To think that if you keep your house at 16 degrees..

[PosyNarker]

You ought to tell your guests prior to a 'black tie dinner party'?

Somewhat inspired by a Good Housekeeping thread. I get that people are really struggling, but interested in the MN view because I'm visiting this friend shortly and he's now a lot better off!

I was invited to a dinner party by a good friend who is relatively, if not indecently well off (est £40k pa). He's was at the time single man in a rented flat.

Anyway, he invited a group of us round for aforementioned dinner party and given our social group it was all a bit tongue in cheek but people did dress up. He served goose (ffs), home made pate and a selection of wines. We also took some fairly decent wine given we knew what he was planning.

All very lovely except...he doesn't believe in spending money on heating. It didn't occur to me that he wouldn't turn it on, especially as he knows I'm a bit of a hot house plant, so I duly turned up in the LBD and sat in my coat all night.

AIBU to think that if you invite others over and keep your house at a radically different temp from 20-22 degrees, you ought to warn them in advance? Or not specify black tie?

I am going to visit him soon and wonder if I ought to be asking about the central heating before I go!? He's not particularly an environmentalist (although that's part of it), but he genuinely doesn't feel the cold the way I do (shorts for casual unless snowing, that type of thing).

40k is definitely not indecently well off. At all!

I doubt the difference between 16 and 21 degrees makes much difference to the survival of germs. And besides, being cold makes you more likely to succumb to a virus than being warm, why do you think we catch more colds in winter?

I think it's quite rude not to heat the house when you have guests - I always turn the thermostat up for them. Sometimes when it's windy the heating doesn't make that much difference and I have to get jumpers/blankets for people, but I do try to keep it warm enough. If we light the fire the living room is usually toasty.

I have been a) the friend who begs the hostess to turn the heating up (in my defence it was freezing, we were all wearing thin dresses and there were a 2 month old and a 10 month old in the house too), and b) the guest who goes to her bedroom, turns the radiator off, opens the window and pants. My SIL really feels the cold and wears padded quilted coats indoors, to the point where my PIL get silly about it and whack the heat up to about 25. I have been known to sneakily turn the radiators in the living room off because neither DH nor I could cope.

My thermostat is currently set at 18. The heating comes on early in the morning for us getting up, goes off at 7am once we leave the house. Comes back on at about 5.30 and goes off again at 7pm once DD is in bed. I do turn it on or light the fire during the day if we're here all day, though. I've got today off and when I got up the thermometer in the kitchen said 14.5, so I felt justified in turning it on!

Sorry - disappeared offline for a bit. Glad I was not being totally U. To be fair, he is a really good mate, so I did ask him to put the heating on and we have ripped the piss out of each other a bit since he also thinks 22 degrees is decadent

Everyone is a bit different, when I go to GPIL I need to open all the windows, shut off the radiators etc or I'll get no sleep. She is fairly elderly and feels the cold though, so I wouldn't ask her to turn down the heat in the whole house for us.

Oh and not sure why a few folks seems to think I think 40k is indecently well off. I earn more than that myself and I don't think we're indecently well off, just mentioned that it's not a money thing. I have visited friends I know to be skint and yes, I took the jumper and kept my mouth firmly shut about heating.