AIBU - heating for guests

[ifonly4]

Went to BIL's for Boxing Day and the house was freezing. They asked if we were warm enough, DH said he was a bit cold so they said they'd put the heating on low. We had our lunch in conservatory and in afternoon we noticed that we could see everyone's breath in the lounge. I then spotted a temperature gauge, 14c. AIBU, but this was far too cold for guests? Have to admit we tend to have temperature around 19c when we have guests.

I don't think it's got anything to do with money. We invited them here but BIL's wife loves entertaining and insisted we go to them. Food was lovely two choices, veggies, salad, bread and two pudds to choose from (better than what I'd have offered in all fairness), so it's not as if they'd invited us under pressure.

I'm feeling really very sad for those who can't afford to hear their homes adequately. I understand that everyone has preferences so not everyone wants a house which is 24degrees (like mine), but to be constantly cold through winter owing to lack of money makes me feel really unhappy.

I'm also very fortunate to live in a newish and well insulated house so my bills are relatively affordable. Life is really unfair for so many.

i'm no benefit so not much money there is a payment you can get from your energy company i didn't qualify but some on here maybe

I have the thermostat set to 16 at night, 20 to get up to, 18 during the day and 20 for the evening.

Am generally found under a blanket if I'm on the sofa.

I wistfully remember my first flat, which due to an 'anomaly' in billing meant I didn't get gas bills so the heating was on full from 8 am to 10pm and was nicknamed Barbados by my friends, it was shorts & t shirts at all times indoors and it was brilliant!

My friend is from India and although she likes the house at a reasonable 22 her DH likes it at 26! He has his own room with separate thermostat.

Hate being cold.
I would be mortified if my guests were cold.
Just but your bloody heating on Ffs.

Maybe they didn't want you staying too long! I tend not to hang around when I'm cold!!

14 degrees is freezing. Far too low unless you can’t actually afford to heat your house properly. In which case, I’d rather have baked beans and sit in a warm house than eat posh food and shiver.

We have heating on at 22 degrees, with a wood burner in the evenings and I go round with 2 jumpers and two other thin layers on all day in this cold weather (unless I’m doing something physical like cleaning). There’s nothing worse than being cold- really miserable.

@brizzledrizzle try an electric blanket. Turn it on maybe 30mins before bed, or at least before you brush your teeth, and you can turn it off anytime you like, so you don't wake up sweating in the night! We had these when we lived in an old Victorian house with single glazing, lots of draughts and no central heating. Love them.

When you are entertaining you are moving around, cooking, tidying, making drinks and you u are keeping warm that way. When you are being entertained you are generally sitting and chatting. Inevitably the entertainer is going to be plenty warm enough and the entertainer is gradually going to become colder. This is what we find anyway, so when going to others’ houses we make sure we have plenty of layers on. To open all the windows and leave the heating on low just because cooking makes you hot is bloody inconsiderate in my view.

*the entertainee is gradually going to become colder

Ours is on 25. why would you wanna freeze your butts off??

The thermostat setting you use depends entirely on where you site it!

Ours (portable hive one) is generally set at 18.5 & hangs on the hall wall, where it's quite cool; but we've had lots of people home & in & out of front door this week - the hall temp kept plummeting & the heating was on a lot based on that, even though the rest of the house felt ok.

So I moved it into a corner of the front room, which is always warmer anyway & unaffected by door opening, & in there I changed it up to 20 which meant the heating was on about as much as when it's at 18.5 in the hall

my thermo is set to go on if it goes below 14c. We cant afford heating on all day AND the tumble dryer to dry laundry. Im asthmatic and hanging damp clothes was a probable cause of my recurrent chest infections. 18mths with a dryer and the house is colder but my infections are only there with a really heavy cold that puts me in bed maybe once a year.

I did get a condenser dryer too so that lives upstairs and throws the heat out up there. Upstairs stays really warm. Downstairs not so much. The floor is the source of the cold That and poorly fitted DG doors that are really draughty. New year I'll fix that.

Just back from IL and it was Baltic. So cold I could not feel my toes. My son couldn't sleep on the inflatable mattress (whole other story) so I ended up there. Freezing room with a summer duvet. Never ever again.

Can't be arsed to read 7 pages of what everyone has their heating on so apologies if it's already been said.

15-16c here is plenty high enough as we have good insulation, 20c and I'd explode like a fucking hand grenade.

When I stay at my partner's, however, (ground floor flat, condensation and shit insulation) I'm always cold even when he whacks the temperature right up.

14?! no way. too cold. We have ours on at about 23 - more if we have guests with younger children. My inlaws have theirs on the bare minimum, then open the windows because 'us southerners' need the fresh air. And they keep wondering why we never come to see them....

Fuzzy
Where do you live?
It's quite hard for a house in the UK to get down to 8-9 degrees, unless it is (for example) a tiny detached - lots of outside walls and no insulation. Even stone houses tend not to cool down that much until later in the winter.
I don't doubt you, I'm just curious.

I wish I had a thermometer now to see the temperature here. Flat has weird wall heaters that are either on or off, no other option, but only in living room and bedroom so no heating at all in hall, other bedroom, kitchen, or bathroom. I hate a hot bedroom but without weird heater on it's so cold I'm too stiff to get up- arthritis dislikes the cold! With it on I overheat and struggle to remove things to cool down. Bloody annoying. I tend to sleep with t shirt, pjs, dressing gown with hood up and duvet with blanket over, snuggly but annoying. I couldn't have guests stay even if anyone wanted to, I'd either have to put them in frozen bedroom or in mine while I move out. I haven't worked out how much the weird heaters are costing me, I hope not too much.

I like to keep ours between 17-19 any higher and I find it uncomfortable however, I'm in a Canadian city with a dry cold (-30 today). I find the UK far colder because of the damp....so I think I'd find 14 (or 9c ) uncomfortable personally.

I'm due to visit some relatives in the next few days and will need to remember to take umpteen themal layers after the windows battle last year.

It's not normally a cold house, so I was wearing fairly normal clothing along the lines of jeans and a light jumper, but for some reason they kept opening the windows on the lounge and dining room to allow the wind to blast through from one end to the other. It was a damp 3ºC with wind chill outside and I was hunched up shivering. Every time I shut the bloody windows, they were opened up again within minutes. No extra layers available to put on.

I can tolerate 16-17ºC in the daytime if I'm moving around doing housework. For sitting for a prolonged period I will get cold extremities despite a penchant for thick hiking socks if it's below 20ºC. I need to move around to warm up and if I'm cold and not moving, reach the point that additional layers don't help. My fitness trackers show that days visiting relatives are significantly more sedentary than any other kind of day.

The problem with being a guest is that you're not moving and no extra clothing is available so it's much harder to warm up than in your own home.

I had a baby in the December that was frozen up from start to finish... DH kept coming home saying "you can put the heating on you know!" because it was barely reaching 15ºC in the lounge. In my imminently about to drop state I was perfectly comfortable about that temperature despite the fact I was barely dressed in the remnants of maternity clothing that barely fitted me. I was managing on a wardrobe of a couple of tops and leg warmers as even maternity leggings had become too uncomfortable to wear unless I had to go out into public. I accept that I was very anomalous that month! (I do wonder if DS is super-thermal shorts child on account that it was -8ºC the day he was born so.everything is warm in comparison )

I absolutely hate being cold, 14 degrees indoors is ridiculous. I would be so unhappy living in a freezing house, having to bundle up in a load of jumpers like the Michelin Man just to be able to sit still, shivering every time you take your clothes off in the bathroom, it makes me shudder just thinking about it. I can't relax when I'm cold, it's all I can think about and it's just miserable. I would be mortified if I invited people over or to stay and they felt cold and uncomfortable. We have an Aga and a wood burner downstairs and the central heating comes on automatically if the temperature gets below 22 degrees (thermostat lives in the hallway).

My favourite is when people don’t turn the heat on and also make you take your shoes off. Feet like ice, utterly miserable. I don’t visit those friends anymore.

14 degrees is too cold.
I used to have my thermostat set at 18 degrees - that was fine.
my sister has hers too hot - at 25 degrees - she seems to think she needs to wear a t-shirt indoors all year round

To be fair. Cooking and a hot kitchen you don't notice the temp. I'm always on the go and will open windows. Luckily I have friends who will moan at me to shut windows and turn the heating up!! I'd rather they were like you and suffered in silence though

My house is around 17c, but the bedroom often drops to about 14c. If I was having visitors though I would pop the heating on for longer