay en masse, forcing the energy companies to make up the shortfall themselves with their billions in profits
Click to expand...
I remain dubious to say the least that any mass boycott will have any effect (assuming it even happens) realistically now we need rioting and MP's being strung up or at least a real fear that this will happen which at the moment there doesn't seem to be.
The simplest solution at the moment is for the Govt to just not raise the cap effectively forcing the companies to eat the rise in costs.
This means that whilst the bigger compaines like British Gas and E-on will survive since they have fingers in enough pies to ride it out by moving money from elsewhere (or even borrowing it). A lot of the supply companies will go to the wall but they are mostly accounting smoke and mirrors rather than actual 'value' producers.
As of yet I haven't seen anything that makes me think the Don't Pay Campaign is anything other than a publicity stunt (really would love to be proved wrong on this)
Like kebabking I personally am in the position where I can afford to pay these bills, indeed I am in the position where I can and probably will have to help certain other people like Mrs Q's brother who already owes me a four figure sum I have little real expectation of getting back.
 
kebabking said:
Spoken like a man who won't have to apply for a mortgage, bank loan, car finance or even mobile phone contract in the next five years, or indeed worry about whether the heating and power to cook will work when you get home in a cold, wet November night...

Something needs to happen. I can pay these bills, but most can't. Leaving it to random families to take the lead, and the risks accociated, is not on.
Click to expand...
Did you see the TikTok link someone posted on the Don't Pay UK thread? About avoiding CCJs and the like by raising a complaint at just the right time in order to hold off any action?

It's obviously not going to work for those on prepayment meters, that's why they've only said it's about cancelling your direct debit.

And how do you know OU isn't going to do any of those things?
 
sojourner it was the just, like just switch the kettle on, or just scratch your arse...

You know, something simple, fairly obvious and without significant side effects.
 
kebabking said:
Spoken like a man who won't have to apply for a mortgage, bank loan, car finance or even mobile phone contract in the next five years, or indeed worry about whether the heating and power to cook will work when you get home in a cold, wet November night...

Something needs to happen. I can pay these bills, but most can't. Leaving it to random families to take the lead, and the risks accociated, is not on.
Click to expand...
That’s why it’ll only work if everyone does it
 
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