What is fuel poverty ?

[johnstevens77]

We don't have our heating on at the moment. I am reading this post wearing themal long johns, thermal short pants, regular pants, lounge wear trousers, warm socks and slippers; four upper layers of short sleaved vest, thermal short sleaved vest, heavy duty long sleaved vest and a light roll top. The temperature is 15C and I am nice and warm. We don't need any heating at the moment but we sufffer when we visit other people's homes. No, we do not heat the bedroom and keep the window open, although we now warm the bed with an electric blanket.

john

[nicodemusboffin]

there was a woman on TV a couple days ago who complained that she only had heating on for 30 minutes in morning and 30 minutes in evenings as it was so expensive...she complained that this meant she had to wear a CARDIGAN in the house during the day...and people wonder why others are not sympathetic!!

We heat to about 62F, tee shirt + shirt + woolly + two pairs of socks.

When I were a lad, one room was heated, plus the kitchen from cooking. I imagine that was the common experience. Nothing in bedrooms, bathroom, hall.
Now it's the whole house, shirtsleeves,** curtains left open. Zero sympathy from me.

As Looty says, 'fuel poverty' is just another catchphrase for the media bleaters to bleat about.

V8

** is there such a thing as blousesleeves?

One room heated and cooking? You were lucky. When I were a lad we'd only have one coal in grate, and then only if our pee froze before it hit the pan.

[funduffer]

One room heated and cooking? You were lucky. When I were a lad we'd only have one coal in grate, and then only if our pee froze before it hit the pan.

Coil!!? You were lucky! When I were a lad, we had no coil, just managed with big coit!

Just waiting for the next Yorshireman to post.......

[GrahamPlatt]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... unity-warm

[DrFfybes]

13.4% of households in fuel poverty. Your turn to quote pool and pony stats, or were you being flippant?

I thought the point was more that if someone is defined as being "fuel poor" then they are probably also food poor, car poor, housing poor and every other kind of "poor". In other words, they are just poor.

What I would be curious about, in any given instance, is whether they are alcohol poor, tobacco poor, gambling poor, smartphone poor, Sky subscription poor, large screen TV poor and so on?

I was minded of this discussion whilst visiting family the other day.

Said relatives have 2 children, she runs a business from home, mail order in winter, festivals in summer. He works for a local charity. 2 children.
I noticed the underfloor heating was off, and they were using the small lounge with the woodburner. Apparently their oil is low, and it was too expensive to fill the tank, so they bought some kiln dried wood and use the burner and just heat the rads briefly twice a day. Their van needs sorting for the summer, and they were hoping it didn't need much for the MOT. There was discussion of prices, and children's shoes, etc. I was feeling sorry for them.

Then I noticed a few things, on the way to the loo were wifi repeaters everywhere, ipad on the bed, big telly in the main (cold) lounge and sky boxes, turns out there is sky, netflix, and Alexa sits proudly in the kitchen. Her old Samsung now has an Apple logo on the back, and "You wouldn't believe how much the vet charges to come out and look at the Koi pond". Then there was the hot tub they got last year, woodfired, they're nearly £4k. I was losing sympathy with their plight and I suspect it became evident, but on the way out complemented them on how neat they'd got the garden looking since Xmas. "Oh, it was too much work so we have someone in half a day a week".

I'm sure they'll manage, or learn to.

Paul