Wibu to 'forget' dh's food ?

[IamSantaClaus]

Dh and I have a bit of a battle with the heating in our house . I have inflammatory arthritis and tend to be more sore when it's cold. I also take beta blockers which make my hands and feet cold.

I had started setting the heat to come on at 5am so everybody isn't getting up in the freezing cold . I asked dh to set it last night and he just didn't ( deliberately ) dcs and I are now freezing.

It's a bit of a silly thing to be annoyed about but it has really annoyed me . The house takes forever to heat up.

Wibu to 'forget' the food dh likes when I do the food shopping today? Too petty?

If you have to get up to DS in the night, can you go down and change the timer?

thank you moln!

I grew up in Ireland. I can remember taking my school uniform down to the kitchen with siblings to get dressed there because we had a "SuperSer" in the kitchen. In retrospect it was the late 70's / early 80's so I guess the height of the oil crisis but my god it was miserably cold.

This is interesting but debatable whether it is worth sharing with your husband. Mine would just suggest I get more exercise!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33760845

I think you should still forget to buy his favourite food though. ...... say you are saving money to make up for the extra heating.

putting the heating on 2 hours before you get up seems a bit excessive, like someone else said we put ours in 15 mins before we get up and it seems fine. I appreciate you get pain because of your condition - sounds like your compromise is the way forward for you.

It's weird because most people, especially those sensitive to the cold, know how long it takes their particular house to warm up.

The house takes forever to heat up.

Now, I doubt she meant forever literally. But I'm guessing she meant something more than a quarter of an hour.

But yes, fantastic that her husband got his way and his sick wife will be confined to bed waiting for her hot water bottle like an old lady.

Except he didn't get his way . The heat is going on at 6 . I usually get up at 7.. Unless dcs are up earlier .

App controlled heating is only as expensive as you make it. You can get basic app controlled thermostats for around £70, the age of your boiler is rarely a factor.

We've just replaced ours with a Tado system (I also suffer with my joints). DH fitted it and it controls both heating and hot water. To fit it he replaced the thermostat in the hall and the clock in the airing cupboard (he's no electrician, it's not a difficult job though). Our system came in around £200.

We've immediately noticed the difference. It used to come on in a morning and at night. Now the boiler fires a few times a day but keeps the house to 18 degrees. Overnight it drops to 10 degrees. Added to this the system tracks our phones and knows when we've gone out, it then lowers the heat to compensate. If it sees any of us coming home, it warms the house ready.

According the app we're saving money. I guess we'll find out properly when the first bill comes in.

You can rent Tado, just for heating it's something like £8 a month and if you decide to buy it the rental you've paid is deducted.

sorry BathtimeFunkster but no ones house takes 2 hours to heat up. if it does they have big issues with their house.

Maybe they have big issues with their house.

Some houses take 2 hours to get warm enough for people with arthritis in the coldest part of winter.

Some husbands want their wives to be comfortable and happy.

All sorts of strange things in the world.

Peggy, given that the OP lives in the house, and is the person who suffers with a painful medical condition which is exacerbated by the cold, don't you think that actually the OP might have a better idea than you how long her house takes to reach a comfortable temperature for her?

No one's house takes 2 hours to heat up

Actually some do. Old houses can and do, particularly those built of stone. Our house is old and while most of it is quite warm (brick and timber), the kitchen has very thick stone walls and is like a bloody icebox. The stones seems to radiate the cold and no matter what we do it returns to its natural state of absolutely perishing within moments of the heating going off for the night. It also takes ages to warm up too.

Have you not explained that a personal care carer to assist you with getting dressed and a cleaner for your contribution towards the household tasks is far more expensive than heating?

I have similar health issues to OP and DH and I have had to compromise a lot with heating. He hardly feels the cold. I feel it a lot. We both realised that neither of us has the right 'scale'. So our house is heated to a temperature slightly too cold to me and slightly too warm to him. DCs are generally ok as they run about and could also easily put another layer on. This has taken us years of negotiation though! After a lot of him forgetting to set the thermostat in the morning we were thankfully able to get a new digital thermostat so the settings are locked in - also handles variable temperatures so the temperature is kept lower at times we're not about/overnight but at agreed temperature at other times. Won't solve OPs issue though!

My friend lives in a Victorian house. All the things that make it beautiful - wooden single glazed windows, high ceilings, also make it freezing. They are away a lot for work, and to get it warm when they return takes days. There's also a point at which houses seem to settle in to the cold - where it gets right into the walls for example when they have been kept very cold for a long time. In those cases, it can take ages to heat up.

OP, I suggest you tackle this with a combination of firmness and science. I suspect your DH is the type who thinks that a little cold never did any harm, and that you can just put on an extra layer, and by the way, when they were young the water inside the house froze over and blah blah blah de blah blah. Actually, there is a lot of proof that houses that are too cold have serious negative effects on health - there is NICE guidance on this, and guidance from Public Health England, which would be well worth downloading for him to read. Alongside condition-specific information for your own illnesses, this should be enough to convince him that his attitude towards the temperature is unreasonable.

I also suggest a conversation about whether there are things you can do to insulate your house further, and to save some money on bill this way. There are government grants for things like more efficient boilers, external/internal wall insulation etc that are well worth checking out. Thinking about fuel efficiency whenever you do a home improvement can pay dividends in the long run. Simple things, like a really insulating underlay under flooring can make a huge difference to both bills and comfort.

for you. Being cold when you are not feeling great is miserable.

Could you get an electric blanket, to start to warm you before you get out of bed?

They're very low-cost now.

Can you also stress to your DH the impact of mould and damp in houses which are unheated? It will be an additional cost if he has to get rooms redecorated because of the damp created by no heating in a morning when people are using the shower.

How miserable for you

I read on mumsnet a while ago a really good way of understanding this type of stuff:

That your partner is limited as he cannot see your/ others needs if he isn't experiencing the same. So, he isn't cold = you cannot be cold therefore are whining/ making it up. Likewise if he's not hungry = you are greedy, he's not upset = you are hysterical etc etc

I'm not putting it very well but it struck a chord with me when I read it

Moln that clip was very funny

I am glad you have reached a good compromise, op and I hope you feel warmer in the mornings now.

I get freezing fingers and feet (probably Reynauds) and my DH is really really thoughtful, and keeps the main rooms warm and toasty for me, and will bring me a hot water bottle and drinks.

What he does to save money is turn off radiators around the house to save money, meaning that some of the rooms can get like a damp Siberia if I don't put them back on. And if the doors to those rooms are left open, the whole house has a much lower average temperature, which defeats the object, grr.

I have the same problem, but a different condition. It's miserable at this time of year if you can't get your home warm. Our house is notoriously difficult to heat - the people we bought it from couldn't keep it warm downstairs, nor the people before them. We can't either, even when we have the central heating on 24/7, the kitchen and sitting room are cold, sometimes very very cold, even when shutters or curtains are kept closed for weeks!

I have bought halogen heaters. They are ugly and horrible; as they are halogen they are extremely bright, which makes them even more horrible, but they take the edge off the cold. If you switch it on and have it quite close to you, pointing at you, you'll probably be OK until heating can take over.

It'll add a bit to the cost of heating, but then dh recoups that by having the ch off!
Or
On the other hand, he could put the ch on and save on the heaters!

One way or the other, it's win/win

I'd tell dh that i was too sore to do the food shopping due to lack of warmth and send him instead. Bet he won't turn the heating off again.