Opinions before I overreact about this - dangerous / wasting money.

[Torturedheart2]

My DP has a constant habit of falling asleep on the sofa half of the night while I go to bed early. There's now been numerous occasions I've gotten up in the morning or middle of the night and he is fast asleep with a fan heater blasting. This morning is the straw that broke the camels back. I leave for work early and just had an urge to check nothing was left on as he had only came to bed half an hour before I got up. I went into the lounge and there was a storage heater left one and had clearly been on all night as the room was sweltering hot. He'd also left a bottle of red wine on it to heat up which he hadn't even opened.

I am feeling really pissed and was ready to march upstairs and wake him but stopped myself. 1) I feel it is so dangerous to leave an electrical storage heater unattended (especially with a glass bottle on it) 2) he is wasting money and it's half my money that will be paying for this ridiculous waste.

I know I am probably overreacting so I am here asking how to bring this up properly and am I blowing it out of proportion? As I say, this is not the first time he's done something similar but going to bed and leaving it on and the wine bottle is a bigger issue as I think it would have been on all day had I not went to check. Feel like I'm living with a teenager.

It would just be cheaper to have the central heating on than doing the small heaters. Especially the fan heater

If you haven't had storage heaters switched on overnight, the night before, they won't have any heat to radiate. That's the worst with them. You have to know the day before whether it's going to be cold tomorrow.

OP, you dont have a man: you have a spoiled teenager.

This is going to continue being one thing then another. Use the summer to dump him as this will get worse.

As someone who is a night owl married to an early bird, I stay up a lot later than my partner and sometimes fall asleep on the sofa until the early hours. Get him to invest in an electric throw, it's on a timer and will automatically go off, then he's only heating himself!

Well he needs to get into the habit of checking it. I'm a night owl but get up early so restrict my lateness and double check everything! Seriously think about a timer, set an alarm, alexa reminder even better. Xx

I don’t have central heating in my house so have to use electric heaters and I have adhd so have forgotten to turn them off before. I used to use my phone to set timers to go off after an hour or remind me to turn them off and now I have bought the timer-plugs where a countdown can be set to automatically turn the electricity off after a set time. https://www.amazon.co.uk/HBN-Digital-Countdown-Energy-Function/dp/B07PWL7PQR/

I'd be absolutely furious too. Putting a bottle of wine on top of a heater is a sure fire way to ruin it. You should pour it in to a glass and warm that with your hands (although most red wines should be served at ~15 degrees C, so room temperature should be fine...). 🍷

If the forecasts are right, the weather should start getting warmer soon so the immediate problem may solve itself. Maybe for the future suggest to him that he puts on an extra layer or two and keep a warm throw in there?

This use to be me, right down to warming a bottle of red up. It’s just a matter of talking and keep bringing it up. For me when everyone was in bed I could relax and unwind, then I’d just fall asleep with the fire blasting and my red wine sometimes opened sometimes not bubbling in front of the fire. Heaters in previous houses.

DH and I talked about it, eventually I got better at going to bed, sometimes he’d come wake me up.

Storage heaters are meant to be left on so it's a bit of an odd thing to get annoyed about.

The fan heater I would be annoyed about as it's a safety issue but tbf it is so easy to accidentally doze off once you're warm and cosy. I think a timer plug for it as others have suggested would be a good idea.

1. get rid of it
2. Smart meter. Lose your temper. Agree that if he leaves it on, any costs for electricity in that time frame he pays for alone. Maybe when he realises how much of his own money he uses it will stop him.

You are getting your heaters confused, a storage heater is a type of fixed heater that runs at night from low priced electricity heating up a stack of bricks that then release energy in the day time (ie: a dimplex quantum) you are describing a ceramic core convector.

The ceramic core convector is quite safe left on so long as it is not covered, the fan heater is expensive to run, but if a good quality unit will contain a fusible link that will cut it out should it overheat (been a requirement of fan heater design to British standards since the late 1960's), modern units also feature a switch to cut it off if knocked over.

Connect the plug to Alexa. My DH usually falls asleep on the sofa. Alexa turns the TV and lamp off automatically at a certain time, or if DH snores extra loud (he’s a snorer; Alexa has a snore function that switches the devices off when a snore is detected).

I’ve done similar myself, except with electric blankets and my little office heater . So I got an Alexa plug and set them to turn off an hour after putting them on. Is that an option?

Could you suggest he uses a blanket instead of heaters as he’s clearly not responsible enough?

If you have a smart meter, you should be able to check hourly usage, and you can calculate his share of the bill...

Wtf

Get a timer and plug it into timer at all times

I too am a night owl and hubby is a lark. I do try and do manage most nights, but I am busy now binge watching my serial because he is a TV hogger watching reruns while mine stack up.

Yes you can put timers on the TV.

But perhaps I can point you to some of HIS tactics to ensure I am awake early: 😄
Open and close the front door several times clumping up and down the hall (we don't have stairs but you could to that)
Run the electric toothbrush,flush the toilet more than once, with the bathroom door open
Slam drawers in the bedroom
Empty the dishwasher with all doors open
Put the TV on at full volume for the news (noisiest programme)

I'm struggling to understand why them not going to bed at the same time is a issue? I rarely go to bed at the same time as my husband, I didn't realise it was written in the vows that we were meant to

Get a timer for the heater if he can't be trusted to turn it off