Comments on: This Fuel Poverty Thing

By: Squander Two

Squander Two — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:28:00 +0000

21′s right, I reckon. It doesn’t feel that warm, but then I have a theory that thermostats are all insane. I mean, turn the damn thing down to 20 and ice starts forming in your hair, or turn it up to 21 and the cat combusts.

By: john cramer

john cramer — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:21:42 +0000

Back in the good old days (1947) we had to break the ice on the wash basin if we were to wash face and hands. It was a helluver winter then.

By: David Gillies

David Gillies — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:58:33 +0000

21 °C is perfectly acceptable. Ideal air temperature as far as I am concerned is between 24 and 28 °C. 18 °C is a bit parky, about what I’m used to experiencing in the dead of night here.

By: Monty

Monty — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:20:46 +0000

In the old days, our rooms were colder but we spent more of our time gathered around the fireside. Modern central heating means we get to make use of the whole house.

We had a piano in the front room, in which the fire was rarely on. The piano tuner had to come round every 6 months because pianos do not like being kept in a chilly parlour. They go all off-song.

And we had an outside toilet. In the winter months, a hurricane lamp was kept on day and night, to stop the pipes freezing in there.

But we did sleep very very soundly in those cold bedrooms. Maybe you just do your finest sleeping when you are a kid.

By: Monty

Monty — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:10:02 +0000

Yes, the old folk and babies do need higher air temperatures than the rest of us. It’s no good just wrapping them up in extra cardies, the air they are breathing needs to be warm, and not too dry.

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:16:22 +0000

M-i-L lives with us and, I kid you not, she feels cold below 22, all year round. Then she’s in late ’80s and skin and bone. If she weren’t here, and we didn’t keep her fed as best we can, short of forcing it into her, and heated, she’d be dead.

Not a sob story, just facts of life

By: Philip Thomas

Philip Thomas — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:20:11 +0000

That’s the problem I have with the whole fuel poverty definition. I don’t have my rooms that hot, I have the thermostat set way down and use a jumper instead. I only make an exception when my girlfriend is over because she’s Caribbean and so justifiably unaccustomed. I don’t end up fuel impoverished because my approach saves costs but I probably have my house colder than someone that is defined as impoverished. Which of us is the poorer?

By: JuliaM

JuliaM — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:33:57 +0000

Yup, the Brits seem to like it warm lately. Which makes me wonder if that isn’t the reason why the general public is so apathetic to the screams of the ‘ohmygodtheplanetsgoingtomelt’ crowd…?

By: dearieme

dearieme — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 09:36:08 +0000

Almost every house we go into is overheated, often grotesquely so. Every office, every shop … ; nation of bloody cissies we’ve become.