Which is worse: boiling hot houses or freezing cold houses?

[Sunhorse]

Inspired by the 'horrible experiences of being a guest' thread!

Obviously we all want houses we visit to be kept at our personal Goldilocks tempetature, but given the choice between staying in a house that felt way too hot or one that felt way too cold I'd go for hot every time.

If it's hot you can open windows in your room, sleep practically naked, or invent a task like emptying the bin to temporarily cool yourself down a bit. But a far too cold house just gets into your bones and it's impossible to warm yourself up once you're freezing, especially as when you're a guest you aren't moving about much.

YANBU : Too hot houses are the lesser of two evils
YABU: Too cold houses are the better of the two horrible options

Cold houses, as I can layer up. Hot houses make me feel ill.

Too cold, every time. Too hot and I start to feel stuffy, and can’t sleep. I always have cold feet and wear slippers all the time, I’m a “cold” person but would rather warm myself up & feel cosy than try to cool myself down in a hot house.

I hate being cold. I really, really hate it. It's horrendous. I would rather be too hot than too cold every time. I've only ever once in my life been too hot to sleep, heavily pregnant during a heatwave and even that I would choose over too cold. Cold is the pits.

I don't know. I can't bear anything much above 20C but cold and damp is unbearable also...

Usually I’d say too hot is worse but it is so cold this evening (and dark the evening seemed to start around 2.30!) that tonight I’d go for too hot.

I struggle with both but on balance too cold is worse. If it's very hot, it's usually not too bad if you sit still and can wear vest top/t-shirt. Presumably if you are visiting someone you are not cooking or doing housework to get hot.
If it's too cold, it doesn't matter how many layers you wear it's imposible to get warm, you just feel uncomfortable with too many clothes.

Work house was so hot last night

Turned radiator off in bedroom but still too hot. Felt sick

Is cold better if no thick duvet ?

Sits firmly on fence picking splinters out

Agree with you. I’d prefer it to be too hot because I could open a window to let the cold in. I hate being too hot or cold tbh but there’s nothing worse than having to bundle up inside and still ending up with cold extremities.

Too hot by central heating is horrible. There is nothing worse to me than walking into someone's house where they have the thermostat right up, the smell of dog permeating, and everything just smells so ummm hot and yuk.

If we're talking about just slightly too hot/cold then I would take being too hot, but if we're taking it to extremes like heating on in the summer (my grandad used to be like that) then I would rather be too cold and sitting in my coat!

I really feel the cold, always have. The radiator in my room as a child didn't work & I have raynauds. But I also struggle when it's too hot, maybe because I don't really sweat much - I've tried drinking more but I just need to wee every 10 minutes. I'd take a cold house over hot any day. You can layer up, hot water bottles, blankets, electric blanket, hot drinks. Snuggle up next to someone! You can only do so much to cool down. I faint when I'm too hot. DH can always tell when I'm about to go, because I go red in the face, apparently.

I definitely prefer a cold house.

Have never in my life understood people who want to be too cold

Hot houses are awful IMO. You can put on extra layers to warm up but there's not a lot you can do if it's roasting. DMIL always has her house really hot and after a visit it takes me the 30 minute drive home to cool back down in the middle of winter!

I hate being cold so would much prefer a house that was too hot.

We stayed with some friends a couple of years ago and it was fucking freezing. I had so many layers on, I could barely move and was still freezing. Having been there before I was prepared and packed thermals but it was unbearable. Short of putting my coat on I couldn’t wear any more.

I refuse to stay there now

Hate being in a cold house. Wouldn’t dream of entertaining and having guests sit there freezing.

Tapped the wrong option 🤦‍♀️ Would much rather a house was too cold than too hot!
I am a lady of a certain age so prone to hot flushes. I work mainly with the elderly in their own homes and many of them seem to have the thermostat at 25+. It's not a good combination at the best of times but throw in full PPE and it's excruciating!

In my living room it’s currently 17 degrees, I’m sat on the sofa in a very thick jumper with two blankets on top and I’m cold. If I wasn’t leaving the house shortly I would be putting the heating on.

The in-laws have a cold house (because of the type of house) so I take lots of layers and use a blanket, but I’m still often cold. I don’t get the ‘add extra layers’ argument, because it doesn’t always work, there’s only so many layers you can add when a guest in someone’s house and you don’t always know in advance that they keep a cold home, so you may not have many layers with you.

However, I loathe very hot summers and am the first to complain about the heat.

My parents can never get the temperature right, so there’s lots of window opening when it gets too hot. Fortunately they understand, because my grandparents house is like a furnace, so they’ve experienced what it’s like when the heat is suffocating. In a hot house, however, you can often find a room that’s a bit cooler, or nip outside.

Well I do feel hot quite a bit ,but having said that ,I would prefer a hotter home as you can take off Cardies and wear thinner trousers /socks .At the moment my Lounge is struggling to make about 20c! Wearing my Thermals as well .

The nice thing about being out when it’s cold is coming home and warming up. Which means putting the heating on. Not getting under 17 blankets, when it’s actually still just bloody freezing.

And snuggling isn’t very practical when the kids want to be played with on the floor or I’m folding washing, or cooking dinner and I can’t feel my fingers.

You know the cold that sets in to a house when it's winter and the hot water and heating have been broken for days? That horrible, bone aching chill, when everything starts to feel slightly damp and all the floors and walls are so cold it's almost painful to touch them and you can see your breath and a hundred blankets couldn't make you warm? Too many memories like that in my past for me to ever, ever choose cold over hot. When I imagine a hell, it's cold like that.

Yes, when I talked about getting snuggly in bed in a cold house I was probably thinking about a chilly house rather than a freezing cold house! But equally, boiling hot us so oppressive and not comfortable at all.

It's like that age-old question, would you rather freeze to death or be burned to death? There's really no preferred answer!

Oh god, I am revealing myself as an absolute weirdo here, but I have thought about this- I'd rather freeze to death than burn, I've read you go bonkers and think you're very hot and are so out of touch with reality you probably aren't aware of the pain.

The thing is with people saying if it’s hot open a window or if cold get a hot water bottle/blanket. You can’t really do those things as a guest in someone’s house. You just have to grin and bear it.

I used to have clothes I only wore at pils - thermal base layers and thick wool trousers and chunky jumpers etc. At my parents house I arrive in my normal winter clothes and change into light cotton bottoms and a vest. I think your own clothes are all you can really control in these circumstances.

I used to work in an open plan office where I was the only staff member not from Bangladesh. In August they refused to let me open the window and had fan heaters on. They kept complaining how cold it was and I never ever saw any of them without thick jumpers and winter coats on no matter what time of year. It boggles my mind when I see people in the snow with shorts and a t-shirt on. I find it so odd how differently people can feel at the same temperature.

@AldiAisleofCrap

Don’t think it’s possible to have a house that is too hot.

Oh, there is, AldiAisleofCrap. Trust me. A house at 46C is too hot. Its hideous.

@dottiedodah

Well I do feel hot quite a bit ,but having said that ,I would prefer a hotter home as you can take off Cardies and wear thinner trousers /socks .At the moment my Lounge is struggling to make about 20c! Wearing my Thermals as well .

Exactly. You can also open the door and let some cool air in too.