Friends New house heating options

[Tarrel]

Look at getting double glazing panels made to fit on the inside of the existing windows..

Try this...http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... highlight=

[biffvernon]

I married a Yorkshire woman. Does that count?

[Little John]

...You buggers, every bleeding word of that is true. Honest.

We also didn't have bathroom. Instead, we had a tin bath hung up on the kitchen wall and we had an outside bog in a brick shed at the bottom of the garden. another of my jobs was to muck this out once a month. into the field behind out garden.

Why do you all suppose I am such an odd bugger now! I feel like a man completely out of time with the period he lives in.

[Little John]

When I was a boy, we lived in an old 17th century tiny blacksmith’s cottage with only the one coal fire in the living room and that was it. My bedroom was in the loft, which, for the first few years had no insulation between me and the roof tiles. Indeed, the underneath side of the tiles was entirely visible. In the middle of winter, I would wake up on a morning with a layer of fluffy frost on my top blanket. I shit you not. I was warm enough myself as my mam would have me buried under about 10 blankets. However, getting up and dressed and downstairs in front of the fire was a somewhat rapid affair. Although, I should say, from about 7 or 8, my job was to light the bloody fire as well! Again, though, it's amazing how proficient and quick you become at lighting a coal fire when it's the middle of winter and you have no other source of heating.

You were lucky. That were luxury!

When I was five (winter of '63), we moved into a prefab. HUGE metal framed, single glazed windows. Asbestos inner and outer skin with about two inches of rockwool between. Small inset coal stove with a back-boiler in the lounge, and that was it.

(I know about the construction because, when I was 10, they started pulling them down, and me and my mates had a ready-made adventure playground, until we had to move too).

We then moved into a 1930's end of terrace council house which, though warmer, was pretty basic in its layout by comparison. I preferred the prefab.

Funnily enough, I preferred the bog at the bottom of the garden to the indoors one. It just felt weird taking a crap indoors. I got used to it soon enough when the winter came, though, and you didn't have to freeze your bollocks off (almost literally) when you went for a crap.

[Tarrel]

When I was a boy, we lived in an old 17th century tiny blacksmith’s cottage with only the one coal fire in the living room and that was it. My bedroom was in the loft, which, for the first few years had no insulation between me and the roof tiles. Indeed, the underneath side of the tiles was entirely visible. In the middle of winter, I would wake up on a morning with a layer of fluffy frost on my top blanket. I shit you not. I was warm enough myself as my mam would have me buried under about 10 blankets. However, getting up and dressed and downstairs in front of the fire was a somewhat rapid affair. Although, I should say, from about 7 or 8, my job was to light the bloody fire as well! Again, though, it's amazing how proficient and quick you become at lighting a coal fire when it's the middle of winter and you have no other source of heating.

You were lucky. That were luxury!

When I was five (winter of '63), we moved into a prefab. HUGE metal framed, single glazed windows. Asbestos inner and outer skin with about two inches of rockwool between. Small inset coal stove with a back-boiler in the lounge, and that was it.

(I know about the construction because, when I was 10, they started pulling them down, and me and my mates had a ready-made adventure playground, until we had to move too).

We then moved into a 1930's end of terrace council house which, though warmer, was pretty basic in its layout by comparison. I preferred the prefab.

Funnily enough, I preferred the bog at the bottom of the garden to the indoors one. It just felt weird taking a crap indoors. I got used to it soon enough when the winter came, though, and you didn't have to freeze your bollocks off (almost literally) when you went for a crap.

[kenneal - lagger]

.........You were lucky. That were luxury!

When I was five (winter of '63), we moved into a prefab. ........

We had moved into a new build house in 1952 which was completely uninsulated and still was in '63. I can remember siting in my bedroom doing my homework with gloves on, a scarf around my head and in my winter coat which was wrapped over a 1kW electric convector fire to keep warm. That were in London and were bloody cold!!!

Kids today ......

[Tarrel]

My wife spends most weekday mornings bashing away on the laptop, as a paid professional moderator for a parenting forum. She has a choice of where she works; the food preperation area, which is darker, with low ceilings and small windows, but warmed by the Rayburn, or the lounge, which is bright, with high ceilings and big windows, but colder. She prefers to be bright and cold! Puts a blanket over her knees and has designed some rather smart, knitted "office gloves" (basically, fingerless mittens that allow her to type easily).

We could put the radiators on, but she is quite adamant that it isn't necessary. Self-installed double glazing has helped a lot. We're experiencing highs of +4 degrees at the moment, but this is set to drop over the next few days. We'll see how things pan out.

[emordnilap]

Remember 'steel and concrete houses'? We lived in one for years. (It had the distinct advantage of having garden on three sides, dad used to grow spuds and toms). The house itself though was fecking freezing most of the year and roasting when the sun came out.

[featherstick]

Funnily enough, I preferred the bog at the bottom of the garden to the indoors one. It just felt weird taking a crap indoors. I got used to it soon enough when the winter came, though, and you didn't have to freeze your bollocks off (almost literally) when you went for a crap.

A true story from rural Ireland. The bank manager's father looked on as his son built a new house with two fitted bathrooms, and then built a huge patio area with barbeque out the back. Eventually he shared what he thought: "When I was a lad, people used to shite in the haggard (yard) and ate in the house. Now they shite in the house and ate in the haggard!"