Not certain about significant battery storage in most homes. A small UPS perhaps for power cuts perhaps, but large batteries add risk, cost and complexity.

I very much doubt that power cuts will regularly exceed 15 hours a week.

A lot of consumers will have to wear warm clothes and use warm bedding.

broadgage said:

A lot of consumers will have to wear warm clothes and use warm bedding.

Just like we always did.

Agreed. I wear warm clothing in winter, sensible indoor winter clothing is in my view,

Wool socks with slippers or shoes.

Long trousers in thick warm material, or lightweight trousers and long underpants.

Long sleeved thick brushed cotton shirt with either a  vest under it or a wool jumper over it.

I also use warm bedding in winter. A sensible choice would be be

A padded mattress protector or a wool blanket under the brushed cotton bottom sheet.

A brushed cotton top sheet and three generously sized ALL WOOL blankets. At least one spare blanket.

Alternatively a well stuffed NATURAL FILLED duvet in a brushed cotton cover.

You mean that some people don't do that? 

Of course with traditional bedding one could adjust the number of blankets, but we have adjustable duvets: 4.5 and 9.0 tog and they button together to give 13.5 tog. And you forgot winter weight night attire including a hat.

If expeditionists can survive in the polar regions without heating, it should still be possible indoors in temperate climes.

Very much agree. There is no 'right' to have a centrally heated house at 20C in the depth of winter, nor really is there a need. Almost no-one had more than the room with the cooking fire at much more than outside average temp, and perhaps the front room on special occasions  heated, until the 1970s, to light a fire in the bedroom meant you were very ill.
The problem is that folk forget very quickly and have become used to a very soft existence.
M.

Highly recommend a brushed cotton duvet cover and sheets for use in the winter!  

That said (and I was brought up in a house without central heating or double glazing) we also need to remember that life expectancy is rather longer now than when "we were tough"...

I, like expect many posters here, am still lucky enough and "young" enough to have good circulation, any one here with elderly parents - and the experience of sitting a a sweltering living room with them - will know exactly what I mean.

Totally agree we should be making houses MUCH more energy conserving though. It's tough with the old housing stock we have in the UK though.

Can a put in a shout for solar water heating. My in-laws last house had it, and from early spring to late autumn spent no money on water heating whatsoever. Sadly despite our house having three slopes to its roof none of them are south facing...

Thanks,

Andy

Sensible reductions in domestic heating will hopefully not reduce life expectancy. Warm clothing and bedding is arguably now much cheaper in inflation adjusted terms than was the case decades ago.

£50 spent on electricity will keep you warm for about 50 hours (2kw heater at the soon to be price of 50 pence a unit) £50 spent on a decent wool blanket will keep you warm for THOUSANDS of hours. Nothing lasts forever, but a wool blanket should last at least ten years of moderately rough use.

Children in particular like blanket ponchos. This sort of thing https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/stuff-it/m.html?_trkparms=folent%3Astuff-it%7Cfolenttp%3A1&_trksid=p3542580.m47492.l71970

Agree, but not all of that rise in lifespan is down to domestic heating - some of it is better cancer treatments, better blood pressure tablets, and societal factors like less smoking and exposure to certain types of pollutant at home and at work.  Going back into the 1800s it will also be diet and  high infant mortality prior to running water and modern sanitation. But even there  has to be some loss of a few years from the peak it is not going to make the human race extinct in the apocalyptic way that some folk imagine to be coming. 

But I agree on aged parents and running the house like a sauna - I was  pleasantly surprised to find that my folks had actually turned the boiler off during the most recent heatwave, as normally whenever I visit we end up turning the rads off where we will be sleeping. In years past of course the old folk were in the chairs nearest the fireplace.
Mike

I can see that most of us agree on switching central heating down or preferably off to save fuel and dress for winter. 

But what about running your house off a DC supply possibly 4 large car batteries charged by solar or on windy nights using off peak?