Lodger and Heating

Honeylife

bluelad1927 said:

Where was the temp -2 inside or outside. The outside temp is irrelevant if the inside of the house is still warm.

It may also be that a particular bedroom for varying reasons may be significantly colder than other rooms

Also if the heating was on til midnight but the house was cold less than 3 hours later either your house is incredibly inefficient or your lodger needs a better duvet

It was -2 outside.  I was not cold! I slept through until this morning, waking to a toasty warm house when the heating came on.

This is an old Victorian house with high ceilings and large rooms. The windows are newly replaced. The loft is insulated. Draft excluders at the door.  Ok, that room has a laminate floor but with a huge deep rug. She does tend to leave her room door open wide, don't know why. I told her on arrival that she should invest in a hi tog duvet. Have had several lodgers in that room and no one ever complained they were cold unless they were from somewhere on the equator (2 people in 20 years) and usually they listened to my suggestions of warmer clothing & bedding.

Utility bills are frightening enough at the moment but if she is cold then will have a wee chat with her to come to some resolution. 

ic

An electric blanket can make the world of difference.  Negligible impact to the electricity bill. 

Most highly ranked articles from the papers go on about the max power use of an electric blanket - however that max power is just the fast warm up setting, if you were to use it all night it'd cook you.  My own blanket has six power levels, and I tend to use it on the lowest or second lowest setting levels - anything more is uncomfortable.

As an example, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silentnight-Comfort-Control-Electric-Blanket/dp/B00L67CZ9U?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&th=1 - this has a table showing the single size uses 12W, with the king size up to 28W on the lowest setting.  On a timer, overnight its pennies - much cheaper than running the boiler all night.

Honeylife

bouicca21 said:

I wouldn’t dream of having the heating on overnight, except in so much as it is set to 15 to prevent frozen pipes.  Last night it was 16 inside my flat and I needed a blanket on top of the duvet to keep warm.  

Is the lodger one of those young folk who think it’s possible to wear a t shirt all year round and have never heard of cardigans or jumpers?  Or is really freezing in her room?  I second getting a thermometer to find out.

Way back in the darkness of time when I were a lass it used to be freezing in my bedroom but that was before the days of central heating when just one room was (over)heated.   I doubt that the temperature in a house that is centrally heated by day really falls to freezing by night, but a thermometer will prove it one way or another.  

I grew up with no central heating in my parents' house and we would dash to the 3 bar fire to warm our school uniforms before we dressed!  No duvets just a ton of blankets on top of us! 

My kids never complained about the cold they had hot water bottles and we INVESTED in hi tog duvets quite early.  My husband would have had a fit if anyone suggested putting the heating on a night!

Honeylife

user1977 said:

Honeylife said:

user1977 said:

What was the temperature in the lodger's room? Impossible to tell from what you've said whether it was (objectively) cold there or not.

No idea. Don't have individual room thermometers.

Maybe get one then?

Good idea. Will do.

Albermarle

I would be complaining of it got to -2 in my home at night.  Our heating is on all the time when at least one person is home, but the thermostat drops to something like 16 at night.

I think it is pretty obvious the OP meant it was minus 2 outside last night, not inside !

I have an older house, only medium energy efficient. The heating goes off at 21.20, about an hour before the last person goes to bed. Then comes on at 05.30, about 1.5 hours before the first person gets up. Of course it is a bit nippy if you go to the loo in the night but otherwise fine.

I grew up with no central heating in my parents' house and we would dash to the 3 bar fire to warm our school uniforms before we dressed! 

When I was a student, in the morning  I used to fit the waist of my jeans over a fan heater !

FreeBear

ic said: An electric blanket can make the world of difference.  Negligible impact to the electricity bill.

Got a couple of Sanitas electric underblankets here. Six heat settings, and a built in timer function too. Lidl currently have some in the middle isle (which is where I got mine from).

As for heating, it got down to -0.7°C, and the heating kicked in for 15 minutes at around 05:30 to maintain a minimum temperature of 17.5°C - That equates to around 17°C in the bedrooms, which is enough to minimise the effects of condensation without using too much gas. Heating then kicked in at 07:00 to bring the whole house up to 19.5°C, and now the sun is out, it's nice & warm.

Certainly worth having a programmable thermostat that allows for different temperatures throughout the day.

sheramber

Lodger should buy her own electric blanket, some fleecy pyjamas and bed socks.

I also remeber getting up to see frost patterns on the insode of the  bedroom window.

Section62

propertyrental said:

Quite apart from the lodger you should be protecting your home and water/central heating pipes from freezing and cracking by keeping the heating on at a 'frost' setting. Usually around 5-8 degrees.

If the house is heated during the day then I'd be very surprised if the temperature within the living envolope of a Victorian house dropped to anything like 8c overnight, at least not with an external temperature as high as -2c.

Even without cavity walls, the thermal mass of Victorian properties is typically quite high so once the interior is heated it takes a while for it to cool down again.

If water pipes are in unheated spaces (e.g. the loft) then there would be more cause for concern... but then these pipes should be provided with thick insulation so again an external temperature of -2c shouldn't be a problem unless the top floor ceiling is so super insulated that negligible heat is getting into the loft space.  And again, if the loft is so well insulated from the rooms below, overnight heat loss from the room shouldn't be causing the temperature to drop so low the heating would turn on if left on the frost setting.

If there is concern about pipework in a loft I'd suggest getting a basic Min/Max thermometer and leave it in the loft - checking say once a week to see what range of temperatures has occured.  If readings below (say) 3c are achieved then that would be the time to start worrying about the pipes.

theoretica

Seems like the lodger simply needs some information on how to live with a new and unfamiliar situation.  Or/and she just sent a message without thinking it through when cold and tired!  If she has never lived in a house where rooms get cold overnight it doesn't seem a personal failing or something to feel superior over, just some facts she hasn't yet learned.  Maybe she too needs an extra blanket, fleece pyjamas and hot water bottle as well as the thick duvet.

Ditzy_Mitzy

Why would the lodger send a text message to someone, her landlady, who lives in the same house?  Strange thing to do...

I also live not too far from London, as the crow flies, and was fine last night without the heating on.  The only thing that might be worthwhile, from the landlady's perspective, is fitting a carpet in the bedroom.  Carpets do much to create an impression of warmth as well as being efficient insulators.  I'd hate to have a hard floor in a sleeping area.