House on 16 + layers

[ByMyName]

I’m guilty of having the house on 23 because I like being warm. I’ve been saying to DH that I will make some changes.

Today I set the hearing at 16. This is what it will be say and night.

I had to wear a jumper around the house but it’s genuinely fine.

We can really make some habit changes and cope with the has increase. Or am I deluded?

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere yep, our door is open for hours every day with the dogs. I haven’t had heating on since Saturday…. When I had one hour’s worth. It’s only about 8 degrees outside, really not cold. The windows are all open on the latch tonight, I’m on the sofa in a standard sweatshirt, t shirt and jeans. I have got socks on!

I'd love to have the heating on high, but the house is an ancient stone farmhouse with bad quality extensions. We could bankrupt ourselves easily. We have tado so every radiator is totally customisable. We have a thick curtain at the top of the stairs and one on an archway downstairs. We have a log stove luckily and heated throws and electric blankets plus we've learned to wear thick thermal socks and slippers and use thermal layers routinely. The heating varies between 12 and 15 mainly, 18 for a couple of hours in the lounge of an evening. Off all night.

It's sounds miserable, but it's not really. We are warm, but mainly by heating ourselves rather than the house and we are in a far better position than many others. I used to live in a new well insulated house and had the heating blasting full on 24/7 then...😁

My house is usually somewhere between 13 and 15. I got home the other week and it was 11.
As you may have guessed, I don’t have radiators. I have 3 plug-in electric radiators which devour electricity so they are on timers to come on for a short while first thing in the morning and just before bed.
Jumpers and slippers.

Our is also on at 23 and in cold weather on 24 hrs a day. I hate cold houses!!! Grew up in one. Never again.

If I don’t even need a coat on outside, I don’t know why I need heating inside…

@OldTinHat

Martin Lewis says keeping heating on all the time is not efficient.

I can't afford to put my heating on at all and wear loads of layers. I'm sure you'll get used to wearing a jumper!

I got told by the dude that fitted my smart meter that it's more efficient to keep house at an ambient 18 for example, as it would take more energy to heat a cold house... Hmmm.. perhaps I need to do some research

We're at home all day so ours goes on about 8 (just before I get up) and stays at 18 during the day. About 7pm it goes up to 19 or 20 or we light the stove. It's off all night as we have a thick duvet (and each other) and I have a window open. No frozen pipes ever !

@Moonface88

I think the WHO recommends that your home's temperature shouldn't dip below 18 degrees. I would need a jumper if my home was 18 though, I really feel the cold.

What do you mean you’d need a jumper?

Surely you’re wearing one? In winter? You don’t seriously heat your home to wear a tshirt in winter?

Aaargh these threads drive me mad.

It's like a competition where people think it's somehow virtuous to be happy in colder temperatures.

I lived in places with no heating at all for years. It was miserable. I always hated being cold and that made it much, much worse.

If I'm cold I cannot function, I can't think anything except "I'm so cold". I work from home so this is not an option. Also bot doing that to my kids when I have a choice.

Why can't people accept that different people need different temperatures to be comfortable? All kinds of factors affect this: genetics, build, sensory sensitivity, sex. If by chance you happen to mostly feel warm that does not make you morally superior.

Some people need more warmth to be comfortable. I wear jumpers at home. I have a huge thick duvet and bedspreads. But my heating needs to be set to come on if the house temp ever goes below 21 summer or winter for me to be comfortable, day or night. So I suck up the cost of that. But after years living without any heating at all, I'm grateful to have that option.

To make out it is virtuous somehow for people to put on so many layers they look like the michelin man rather than use their heating if they need to, and can afford to, is a bit crass when so many can't even afford to use it and are living in the conditions that send a shiver down my spine when I remember doing it myself 20 years ago.

I can’t believe you have only just thought to put a jumper on rather than heat your house up to tropical temperatures. And you kept your heating on all night too?!! Fuck me, some people really are stupid!

@PinkSyCo

I can’t believe you have only just thought to put a jumper on rather than heat your house up to tropical temperatures. And you kept your heating on all night too?!! Fuck me, some people really are stupid!

You think low 20s is a tropical temperature? 😂😂😂😂

You think low 20s is a tropical temperature?
Ok slight exaggeration, but it’s hot and stifling.

Ours is set to 20-21. I can do maybe 19, much colder than that would and my nose gets drippy no matter how many jumpers I wear and it’s just too annoying. Fortunately very insulated house with triple glazed windows so end up with the main floor of the house warmer than that without any heating coming on.

We set ours to 22 or 23 in the day and turn it down to 20 for overnight. I’d be cold if it was set to 16.

@minipie

There’s a lot of options between 23 and 16!

I would say 16 at night is good. In the day, I’d ideally want 20 (although only in the rooms I use).

I wear warm jumpers and slippers. At the moment I’m in my unheated N facing office with two jumpers on. It’s ok.

16 at night! Mines off completely overnight, on 15-18 between 4pm and 7pm. Sometimes earlier in the day if outside is below freezing. I live on the North East Coast in s four bed house.

@Ionlydomassiveones

“Mine isn't permanently cold but if I have visitors when the heating is normally off and it's very cold outside I will put the heating on for an hour. They will normally arrive with a jumper under a coat so will just take the coat off. Most also have the heating off in the day at their house too.”

Wow - an hour of heating for your visitors - how generous

It's enough to heat it up while they are here and it takes a while to lose heat after it's off. I mean dropping in for coffee. My family who might stay are overseas and I haven't seen them in years because covid.

It's like a competition where people think it's somehow virtuous to be happy in colder temperatures.
It's really not. The gas and electricity bills are scary, mine 40% higher than same time last year with lower usage. We have to adapt to using less or else make cuts everywhere else to keep what we are used to.

Growing up we had no central heating, it was always damp and cold.
I will never underheat my house if I can scrape by and afford to. If needed I would rather have living room at 21/22 and leave the other rooms unheated and all just sleep in living room as well.

As a child I had constant chest problems, took ages to get over the common cold. Never since I moved out. It’s a health issue living in constant cold and damp ( under about 18 indoors)

Our house is old and cold. Setting the thermostat to 23 wouldn't actually get the temperature to 23 unless it was a warm day outside.

I wear 2 or 3 layers everyday, thick socks, boot slippers and have a blanket round my legs when sitting down.

I can't imagine just wearing a t shirt at home in the winter!! 😯

I can't imagine just wearing a t shirt at home in the winter!!
I can't either, though my teen DS does with our house set to 16! I'm so glad I set the temperature to 18 when we first moved here (positively balmy compared to a Sydney fibro in the winter) so turning it down to 16 because of the price rises hasn't been a shock for us like it will be for some.

@PunsDontKillPeople

This baffles me.

Doesn't everyone wear a jumper in the house in winter? I can't imagine ever heating a house to a temperature where I didn't need a jumper or big cardigan inside!!

This.

Walking round in a T shirt in winter and complaining about the cold is ridiculous. We never have ours as high as 20. It's not on all day only morning and evening and it's never on at night.

I got told by the dude that fitted my smart meter that it's more efficient to keep house at an ambient 18 for example, as it would take more energy to heat a cold house...

According to our smart meter, once the heating is on it doesn't cost much more to keep it running for 4 hrs instead of 2, but if it were to stay on all day those extra 50ps would add up. We live in a drafty old house though and don't have the most efficient boiler so maybe it's different depending on your setup? I've really appreciated having the smart meter for this exact reason (once I'd got over the pain of seeing what it costs to heat the house to "not icy" in the morning)

It's not about "thinking it's virtuous" to be cold in winter.

Its fucking winter. It's cold. Animals grow a winter coat. Humans should put a jumper on, not expect to be able to create a microclimate that means they don't have to adapt their clothing for the season.

I've never in my life had the money to heat my home to a temperature that means we can all prance around in t shirts We wear a couple of extra layers and warm slippers, and then we are warm enough despite having the heating on low. Because that's what I can afford, not because I think there's a moral virtue attached to keeping the thermostat on 18.

Exactly @PunsDontKillPeople, plus there's also the environmental aspect.

It's bloody wasteful to heat homes to t-shirt levels and as a nation we don't have the capacity to do so, even if we weren't killing the planet in doing so.

I know the price rises are having a terrible impact on lower income households, but perhaps one silver lining in this whole cloud is that maybe the people who've blindly used huge amounts of energy without thinking about the cost will start to think about reducing their bills, by using less and not being so indulgently wasteful with their energy use.