Different attitudes towards reasonable room temperature at home

katejo

BigAunty wrote: »

you can't make an unreasonable person reasonable...his attitude is that you have to lump it...

I just meant that he would have valid grounds for complaint if I locked it away.

adouglasmhor

Idiophreak wrote: »

Why? They're indoors. There are windows and doors a walls and insulation all shielding them from the elements and there's heating to actually make it warmer than the world outside! All of these things should unite to make it...."comfortable".

A lodger *shouldn't be expected* to wear a jumper indoors.

Why not? Sounds fine to me.

BigAunty

katejo wrote: »

I just meant that he would have valid grounds for complaint if I locked it away.

It's your house, your thermostat and a reasonable lodger would negotiate and ask permission to make changes to heating temperature/timer.

As stated before, my lodger would simply flip the heating on 24/7 when I was away from the property (obviously I discovered this a couple of times when I came back and it was still running) - their rent included all bills. When the boiler broke, I gave her a full rent rebate for the week when the heating was down and a fan heater and then spent weeks trying to wrestle the fan heater off her after a new boiler was installed.

Funnily enough, when the entire property was rented out to tenants (energy bill excluded), they complained about the heating bill. This was because they didn't understand how to operate the timer despite the manual being left and complained that it would randomly come on during the day when they were at work coming home to a hot house at 5, or that the heating started early in the morning while asleep.

It was a product where they could either put the heating fixed periods over the day or set a target temperature and time (say 21 degrees by 7am until 9am and then 21 degrees from 5pm to 10pm) ). As they had chosen the latter settings, to bring the house up to 21 degrees by 7am, it would naturally have to start up an hour or two before on a cold morning to reach that target. Nothing random about it, it was an algorithm that meant the boiler would come on early to reach the required temp at the required time so they woke up to a warm house or returned from work to a toasty one.

Idiophreak

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Why not? Sounds fine to me.

Sadly you're not lord and master of the universe.

Different people are different. I hate wearing a jumper indoors. You love it. Great. Go you.

You're not better than me because you love jumpers so. Stop acting like it.

katejo

Idiophreak wrote: »

Sadly you're not lord and master of the universe.

Different people are different. I hate wearing a jumper indoors. You love it. Great. Go you.

You're not better than me because you love jumpers so. Stop acting like it.

So you would prefer to waste your money on high fuel bills when you could economise on the heating and have more cash for other things?

JPB123

katejo wrote: »

So you would prefer to waste your money on high fuel bills when you could economise on the heating and have more cash for other things?

Things like....jumpers

tvstudent

I think the answer as to why everyone is blaming the lodger is the demographic on this thread. Lots of replies appear to be from people who have had a lodger/run a house - precious few seem to be from people actually renting/lodging.
Heating tolerance is incredibly subjective. Being native american I FREEZE unless wrapped up or with the central heating up. I actually fell out with my housemates over heating, as I was given the biggest room (which I didnt want - it had damp issues) and it had a single radiator. When the heat was on it barely made any difference, and my pets (a gecko and a hamster) were losing weight from the cold. I bought an electric heater, and they demanded I pay ludicrously inflated bills which I refused. We all rented the house together, I didnt want the room but got made to take it anyway, I shouldnt have to pay more for the privilege of being humanely warm.
Being cold is MISERABLE and effects everything you do in the house. Whoever posted that their foreign students were advised to not sit still on their laptops but move about to keep warm - I imagine none of them ever reported you or you would never have had any more.
Remember landlords/people taking in lodgers - the temperature is comfortable for you. Imagine if the tables were turned and you were permanently cold, and worse, couldnt do anything about it.
The official guidelines are there for a reason. Otherwise where do you draw the line?

DRP

tvstudent wrote: »

I think the answer as to why everyone is blaming the lodger is the demographic on this thread. Lots of replies appear to be from people who have had a lodger/run a house - precious few seem to be from people actually renting/lodging.
Heating tolerance is incredibly subjective. Being native american I FREEZE unless wrapped up or with the central heating up. I actually fell out with my housemates over heating, as I was given the biggest room (which I didnt want - it had damp issues) and it had a single radiator. When the heat was on it barely made any difference, and my pets (a gecko and a hamster) were losing weight from the cold. I bought an electric heater, and they demanded I pay ludicrously inflated bills which I refused. We all rented the house together, I didnt want the room but got made to take it anyway, I shouldnt have to pay more for the privilege of being humanely warm.
Being cold is MISERABLE and effects everything you do in the house. Whoever posted that their foreign students were advised to not sit still on their laptops but move about to keep warm - I imagine none of them ever reported you or you would never have had any more.
Remember landlords/people taking in lodgers - the temperature is comfortable for you. Imagine if the tables were turned and you were permanently cold, and worse, couldnt do anything about it.
The official guidelines are there for a reason. Otherwise where do you draw the line?

Personally, I think you've missed the point a bit. This isn't really about subjective responses to the external temperature.

A lodger's rent is inclusive of reasonable utility usage.

The house owner is the person who defines 'reasonable'.

A lodger has to put up with that, negotiate or leave. That's the sum total of their choices.

It is a totally different situation in a shared, rented accommodation without the owner resident.

Mojisola

tvstudent wrote: »

I think the answer as to why everyone is blaming the lodger is the demographic on this thread. Lots of replies appear to be from people who have had a lodger/run a house - precious few seem to be from people actually renting/lodging.

Heating tolerance is incredibly subjective.

I've been a lodger - in one case, I had the opposite problem - an elderly LL who liked the house warm and stuffy. I could control the heating in my bedroom but there's no way I would have gone round opening windows or turning of the heating in the rest of her house!

I was paying for the use of a room in her home - she was the one who had control over how the house was run.

Idiophreak

katejo wrote: »

So you would prefer to waste your money on high fuel bills when you could economise on the heating and have more cash for other things?

I don't pay high fuel bills, see above. I spend 90% of the year trying to cool down.

Even if it were expensive, though...would I rather pay more to be able to get out of bed and go and get some breakfast without wrapping myself up like an eskimo...would I rather pay more to be able to warm up after a cold run without standing in the shower shivering...would I rather pay more to just wear the same clothes I wear in the car, in shops, at the office etc in my own house...err, yeah.

As tvstudent says, being continually cold is just miserable. Putting a jumper on doesn't magic the cold away....especially for those of us that have poor circulation.