To tell MIL to go home!! Semi-lighthearted

[Omgstop]

NC for this!!😩 Ok so we have an air to water heating and air exchange system (newly built house) and MIL is staying over! She is VERY old school, wakes up EVERY morning and opens the bedroom window. I’m actually ok with this for 10mins etc but she tries to leave it open ALL DAY!!! I am blue In the face trying to explain to her that it is making our system work harder and that it is not needed!!! Everytime I close the window I come back an hour later and the bloody window is open AGAIN!! She is baffled as to how we can prevent damp etc!! I am fed up explaining that the system does it all!! That our house is pretty much airtight and that’s WHY it works so well, that’s why we have no damp, that’s why our house is an ambient temperature (except for when she leaves the flipping window open) I then notice a drop in temp and the heating system is clocking in unnecessarily. aibu to tell her if she doesn’t stop she can go home and open her own windows!! 😭😭😫 rant over!!

Oh I would hate not having my windows open and I am not old school!

Open the door and invite her to sit in the garden. Shut door.

@HollowTalk yes our bills are quite low 90 pm for everything in the winter. I’m the summer even less. We have had fire but the house is at 21 most days so we don’t need it (I only installed it because I wanted a focal point)

I stayed with friends with a house like this. It really is amazing. I hung up a soaking wet tea towel in the evening and by the morning it was dry as a bone - but the air didn't ever feel dry, there was no condensation, and we could choose the temperature of our bedroom. Fabulous. You just don't need to air it out. You can open the beautiful floor to ceiling doors and let the outside in, but it doesn't need 'airing' at all.

Surely in the Summer you can open windows when the heating system won't kick in?

We regularly open the bathroom window, but other windows this time of year-not really, tbh.

@lazymare I’m not talking about the summer the system is not even on In the summer months so we can have the doors open all we want. The south facing windows, high insulation, and heat retention in the house is so good that I’m glad to have the windows and doors open. In the summer, not in the winter however!

If your MIL is leaving in 3 days anyway this seems a weird thing to be getting so worked up about it.

Can you not just let it go for the sake of family relations? Clearly you understand the appeal of having a window open as you do it yourself (for shorter periods) and she doesn't have the benefit you do of understanding how the system works.

All those who 'just wouldn't like that' - that's great, don't get this system in your house! But when you're staying at someone else's and they've asked you not to do something because it is unnecessary either stop doing it or leave!

@OKBobble haha lol yes the garden! 😂

@leafinthewind EXACTLY!! I can put my towel on the floor and it dries on the underfloor heating 😂 but I normally hang it on the towel rail.

Summer is a different story!! The whole side of the kitchen opens up to the garden for that exact purpose I LOVE it!!

I think I'd also lock the window!

@diddl yes in the summer the doors can be opened all day because there is no need for the heating at all

We have this! No matter how many times as we tell people they insist on opening the window. And leaving it open all day! Then they'll whack up the underfloor heating to 26 degrees even though I explain it takes ages to come up to that and by that time they are too hot so open the windows! I think the solution is a guest flat with storage heating only!

The air does not ever smell stale when the filters are clean and the system working. I get the open window thing but in my house the air feels as fresh as if the window had been opened.

Jesus, I just have an ordinary combi boiler and radiators and your MIL leaving her window open all day would annoy me no end. Incredibly thoughtless to everyone else in the house who are cold as a result, quite apart from the heating bill that results from trying to heat the outdoors.

Sorry, do you mean that you have windows open all day in winter, when the central heating is on ?

@Hagird YES! It’s like it becomes a viscous cycle isn’t it 😩

@Omgstop I pay £87 p/m for both and still open all my windows. Is it really worth it?

@ScarletBitch it depends what’s sqm of your house??our house is over 2100sqm all on one level.Ours a max of 90 pm (actually 90.45 was our highest and the rest were all lower, and less in the summer (30-40). That’s actual so not estimated in anyway. No gas bill.

Sounds interesting and yes I would be annoyed if you have told her to keep the windows closed so the system works efficiently. To all those who say they would hate it, then don't install a system like that. It is rude to ignore an instruction from the host.

@threecee no I mean I don’t have them open at all (except 10 mins in the morning if I think of it)

Also it annoys me when people open the window when the heating is on. All the heat just goes out the window.

Surely you mean 2100sqf and not 2100sqm?

I get your frustration. My MIL used to get up and shut the curtains around 6 "in case someone looks in", even on a gloriously sunny day. There are barns down one side of the garden, fields on 2 and a high hedge on the other which is the only way anyone would go past. Why it would only matter if someone looked in after 6 was something I never fathomed.

I love open windows, summer and winter. But I would never behave this way in someone else’s house. She is displaying poor manners. However, she is a guest so you may just have to put up with it.

2100 sqf 😂😂