Trying Housework as an Alternative to Central Heating

We recently had the gas bill for the end of July to end of October quarter - it was £70 or thereabouts.  Now, this would be a very reasonable gas bill if it was for a winter quarter but, bearing in mind we'd only had the central heating switched on for a few evenings in October, this bill was a bit of a shock.

We never switch the hot water or heating on at all during the summer and we know for a fact that the heating / hot water was off most of June and all of July, August and September and only on for maybe half a dozen evenings in October.  So if a total of perhaps 12 - 15 hours of switching on the heating gives a bill of £70, the next question is what on earth is the bill for the quarter end of October to end of January going to be?  Especially as we'd become rather cavalier about switching the heating on whenever either of us felt a tad chilly.

Oddly enough, I didn't feel the need to put the heating on until early evening at all yesterday - which was good.  Then today I read Ilona's post about not putting on the heating and I thought I'll really have to make a start at cutting down on our usage of the central heating too.  With that in mind, I've been doing bits and bobs of ironing all day today - warming up after ironing a couple of P's shirts and then switching off the iron and going off to do something else that won't keep me so warm.   After half an hour or so, when I'm feeling chilly again, I've gone back to the ironing and warmed myself up again.   This has been useful on several counts - keeping me just warm enough to do without switching on the heating and finally getting me to tackle the pile-of-ironing-that-was-probably-big-enough-to-be-seen-from-space.

I've also done a bit of Christmas present sewing - I always get rather heated using the sewing machine, I think it's tension in case I make a horrible mistake, some scrubbing of the carpet with a damp cloth and warm water - heaven knows how I manage to get black marks on pale carpets, but I always do, and some general tidying and housework which has warmed me up quite nicely too.

It's only about another hour before the heating will kick in on the timer and I shan't be sorry but I do feel pleased that I've managed to get through another day without having to burn gas just to keep myself warm.

For anyone wondering what a Tunis cake is (see yesterday's post) it is described on Wikipedia as 'A Tunis cake is a Madeira cake topped with a thick layer of chocolate and decorated with marzipan fruits. It is traditionally eaten at Christmas.'  And very tasty it is too.

Comments

[Ilona]

Hi, I am used to not having heating, mine hasn't worked for two years, now I have a new boiler free from the Government. But I am still sat here in my outdoor clothes at 8pm with no heating on. It's a good idea to move about when you are cold, keeps the blood circulating. Just think about how low you can get your bill.