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 thought my parents were bad with 13 degrees.

What I do is upon arrival I accidentally knock the thermostat up a couple of degrees. And then a couple more over the first 24 hours. About 18 degrees df will comment how nice and toasty the house is, and dm might take her gloves and scarf off round the house.
Then df notices the thermostat and turns it down again. I wait a bit and knock it up again.

It's a great game. I'm sure he knows I do it, and we get a pleasantly warm house without him losing his reputation of economy drive man. Win all round.

That one room is leaching the heat into the other rooms.

Much better to at least have other radiators on low

That must have been awful

I'd have been very grubby by spring!

I think we stayed cleanish 😁.

I remember our bodies acclimatised to the cold, so that if we went anywhere with heating, we would feel so insanely hot and sweat a lot.

I'm not doing it as a badge of honour. I can't bloody afford to have it on more.

My Granny’s house was like that. There was an open fire in the tiny living room, but that was it. We used to get ice on the inside of the bedroom window in winter. I loved staying there though.

I used large body wipes and I don't wash my hair.
I have extremely dry skin anyway and showers make my skin very itchy and prickly even when lukewarm and using non allergic products.
I'm lucky that my extremely dry hair only needs washing once a year, seriously !!

Mine is 24C day and night. 9C!! 🥶🥶🥶

We use large body wipes every day and deodorant. I don't react well to showers anyway,even when lukewarm and using dove soap I get itchy and prickly skin. My skin is extremely dry.
As for hair, I only wash it once a year, really !! It's very thick and dry,never gets greasy. I've done a sniff test and doesn't smell either.

“Some” elderly, so not generational. I’m definitely elderly, and I’d rather be warm than have savings.
My daughter doesn’t want to drain her savings either, and she’s young.
So I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with.

No but I'm very quick, toilet and hallway freezing, so quickly back to the living room fire , and bedtime , quickly jump into bed with electric blanket !!

My friend was proud that she didn’t put the heating on at all last winter. Then she discovered massive amounts of mould in her bedroom and bathroom, including all over her clothes and shoes. She ended up having to throw away a large part of her clothes including some that were very precious to her. She also has to do a lot of work to clean the mould away and dehumidify the house, and she learned her lesson. Heating’s on this year.

Our house is about 9 degrees before we get the fire going. Currently my living room is toasty but the bathroom is icy! Personally I feel like it’s normal but I haven’t lived with central heating, double glazing or insulation for many years.

I don’t believe this is about generational. None of my elderly relatives do this fortunately. It is very detrimental to your health.

generally it’s about money. Lack of. Or being tight.

I think it's a little bit of both - a generation thing shaped by exposure to poor heating. My parents house (my childhood house) only had heating in the downstairs rooms. It was an old heating system from the 1950's and the previous owner didn't approve of heated bedrooms so no radiators were installed on the upstairs floors. My parents couldn't afford to turn it on and run it, the house was essentially un-heatable. To keep warm we would gather around the aga in the kitchen. As a consequence I love a bit of heating having been deprived from it as a child but I can't sleep unless the bedroom is freezing and I can feel a draft on my face. My bedroom is like a Kate Bush video with the curtains flying in the breeze. My DP says it's unreasonable behaviour and a basis for divorce.... been saying that for 38 years though so I'm not particularly worried.

Yes, my parents do. Living room warm with a gas fire. Rest of house no heating at all. Freezing and has mould, damp

I challenge them 😆

I apologise if I made a generalisation of elderly there as not all are the same re their heating costs (tho a fair few are) You are quite correct that it can be the younger generation not heating due to financial constraints and not the older ones.

Growing up we only had heating via a fire in the living room and wood burning stove in the kitchen. As a child I had constant chilblains from going from a boiling hot living room to a freezing cold bedroom. As an adult, living in a normally heated house I’ve never had a chilblain. I also think the fire/stove caused throat problems for my family, it causes loads of dust/poor air. I really don’t understand why there is a fashion for open fires these days.

Whaaaat! I think anything under 16 is cold and I live in an old house. I actually cannot fathom 9c

Nine degrees?! Bloody hell, that's ridiculous. My husband and I are in our 60s and have the whole house at 19-20. The heating is on from about 7.30am to 9.30pm.

@SoulMole 😮Why?

I couldn’t visit a house this cold! And I certainly couldn’t live like that. We don’t work to be cold in our own home.

Stayed with MIL nearly 10 years ago. It was January, DS was 20 months. We'd gone to other family for a couple of days, and returned to her place - it was zero degrees in the house! Literally 0 on the thermostat. No heating on at all, and the back door wide open. DH ended up having a serious argument with her. We moved to a lovely warm hotel around the corner.

We don't have any form of heating in our kitchen, and we don't tend to use the central hearing anyway if we can avoid it. We live to a tight budget and keep the living room warm with the fire.