Parents house is 9 degrees

[rottencabbage]

My parents think it is perfectly normal to have a house this cold. They have one very small room that they heat up to a good temperature and then the rest of the house is absolutely freezing.

Does anyone else have parents like this?

I grew up in a cold house. No central heating, only some rubbish storage heaters upstairs, a Rayburn in the kitchen and a wood burner in the living room. We often used to wake up to ice inside the windows in winter. I now live in a centrally heated house but hate it to be too hot upstairs. In fact, none of the radiators are on in the bedrooms. Downstairs is toasty though. 9° is very cold in the living areas.

Isn't bad for your health to have the house this cold? And for the house too, for mould and condensation?

DM used to do this until dsis and I told her some cold, hard truths about why nobody ever stopped by to visit her.

I worked with someone whose house is like this. No money worries, thousands in savings, just tight!!!

There are a lot of silly people around as regards heating. I hope they are prepared for damp problems in their property.

Suggesting Keir Starmer wants old people dead is ludicrous 🙄

That is far too cold, I think.
We keep ours over 16C and then turn it up when we are home.

The cold adds to the risk of stroke and heart attack as blood thickens.

It's not the great and good thing or sign of health or virtue some believe it is.

My exIL’s. I always remember one Christmas Day exH telling them to switch it on as it was Arctic and felt warmer outside than in their house. ExMIL is obsessed with her heating bills.

My parents house was always toasty.

That's insane, I didn't think a house can get this cold. Miserable life.

@rottencabbage nah, it needs to stay at 25!! even took the thermostats off the radiators in the big bathroom and the dining room so hubby couldnt turn them down. (he doesnt know how to put them on and I dont tell him) my bathroom toilet seat is lovely and cosy! the sink is warm to touch and the floor is warm on your bare feet all just with the heat from the radiator! had a power cut a few years ago lasted over 36 hours and the laminate floors took days to warm up again!

The cold is more dangerous, especially to people over 50. It is a risk factor in stroke and heart attacks.

Hospitals have germs because of inadequate cleaning and resistant bacteria, coupled with building materials that make adequate cleaning possible. Surgical and recovery areas are generally kept significantly cooler than wards/rooms but rooms are warm because there are medical risks to cold.

Get her an electric heated pad or throw

Nine is tropical compared to the temperature my house i grew up in was. it was 5-13 degrees inside all year round! i dont want to sound like a CF, but for some of us heating is a luxury- Merry Christmas everyone :)

Also, @BrendaSmall children years ago had a horrible time of it in cold houses.

The cold made asthma worse, and chilblains were a curse. Cold allied with damp was a recipe for developing pleurisy and pneumonia if you cauggt a cold, and serious asthma attacks thanks to mould growth amd cold air itself. Cold indoor temps weakened immune systems.

Cold houses are definitely not the character builder/ booster to health you are implying they are.

Absolutely.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/01/cold-homes-will-cost-childrens-lives-and-cause-long-term-damage-warn-experts

I was also raised in a cold house.

It's not a "modern" thing that everyone wants a warm home. It's been a thing since the 1970s for the vast majority of people and well before that for people with scullery maids to light fires. I'm sitting in jeans and a jumper in my sitting room that is heated to 21°. It is very comfortable.

Why? Financial reasons?
It must be miserable

But what's it like going from room to room? Or to the toilet?

Do you just not feel the cold?

I remember our house being warm in the evening, but I also remember my mother wearing a hat and gloves in bed during the day and lots of blankets.

When my dad got older he became really mean with the heating, nearly would say a prayer before asking him if I could turn it on, the last straw was while staying over, waking up and putting all my clothes on.

One of my brother's is very similar, you can see your breath in his house and the cold whipping at your legs. He swears that it's not cold, told to put on extra jumpers and a coat, basically your outdoor clothes too sit in his house.

This can be life threatening for older people. They may not feel the cold as much, but they are more susceptible to hypothermia. 9 degrees is far too low for health and safety.

Half the people I know live like this, its expensive (and some would say wasteful) to heat a whole house, esp if you are basically going to sit in one room.

Gonna say this would be an LTB from me

I was born in the 50s so I had a bedroom with ice on the inside.

We all had bedwarmers (which would be illegal now - a lightbulb in a huge cage!) and winceyette bedding and great big eiderdowns and a candlewick bedspread. Getting up was miserable

We were one of the first to get central heating - with a coal fired boiler.
Nobody liked being cold!

When my dc were younger, our boiler broke completely and I couldn't afford to replace it. We had a whole winter of no heating or hot water. We used to boil saucepans to make a v shallow bath!