Thermostat at 18 degrees

Our house is old, cold, damp, large single glazed sash windows and prone to mildew. Mould removal spray is on repeat buy!

Someone advised us to never let the heating go below 15, so it never goes below this and sometimes, in the middle of the night, it clicks on.
In the daytime, we set it to 17/18 and 19/20 from 6 to 11 then it's turned down to 15 when we go to bed.

It seems to be making a difference. Hope so, anyway.

I'm with you godmum.

Many of us grew up with just a coal fire in one room but we live in the here and now, those days are long over. I didn't like being cold when I was a kid and always vowed to have decent heating when I had my own home. Who wants to be without it? When I woke this morning, quite early, it was a bit too hot here, even for me, but that is soon sorted; I turned the temperature down a bit and opened the window a little more. It's now very pleasant. No doubt I will turn it up again tonight.

I am not sure that where you grew up makes a difference. I grew up in a house with ice on the inside of the windows despite using oil stoves The heat was one open fire, no hot water apart from what was heated on the cooking stove, and I still like to be cosy. Quite a lot of my adult life was spent in the hotter places in thr world, usually without air conditioning and that had its own challenges.

Sounds fine to me but I come from a long line of freakishly over-heated women AND I’m post-menopausal. I also grew up in a cold
draughty old cottage with no central heating so I’m used to putting on another layer when I get cold. I only recently found out that having the heating on night is even a thing! The radiator in my bedroom is switched off at all times and I sleep with the window open every single night. If I could harness the heat I generate every night I reckon I could single-handedly solve the world’s energy crisis!

How do you cope in the summer when it is 21 degrees?

I think some people can regulate their body temperature better than others. Our thermostat in the UK is set at 16 degrees. We spend part of the year in Australia where this year the temperature hit 47 where we were. We coped perfectly well.

Far too hot. Max 16 in our house

In the grand scheme of things 18 degrees is not, by any stretch of the imagination, hot. It is warm at most.

For sitting still in a warm jumper 16 degrees isn't very warm for most people.

We had 16 degrees here today, but it was very windy and I needed to wear a coat when I went out.

How do you cope in the summer when it is 21 degrees?

Far too hot. Max 16 in our house

(A quote of @celticprincess should have been here)

That's definitely true. It just seems to me that the OP is overacknowledging this part - trying to divide people to those who like colder and warmer home setup (see "polar bears") without realising that some of the 17 degrees people would be freezing in some of the 19 degrees houses.

Ours is set at 22, sometime 23 if the weather is cold. I think it depends on where your thermostat is located and how efficient your heating system is.

We have it at 18, and with the doors closed the rooms are comfy at 16 (DD will take off layers of clothing at that). Used to have it at 22 as my mum does, but with the costs we kept dropping it 1 degree a year, 18 feels great

Ours is 20 downstairs and 18 upstairs.

That is ideal for us 18c .
we set our thermostat to that and wear warmer clothes inside ( I mean a jumper and socks with slippers , I don’t mean I’m bundled up in thermals and an oodie )

It also the same number on a thermostat doesn’t have the same response to each person’s individual body. I’ve sat in a room freezing cold whilst someone next to me removes a layer as they’re too hot. We are all different.

Or, maybe, you can accept that the same number on the thermostat doesn't lead to the same resulting temperature at different parts of different homes.

Ah but on MN if you don’t like your house too hot or you are competitively under heating, see also if you don’t eat as much as someone else or anything else that goes against the accepted grain of some people’s lives.

This - the effectiveness of the boiler is key. Before we had ours replaced last year, we were having to crank ours up to 20-21 to feel warm enough. It was 25 years old, and finally gave in. Since the new boiler was fitted, we've rarely had to go above 18.5.

Mine ranges from 16 - 18. Very rarely above. I can't bear warm bedrooms as it hinders sleep but I do feel the cold more than most people. I layer up and I do run a log burner too on the weekend.

That's basically outdoors temperature! Where we'd be wearing coats. This would make me so miserable. Are you sure it's that temperature?

Ours isn’t on a timer, we just turn it up from 10 until it clicks on if we’re chilly. Never at night time though and the bedroom windows are open all year round.

20 and off at night and bedroom window ajar. Very modern house.

It really depends on how well insulated the house is. We completely renovated ours and it is toasty at 19 I find. Used to have the heating set to 22 before.

But if you are well insulated 18 is fine when you are dressed in layers or walking around doing jobs. If you are sitting down watching telly I prefer to be warmer.

The heating engineer who fitted our new boiler said 16 to 18 degrees is ideal. We have a log burner so our is on for a couple of hours at 16 it's hot enough for us