Disagreements over what temperature to have heating set to.

[thatswhatshesaid36]

Partner and I rarely disagree on much, but he’s getting strangely wound up over the temperature of the house.

For context, I rarely have heating on until the winter months, but I do like it on when people are bathing/showering so you come out to a nice warm towel and aren’t freezing in the bathroom.

I only have the thermostat set to 18 degrees so I don’t feel it’s overly warm, but he’s walking round trying to throw the windows open whereas DD and I are shivering and chucking on layers. He’s the type of person who would permanently sleep with a fan, and we do have a summer duvet on all year round to help with him over heating in the night and I just whack extra blankets on me. Every window in the house is also always slightly cracked open because we like the fresh air.

How do I resolve this? What’s the happy medium? And for interest - do you think 18 degrees is too warm inside?

Your dogs @SmallDogsAreScary how do they heck do they fare in spring and summer if 16 degrees is their max?

We can all see what you wrote.

Exactly. What happens in the summer? Do they melt?

They are SENSIBLE dogs.

Heating threads never fail to raise an eyebrow when I see someone say, “I’m toasty warm at 15°C.”

Single duvets. Game changer.

We never turn it up to more than 17 even if it's snowy because when I overheat I get asthma and headaches. My family know this. They genuinely don't mind. But yes, we tell people to make sure they wrap up when they come here. Why does it matter? How is this your business? How does it affect you in any way?

18 would be perfect for me. My husband prefers 21. We usually compromise on 20, with me in a T shirt and him in a jumper!

So you can’t handle it above 17
and your dogs need it 15/16 and can’t cope over 21

well, spring and summer must be bloody awful! Seems a shame to get such a dog in a country that struggles above 21 degrees when we often hit well in excess of that in the uk

Why are you bullying me?

It’s a simple question

you say your dogs need it 15/16

what happens in summer? 🤷‍♀️

17c in late Autumn/winter and off during the night. I do have a log burner though that keeps me toasty.

My mum and dad have mismatched internal thermostats, dad is always in shorts and mum is wrapped up like she's going on an expedition.

My understanding is that houses shouldn't be below 15c as it starts to impact the fabric and it shouldn't be below 18c for health.

18 or 19.

Definitely no lower than 18, that's insane

I didn't say they need it 15 or 16 at all, you are making that up. I said they don't get walked above 19 because that is the advice from the vets for large long coated dogs. I said we have it set to 15 or 16 most of the time because that is comfortable for us. I don't like to be hot and nor does my husband and nor do our dogs.

I have already answered the question about summer - we walk them at 5 or 6am before the heat builds and they spend a lot of the day on a tiled floor with blinds closed and fans blowing. Most people with large hairy dogs do the same. It is what vets and dog charities recommend. If you doubt me go and look on The Doghouse boards. I hope this answers all your questions now.

I had a friend who was insistent on hosting in his freezing cold house (14-15 degrees was pretty common). I'd wear jumpers. I'd ask that he please heat the room we're in and of course I'd wear layers and not expect the place to be tropical.

He'd say he would then 'forget' / shut it off ('you won't notice once you've had a drink') and bang on about how 'sensible' he was and that we needed to 'move more' and 'become more hardy'. He'd claim it was 'an old flat' but it was the same in every bloody house he lived in!

Gradually I got sick of getting stuck hosting in a lovely warm house paying £££ for all the food and drinks when he wasn't even willing to stick radiators on in one room.

Anyway, I'm sure he still thinks he's 'sensible'. Probably thought I was sensible too. Either way, we're no-longer friends 😂

More sensible than most of the people on this thread at least.

To quote you

Ours is set to 15 or 16 because we have large dogs with a double coat and anything warmer isn't fair to them.

Why are you bullying us?

And if that isn't being morally superior I don't know what is 🙄

you think morally superiority is about putting humans above dogs?

well in that case 🙆‍♀️ hands up… that’s me

For me this is the crux of it. If there's a disagreement on the temp, the person who wants it cooler wins, simply because you can always add layers, but there are only ask many layers you can remove. Unless you're comfortable with him walking around naked?

The caveat to that being if the person wants it so cold that is unhealthy or unsafe; where I live it gets cold enough in the winter that your pipes can freeze, which obviously you don't want that to happen.

@steff13 The problem with "just put in another jumper" is that when the ambient temperature is so cold that you can't do anything other than shiver because you are so cold in spite of wearing several layers and you can't think beyond how cold you are, what is the answer?

I refuse to visit my sister in winter because BIL never feels the cold and he thinks no-one else should, so the heating is off even in sub zero temperatures.

What are you getting out of this? Belittling a vulnerable person for what? Is it making you feel good? Really hope so because I feel like a worthless piece of shit right now. Happy? Is that what you wanted?

I've got nothing else to say.

Well yes, it is morally superior to look after guests.

We don’t have a thermostat and never have… I didn’t know what one was until my mum asked where it was! So we put the heating on when we feel cold and then turn it off later when it’s been on a couple of hours.