A woman has taken to TikTok to claim she has managed to live without heating for four years - by using a very unconventional method.
Klaire de Lys told her 64,000 followers that she puts bricks in her oven to keep her house warm during winter.
The process involves placing three bricks in the oven whenever she cooks. She then using these to keep her home toasty instead of putting the heating on.
To get the bricks in and out the oven, Klaire purchased a cookie cooling rack from Poundland which she places them on.
In the short clip, Klaire told viewers: "One of the things that I do every winter, is whenever I'm cooking in the oven, or at least at the beginning of winter, what I do is I get three bricks and I put them on a stand like this.
"I just use one of those wire cookie trays, just one from Poundland, they're not expensive."
She said: "The reason I put bricks in the oven is because those bricks heat up during the cooking."
However, this can be a very dangerous hack if you don't use the right type of brick.
Firebrick or refractory brick are designed to withstand higher temperatures – whereas regular bricks will crack and explode.
Klaire advised her audience to make sure that the bricks they use are not wet, as this could cause an accident. She also warned against using stones or rocks.
"Then when you're finished cooking and you've turned everything off and opened the door, those bricks are hot and will keep the heat a lot longer than the actual oven," she said.
"It might only be an extra 15/20 minutes of heat radiating out but when you don't have any kind of central heating, those 20 minutes make a huge, huge difference."
TikTok users rushed to the comments to share their thoughts on Klaire’s money saving hack.
One user said: “Brilliant! My son actually collects bricks so they'll get a good use now”
While another added: “Thank you, very smart, more ideas please.”
But the response wasn’t entirely positive, as some were sceptical about whether or not the idea actually saves money in the long run.
One user said: “This isn't saving you anything. The bricks make your oven take longer to heat up. If you want to use your oven to heat your place, just turn it on.”
Another agreed, saying: “You'll be using more energy to get the oven to temperature and keep it there, so this won't save you any money.”
Some users offered their own suggestions on better ways to save.
"Make a huge pot of soup for the week, and just add ingredients through the week. The bigger the pot, the longer it continues to heat and humidify", said one user.
While another suggested: "If you have a bathtub, especially a cast iron tub, and you take a bath, don't drain the water til it reaches room temperature, it will radiate heat."
