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Posted to uk.d-i-y
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Gas fires in Bedrooms / upstairs rooms?
On 24/02/2018 12:54, David wrote:
On Fri, 23 Feb 2018 23:28:11 +0000, Max Demian wrote:
On 23/02/2018 22:30, wrote:
On Friday, 23 February 2018 20:26:17 UTC, Max Demian wrote:
Only modern namby-pambies would leave the gas fire on when they are in
bed. Bung another blanket on.
Just been reading a book about post-war working-class housing, and it
suggests that a cottage can have a fireplace in one bedroom for use as
a sick-room.
The other bedroom does without.
I can't remember the actual recommended temperatures for rooms (which
were in deg. Fahr.) but they were certainly a lot more bracing than
we'd expect today.
"Sitting down" temperatures were recommended to be a minimum of 65°F,
similar to modern recommendations of 18°C as a minimum - though I doubt
that the people who recommend this would put up with it. 70°F was always
reckoned to be a lot more agreeable, equivalent to 21°C.
Actually these were never considered to be needed in bedrooms, which
would usually be unheated.
Many houses up to WW2 had fireplaces in all the bedrooms, though I
expect only people with servants would have used them, and then only
when dressing in the morning. When I was young it was rumoured that
fires would be lit if anyone got sick, but I guess I never got sick
enough.
Interesting stuff.
Our 1896 house had fireplaces in every room.
Our 1930s houses; one (4 bed detached) we can't work out if there were
fireplaces upstairs that had been blocked up, the other one (3 bed semi)
certainly had fireplaces in the two main upstairs bedrooms (when we
extended we found some of the joists partially burned through around the
fireplace). No chimney near the little bedroom.
Childhood house ('30s or 40's?) showed no signs of an upstairs fireplace
at all.
So from personal experience I can't see a pattern.
"All electric" houses were the vogue from the 30s. Then they got their
first electric bill.
In the 60s newly built houses just had a coal fire in the main living
room and that was it.
--
Max Demian
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