or is 13 degrees a warm enough home.

[BlackBag]

DH does n't feel the cold. So we have the Spring duvet (8 tog) on the bed and never the whole thing.

The kitchen thermostat is 13 degrees and the woodburner get the sitting room up to 16 sometimes.

The children run around and don't seem to feel it. The cold makes me sluggish, irratable and depressed. If I'm running around tidying up it's ok but once I sit down at the lap top or to read a book I feel like my brain is grinding to a halt during the winter time.

DH is a DIY kind of person but tends to ignore all advice to fit extra radiators or get a proper plumber in to get the ones we've got work properly.

AIBU to want a warmer house.

There was a woman on a BBC2 show last week who was freezing all the time, because her husband didn't feel the cold, yet he was in charge of their woodburning boiler.

I was so pleased when she decided enough was enough, and learned how to manage the boiler herself.

Practical tip: When I was skint, I found that sticking a hot water bottle down the front of a pair of dungarees did the trick!

YANBU, I seriously wouldn't be ale to live like that. I have raynauds and it has to be warm at home 20+ and 16 at night plus a duvet and pyjamas. I usually wear 2 tops, jeans and furry slippers. DH is the opposite he gets very flustered by the heat but just walks round with no top on .

When it's too chilly I'm like you OP, sluggish irritable lethargic and can't do anything as I'm permanently huddled next to the radiator.

It's expensive heating our house but for me it's not a luxury it's a necessity as it's about quality of life.

I'm rarely hot, even in summer!

Blackbag you don?t get a second go at enjoying life, so if you can afford it, do something about it, and ask your husband if he really thinks it?s acceptable for you to live like this if there's a choice?
We're heating to 13 through difficulties, and it's no fun.

Zukicat be careful, 9 degrees and lower is the potential for indoor hypothermia. We?re in trouble too, and two years ago I learnt that lesson the hard way.

If you?re on Income Support, Pension Credit, income-related ESA or income-based JSA, and owe a reasonable amount on your fuel bill, DWP can take weekly deductions from your benefit and pay them directly.
It?s called Fuel Direct, and is part of the Third Party Deduction Scheme. It covers gas / electricity you?re using and an amount towards the arrears. If you?re on any of the above, or are in the future, please apply to the DWP, they make the decision, (not the energy co, who may claim it?s up to them, it?s not) based on your income, not the amount owed, and determine fair amounts, always lower than fuel companies direct clawback arrangements.

Btw, cheaper to run an electric blanket for 10 mins before bed, than heat the room. Initial outlay is £20, but it does pay for itself.

A (supermarket) silver survival blanket £2, slid between sheets and duvet/cover, and a hot water bottle, make a massive difference, and it might look daft but a headscarf or hat in bed, also makes a huge difference, and heat sealed polythene on the windows (£5 1 big window, or 2 smaller ones) pays for itself.

Hang on in there, spring is on it's way. :-)

There was a story in the paper last week about a 30 year old mum of two who died of hypothermia after the heating had been turned off in her block. So please be careful and keep warm!

Our house gets warm quick and when its warm its very warm our CH is NEVER about 15.

our house is 14 degrees atm, which is quite warm compared to most days recently.

We just can't afford to run the heating much more tbh. It's nice and warm in the living room in the evening when the fire is going but pretty nippy everywhere else.

Doesn't bother the kids and dp and I just layer up.

Makes you thin apparently so at least there's a silver lining

That is freezing. My DH would be sectioned by me if he thought that was a reasonable temperature for a house in winter!!!

Today's news is that girls do best in classrooms of 24C and boys 20C another reason to avoid mixed education.

I have it as warm as I feel comfortable but then I don't have a husband

This evening's temperatures are

Kitchen 14
Sitting Room 16
Bedroom 14
Attic 15

After a Code BLUE warning was issued to DH yesterday, our marriage has thawed slightly by his acknowledging that there is an issue and something has to be done. I am back in charge of the multifuel stove and it's had a lot of coal today.

Xenia - 24/20c actually that sounds scarely lying on the beach hot, does n't that make everyone drowsy?

Thank you everyone you have cheered me up, glad to hear Porth that my DH is not the only amatuer heating engineer.

And I think we can all agree that it is so much easier not having any money when it's warmer. Spring is on it's way here, there are lots of snowdrops out.

Just as an aside, it's really not a good idea to install your heating system yourself if you're not trained or qualified (or for an unqualified DH to do it either). There can be all sorts of issues with carbon monoxide plus other dangers when you go fiddling with heating or anything else involving combustion. Found this out the hard way as the previous owner of my house (an architect) had installed the system himself.

Xenia I hated being in a warm classroom at school. I couldn't concentrate. I did much better when I moved to a very old school with few windows and thick stone walls.

If on a pre-payment meter you may want to try changing (if you can) to Ebico - same rate per unit no matter how you pay. V. unfair how all the other electric/gas companies penalise those who can least afford to pay more.

I remember my mam had one of them old meters that you put 50p in. We always knew if she had no money or had ran out of 50p's because on a morning the table was plonked in front of the electric cooker with the door open. We always had nice warm crouchet wooly blankets on the bed under a quilt and suffered no ill effects.

Do you have cavity wall insulation BlackBag? Since we had our walls insulated, and more insulation put in the loft, the house rarely gets very cold - for example, today the boiler is broken and it's still 15 in the kitchen and 12 in the (always very cold) bathroom.

Blackbag The whole point is that this is making your life a misery. There is no point to being cold is there? None as far as I can see anyway. What suits your DH doesn't suit you, so you need to meet each other in the middle somewhere. 13 sounds way too low to me, even though you say the children don't feel the cold. Maybe you just need a bit of extra heating in the room YOU are in, then everyone else is happy and you don't feel miserable. Can't come up with anything cheap I'm afraid, but what about a small electric heater? Find the cosiest room, the smallest one anyway and just heat that to give yourself a bit of relief.

My mil has an oil filled radiator which is cheap to run and gives off a lot of heat. You turn them off and they stay warm.

I thought I didn't mind the cold and it was fine to just put on another jumper, til I started living with my husband and he turned the thermostat up. I didn't realise that every winter I was just tense accross the shoulders and grumpy and miserable from being cold and spending half the day surgically attached to the luke-warm radiators. Being warm is relaxing.

Ironically, he is from a very cold country. However, they always have a wood-burner or very large radiators in their houses, and would never let them get as cold as this. Having friends wear their coats on when they visit (as my mum's do) would be considered the height of rudeness, and they would all rather live in one or two nice warm rooms than an entire cold house with everyone in separate freezing bedrooms.

I agree an electric blanket is the cheapest way to sort the nightime out.

Ours sometimes goes down to 12 or 13 during the day - if I'm at home on my own I don't bother putting the central heating on. If I feel a bit chilly I just move around and do a bit of tidying or something, or cuddle the dog who is an enormous furry beast and doesn't seem to mind the cold! We never have it above 18 at any time, personally I much prefer being a bit cold to being too warm and stuffy, find it quite unpleasant when we go to say the ILs house and they have theirs up to 25+!

You need a nice warm duvet to snuggle up in at night though! DP and I actually have separate duvets in the winter which works quite well.

24 degrees in high humidity is very different from 24 deg. in low humidity, dry air climate. 24 degrees is usually fine in California, but 24 degrees in England quite often "feels" too hot, and I say that as somebody who "feels" the cold!

i always feel the cold and hate it :( sleep with 15tog duvet and often dh toss's it off and i have 30togs :)

summer goes down to 5 and im fine then

depends on house, ours is 3 bed semi and warm on 17/18 - also have concrete walls so warm in winter and cool in summer

if under 15 then CH and HW wont come on

works thermastat is on 23/25 to keep house warm

but if YOU are cold then you need to sort out the radiators or increase the thermastat or find a new dh

I second the Ebico suggestion. IIRC, they're a social equity company, whose aims are equal access to fuel for people on low incomes. When I had a prepayment meter, I used Ebico.

At 13*C I wouldn't leave the bed in the morning!! I'm in the 20+ group (day or night)- hate being cold, hate having to wear multiple layers in my own house. Although grew up in South Africa so am used to the warm.

My dad is worse than me tho - when living in canada he turned the heating up enough so that he could wear shorts in winter.

13 degrees is not warm enough.

My mother died of hypothermia last February. Admittedly it was one of the coldest weekends in Northern Ireland and she lived in the middle of nowhere BUT...her house was only 10 years old with full central heating, a Rayburn in the kitchen and double glazing.

Unfortunately, like some of the husbands featured in this topic, she felt it was ridiculously soft and silly to heat the house properly. She assured everyone that she'd lived through the war when fuel supplies were short and everyone just "got on with it". However, during the war she was a young, very active woman with a fascinating and busy job and all these things kept her warm.

I am still shocked that someone bright, witty and altogether "all there" like my mother could have basically killed herself with cold. Her friends remain devastated since they'd made sure her heating worked and that she could afford plenty of fuel. But you can't legislate against bloody-mindedness.

I also have a Rayburn which heats a comfortably sized house perfectly as well as double glazing and roof insulation. Neither me or DP boil ourselves at home but for sure, we refuse to endure cold for the sake of it. Since my mother's death I have become even more determined to live in comfort and certainly I am very much more aware of the dangers of hypothermia which, until her death, I'd tended to assume was something suffered by polar explorers and old people that nobody cared for.