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?

9 does seem very low. We have the heating on for 2 or 3 hours in the morning and evening and our house is generally around the 16 or 17 mark. We light the fire if the external temperature is due to be under 5.

We don’t hold back on giving the heating an extra hour here or there if we’re cold - although honestly I prefer sitting under a blanket.

My bedroom radiator is turned down to 0 as I can’t bear a stuffy bedroom, and I would love to have the window open but my husband feels the cold more than me. We have piles of blankets on the bed so it’s super cosy!

Out of interest what kind of property is this? My friend has a stone cottage and that gets to 12 at its coldest o this seems incredibly low to me

It's a mindset thing. Poverty, cold, being tight with money, thinking it's all normal.

I refuse to live that. Generally. Our heating is set to 19.

That is not how any of that works!

Kids used to die from cold, houses used to be black with mould. "Failed to to thrive" covered a lot of sins.

And people come out of hospital with bugs because ya know, it's a massive building filled with sick people.

And pretend that they're not cold.

I bet the OP's parents wear coats, etc, when it's below 10° outside.

You could buy a couple of oil filled radiators and let them run.

9 degrees is very low! Is their bedroom and bathroom also unheated?

I don't think there is anything wrong with shutting off the parts of the house that you're not using in winter, so long as they are adequately ventilated to prevent mould. My parents don't heat half of their upstairs rooms as they can be shut off easily and are not used. They leave the windows open a little for ventilation and have no problems. We don't heat our utility room and boiler room because they are not well insulated and it seems wasteful.

The rest of our house is heated to 18 degrees with a log burner in the sitting room. The heating goes off completely overnight and during the day when the children are at school. I WFH and usually just layer up, although the temperature rarely drops below 16 as the house is well insulated.

I had quite an argument with a midwife after my first child was born as she insisted our house was too cold at 20 degrees. IIRC I was wearing a vest top as I wasn't used to having the heating so high! We had an Egg thermometer which she insisted was broken so I showed her the room thermostat and she said 'I don't care what it says I am telling you it is too cold'. DS had a light cardigan over his babygrow and she said he shouldn't have to wear layers to keep warm indoors. She refused to leave until I had put the heating up to 22 before she left the house. The NHS advice at the time was 16-18 degrees in a bedroom and 18-20 degrees in other rooms. She kept her coat on the whole visit and was obviously cold. I think there's quite a lot of variation in how we experience air temperature!

Didn't you immediately order some electric heaters?

People have routinely had central heating since the 80s, though. Which is 40 years ago now.

I think it's fine if you are using that room most of the time. Saves a lot of money!

It's like 'Who Had the Cheapest Wedding?' Top Trumps.

Yes. Our main room is in the 70F (sorry can't do degrees C) and the rest of the house is much lower.

Why heat rooms you don't use?

The main problem is that those of us in our 60s know the value of money.
Heat costs.

If I didn't heat my flat it'd be black with mould. That's not saving money.

Do you wear a coat, if it's 6° outside?

Ohh, 'heat costs', does it @FelixtheAardvark ??

Well, thank Christ you're here! 🙄

And some of us in our 60s love a well heated house. Had to actually ask the husband to turn it down a bit. 😁

Yes and you’ll find because hospitals are so hot, germs/infections breed and people come out of hospitals with more than they go in with!

our house where we lived years ago only had an open fire in the lounge and it was so damp you could see it running down the walls even the wall where the chimney breast was.

my eldest daughter was very ill and she had a whole in her heart, we lived there for 14 years

Our house is usually around 12 degrees. If we have the heating on for a few hours it goes up to 15 but costs us over a fiver so we just wrap up warm really. Very old large draughty house with 12 foot ceilings so all the heat is probably on the ceiling!

Sounds grim to me. I’m 48 and have never not had central heating!

@aliceinawonderland What use would electric heaters have been when we had no electricity?
The reason the central heating wasn't working was because it needs electricity to fire it up. And we had a 4 day power cut.

Fekkin hell. Outside its 10 degrees here.

Parents are similar but we also have a baby to keep warm. They end up removing the layers off the baby as they are apparently overheating. Jolly well not when everyone is wearing multiple layers!
Tip of my nose is cold and a cough has worsened. Can’t bear to get undressed and dressed!