To wish people would stop saying “just put a jumper on”?

[Notcontent]

There have been sooo many thread over the years with people saying how no one really needs heating - how e.g. 16 degrees is positively sweltering - and if you feel the cold you should just put a jumper on and a bit of cold never hurt anyone…

This is complete rubbish and I think this myth needs to be debunked. It’s not helpful. Of course many people are being forced to have their heating off but that does not mean this is good for their physical or mental health.

I was prompted to start this thread as I was listening to a radio 4 science programme that tackled this topic head on. In summary:

• when we get really cold (e.g. a room at 10 degrees) our body has to work really hard to keep our core warm and this places great strain on our body - increased heart rate, blood pressure, decreased congnitive ability, etc;

• surprisingly, for a lot of people 23 degrees is the right temperature if you are just sitting around - this does not surprise me as if I am working from home, if I have my thermostat set to 19.5 degrees, I still have to wear ugg slippers and a big jumper;

• getting chilled does make you likely to get sick - this is because we are constantly being exposed to viruses, which we do fight off (the cold virus in particular) but when we get chilled our body’s immune response is severely impaired.

I’m not sure anyone has said they’re not going to use the heating at all, have they? Just that they’re cutting back for (mainly) cost reasons.
I haven’t had my heating on yet as I haven’t needed to. Im still line drying outside at the moment. When we do need the heating on it will have to be for limited amounts of time due to cost, so will have to time my washing to align with the times we have the heating on.

It is baltic in Yorkshire today, there is no way I'm not having some warmth on me.

Some of us do wear layers and jumpers and still feel cold. I have raynauds and if I sit still for too long in the winter I feel cold. Sometimes I want to sit down you know?

I just think some people feel cold more. I grew up with no central heating, we had a Rayburn and coal fires that heated the water and my bed was next to the chimney wall so it was like a radiator. To this day I really struggle with central heating, my dads house is unbearably hot and stifling for me.
I rarely have the heating on in my house and when it is, my bedroom radiator is usually switched off.
i have a theory that my core temperature is just lower than most peoples. My temperature when I’m well sits around 35.6 degrees, even when I really unwell and have a fever my temperature rarely gets above 37.5. So I think i just am colder. Add in my delightful menopausal flushes and I found myself naked with a fan on me in bed last night whilst everyone around me was under heated blankets!’

I don't have the heating on at all and work through it at home. Hot drinks and doing some star jumps while the kettle boils works a treat. If I go to the gym at lunchtime I've no need for heating as my body is hot all afternoon. Most of us that can, just need to work smarter and not just sit there getting colder and colder

depends where you are though, I grew up in noerth west of ireland it gets much colder there than in London and in the southeast where I also lived.

I am currently engaged in a battle with ds who does not feel the cold at all and wants his window wide open.
I wouldn’t mind, it would be up to him, if it wasn’t that it wastes so much heat from the rest of the house and I am trying so hard with insulation everywhere else.
It was 2 degrees minimum last night and he seriously believes he is more comfortable with a wide open window. By everyone else’s standards our house is cold - 17 counts as warm - and his room has draughty badly fitting window frames so it’s not like it would be stuffy.
So yes absolutely people feel the cold differently…

Most people - not all - will survive English winters without any heating. But it's clearly miserable, not good for anyone's physical or mental health, and a massive step back in time. Whether 16 or 21 degree is best will depend on the individual and on their activity, but that so many have no option to heat their homes to a comfortable level is nothing to be shrugged off. All those speeches about how 'we grew up in a paper bag on the M5 with no heating at all and it never did us any harm' are just silly and delusional.

That's still heating. It's sensible to only heat 1 room in theory, but as electricity costs 3x the cost of gas, a 2kw fan/oil heater with little output costs as much as 6 kw gas, and 6kw is what 6 to 10 radiators for your average 2 to 3 bedroom house require. It's most economical to use central heating and turn off the radiators in rooms you don't use/only sleep in_walk through quickly, and be religious about closing doors.

I have a friend with a number of health conditions which include being immuno-suppressed and neurological issues. Being warm is essential to their wellbeing. Currently the temperature inside their flat (supported housing) ranges from 13-17 degrees as an 'ambient' temperature before they put the heating on.
They can't afford to put the heating on for more than half an hour a day, and even that is pushing their expenses.
Putting a jumper on doesn't work.

Likewise for my friend who has nerve damage. They already can't feel the soles of their feet or fingertips.

The main motivator for me at the moment is neither money nor comfort.

I like being warm & could afford at least a bit of heating right now.

But the constant increases in d/d even without need (covering costs & a credit balance) and the sheer bloody rudeness of elec/gas company staff when I queried the increases..

Well call me bloody-minded but that is the real reason I’ve not put heating on yet.

I’m acclimatising rightly to lower temps as an unexpected bonus so serious physical illness aside, I’ll be needing less heating overall in future too.

I’m not suffering & house gets aired daily so no worries re damp/mould. I’ll hold out as long as possible kept warm by sheer indignation

Ours is set 1t 17 degrees 23 is sunbathing

I honestly think a lot of people will not have thought of this or will not see that it is a good idea/alternative

I don’t know any NT people who wouldn’t think to put a jumper on if they were cold.

@NellyBarney > ...''we grew up in a paper bag with no heating at all on the M5 ..." 😀If you'd had heating you'd have been toast! I agree with you that we do seem to be stepping back in time, and it seems that people are just supposed to suck it up. It was the 1970s when I first experienced central heating, which was oil powered. Since then I've lived in many rental properties which didn't provide central heating, and have experienced the ice on the inside of windows, and seeing my breath vapour inside. I don't understand how it's supposed to be okay that you can live with really cold temperatures because you can sit in two jumpers, a hat, gloves, and thermal socks inside your home.

That's still heating. It's sensible to only heat 1 room in theory, but as electricity costs 3x the cost of gas, a 2kw fan/oil heater with little output costs as much as 6 kw gas, and 6kw is what 6 to 10 radiators for your average 2 to 3 bedroom house require. It's most economical to use central heating and turn off the radiators in rooms you don't use/only sleep in_walk through quickly, and be religious about closing doors.

That's all very well in theory, but as very few people here have central heating, and our electricity is cheaper than what you seem to be paying (we generate our own so aren't reliant on other countries) I think we will just carry on as we are. Btw, I use neither a fan nor an oil heater, and heat pumps are cheap to run.

Just to give an alternative perspective, I would absolutely agree that we all have our internal thermostats. I generally feel the cold a lot, and have Raynauds - I spent two years teaching in an outside temporary classroom and there were many mornings where I couldn't type because I had lost all feeling in my fingers.

We moved to a hot country a few years ago, and we know some people who have their AC on all year round, whereas we turn ours off except in the hottest months, and even then we only have it on in the rooms we are using - I think this is a throwback to heating a house on a budget! When it is on, it's set at 24-26C whereas some have theirs at 21-22C and run it 24/7. The coldest it gets here is about 17C first thing in the morning in January - break duty before 10am or gate duty at 7.30 needed at least a cardigan and I'd switch from sandals to closed shoes.

It's 15.5 inside now so the jumper has gone on. I'm tempted to start putting the heating on (we have three radiators upstairs and a heated towel rail upstairs) - when it's cold it goes on for an hour, twice a day. We're not quiiiite there yet, but I'm going to have to light a fire later to get the washing dry.

*downstairs... the heated towel rail is all we have downstairs (but can light a fire).

The electric/gas price difference no longer applies for us. It used to be exactly as you describe but now gas has risen sharply and electricity not quite so much the prices are comparable which has necessitated a complete rethink of how we operate and means that localised electric heating to top up minimal use of central heating is the most efficient way for us.
In fact wood, which used to be comparable to gas, has hardly gone up at all so we are using the wood burner as much as possible rather than just to be cosy on a cold day.

I get the feeling this is all going to depend very much on how individual tariffs are fixed and the calculation will be different for everyone.

Cold air can worsen my asthma, and cold, damp, mouldy environments are no good for anyone.

It's not all about health, anyway. Unheated homes start to go damp, then mouldy, then rotten. Catastrophic things, like burst pipes, can happen. If someone can't afford to heat their home, they are unlikely to afford the repairs caused by lack of heating. Then houses start to become uninhabitable and people who are struggling have to cope with yet another level of hardship.