R lives in a Victorian terrace house with three floors, privately owned.
The house has a Gas boiler, which provides central heating. If the boiler is working, that is all that is used. The house does not trap heat and the top of the house tends to be cold. Secondary glazing in the house is for sound proofing and helps to trap heat and provides some insulation.
Trapping of heat is the only challenge. We use it like a plug-in heater – the house does not all the time stay the same temperature – we adjust it in different ways – different floors and room are differently heated rooms.
My wife and I don’t disagree anymore in terms of what the indoor temperature should be but there was a time when we did, and then we adapted to each other’s body temperatures.
Most comfortable winter memory?
Most comfortable winter memory was a time in London when he had a smoke-less fire and I suppose that was a relief and a nice way of keeping warm – the central heating heats the air, but the fire heats the body.
Coldest winter memory?
That would be in the 60s as our family home had no heating upstairs and there was ice on the inside of the windows – 1963 was an exceptionally cold winter – and I was living in Gloucestershire in the countryside.