A tip for winter

[letrangere]

Commenting on abiding problem of heating large old house during the recent cold spell, a friend in the SW (24/33 border) was telling me that they've abandoned their beautiful, massive but impossible to heat effectively and cheaply salon for the time being.  Instead, they're created a salon d'hiver in a small, un-used bedroom upstairs.  They've moved a small sofa, bookcase and the TV up there and thanks to the small fireplace and one small radiator have a ready made warm and cosy sitting room.  Seeing as though it's normally possible to see your breath in their large salon even with the heating on all day at this time of year, it makes a lot of sense.  M

[Iceni]

We started our renovation with this is mind - a huge barn in the summer is bliss, I would imagine in the winter it will break our bank.  We have a room, 40 sq mtrs which has a huge log burner - we know it works as we live in it now. It has en-suite shower and loo/sink with electric radiator which is on 2 whole hours a day, a nice kitchen along one wall, an office area (which will go upstairs into a smallish bedroom next year) and a living area. Currently it has a double bed in it but it will have a good quality bed settee when we move out. With the temperatures well below freezing at night (and most days) for weeks on end now, I would imagine we will sleep down here when it gets this cold as the room drops to a low of 13C if we don't bother to keep the fire in (we wanted to take some ash out this am).

Our French neighbours seem to think that doing this sort of thing is normal. We are putting central heating into the main barn but as we cannot put underfloor heating in because of structural problems we will run it in the most cost effective way with another log-burner (no linked into the central heating) to provide main heating. This decision was made as we are near a very reasonably priced woodyard - if we had town gas we would use that and probably not use so much wood.

This thread/subject always makes me smile as during the last real fuel crisis in the 70's many people did this in the UK, moving beds into the lounge if they lived on fixed incomes. Most of us had come from houses without central heating so in those days sleeping in a bedroom with no heating and bathing in a bathroom with no heating was normal, how times have changed.

[GRT17]

[quote]Commenting on abiding problem of heating large old house during the recent cold spell, a friend in the SW (24/33 border) was telling me that they've abandoned their beautiful, massive but impossible t...[/quote]

Margaret

I have Swedish friends and most of them live in typical Swedish houses with triple glazing, wonderful insulation and all the rest. One of them however is living with her young family in a rural house which they are improving and she says that in Winter they move into the room with the stove and only use the others in the Summer months.

Gill (currently in snowy England)

[Patf]

In rural Russia too they have, or used to have, one large stove with the sleeping platforms arranged around it and everyone lived ate and slept in that room in winter. They also had  sort of double glazed units which they put in place when the weather turned cold. We have one main room upstairs and no heating in the bedroom, and I can tell you it gets very cold at night in winter. Even colder than UK. Pat.