From my Substack page. Follow the link below to see all ‘Morning Thoughts’ entries under the menu item ‘Notes’.

Note: clicking on this link will open a new tab on your browser. Simply close the tab to return to this page.

Morning Thoughts From A Devon Sitting Room No23: Cosy!

Sunday, 21st. December 2025

This morning I have elected to have the gas fire on so will be confined to the living room for a while. The rest of the house is 15 degrees and unlikely to improve all day – until I put the central heating on at tea-time. My living room is large – over 21 square metres – and was a 2006 addition to the bungalow. Importantly, it is uninsulated and so is typically 12 degrees celsius in the morning at this time of year, with outside temperatures at about 6-8 degrees. The gas fire works very well considering the size of the room, but is a nightmare to light.

It took me two or three years to figure out why my annual gas bill was so high considering it is only paying for hot water all year round and central heating in the heating season. The pilot light was costing me 27p a day, 365 days a year. When you are on a low income that is a lot of money. So, nightmare to light it may be but off it goes when not in use! Today, I can expect the living room temperature to rise to 16-17 degrees before I can turn it from ‘high’ to ‘low’. That will cost about 40p. Once it is on low it will cost about 20p an hour to run and I should benefit from a steady 18 degrees, which is something of a welcome luxury for me; I could not afford to have the central heating on for long enough to reach that temperature. I can even open the living room door to allow surplus heat to flow into the kitchen, beneficial for when I come to make lunch.

In the past, when advising people on energy efficiency in the home I was often asked why gas central heating systems use so much electricity. The system provided for me by my landlord is particularly old and inefficient, something that us private tenants must all too often just put up with. If you have a smart meter and a monitor you will see a spike in electricity use the instant you switch the heating on. This is to fire up the boiler and get all the fans and pumps going. In general, the older the system the more electricity it uses. And, it goes without saying, the more gas. The stove-like gas fire uses no electricity, which makes it cost efficient to heat a single room. And, it must be said, at Christmas time it looks rather cosy too.