Elderly plan to cut back on heating the home

As winter approaches many consumers – particularly the elderly and those on low incomes – are thinking about how they will be able to afford to heat their homes, with energy bills at sky high levels. It is thought that millions will resort to heating just one room in the home in order to cut back their bills, as energy firms have failed to reduce their prices even thought the price of crude oil has fallen dramatically since the summer, plummeting by almost 50%.

Around four and a half million elderly consumers are expected to heat just one room in their home in order to cut back on the cost of energy usage over the colder months, and out of a survey of over 1200 consumers carried out by Help the Aged it was found that 25% would stay in bed in order to try and keep warm over this period. The government is now being urged to take further action to help those in this situation, with an increase in the number of people facing or already in fuel poverty.

One elderly consumers in a housing association property said: “The association is going to put in a new central heating system for me and that should hopefully keep the costs down a bit more, but for now I plan to stay in my bed under the covers if it gets too bad. You feel the cold a lot more when you get older and sometimes it gets to the point where you think ‘I’ll either eat or I’ll heat’.”

A spokesperson from Help the Aged said that the government was not doing enough to help people like this.

She said: “Every single day the situation gets worse. The government measures do not match the scale of the problem. It’s about examining, as a whole, energy efficiency, the money people actually have and the cost of fuel.”

Tags: bit, Elderly plan, single day, fuel costs, elderly