what temperature do you keep your Living Area?

The house will get damp if the temperature is too low , I would say 18 is the minimum , I have the bedroom and corridor at 18 but the living room is 20

16 degrees is fine for bedrooms but not living areas. I feel cold when it gets to 18 degrees and put the heating on at 17.5. Over the cold weather my living room has been over 20 degrees and I have only turned it off today.
Listen to your daughter- she cares about you. It is also important to be active.

For older people the room should be warm cold rooms can cause illness. I have my living room at about 19.

You do exactly what I do Franbern I have mine set on 13* at night 15* in the day but if I’m cold I turn it up. I wear a thermal top and sweater I move around quite a lot keep a throw nearby for my legs if I feel cold, at 18* I’m just too hot.

My house is constant 16 twenty four hours a day. I sometimes do booster of individual fire/heater but that's seldom. Do dress warmly but feel absolutely top notch. I have read that 16 is the 'save the planet' aspiration. Not why I do it but, is that nonsense understanding, please?

I wear base layer merino wool long sleeve vests and long johns, thermal roll neck, trousers, fleece and sometimes a down gillet indoors. I still keep the house at 22. Yes I am a cold soul!

I’m afraid 16 is too chilly for me at this time of year, even with layers on.

10 to 13 degrees here....with electric blanket and a heating boost when needed.....but I am a bit extreme.

i do as OP. i try not to put on heating during the daytime, as it is so expensive. i can usually mange until it comes on about 8.20pm. it then stays on, at a low setting until about 1.20am. on again for about 90 minutes 7.30am. but if there is frost i leave it on longer, for the sake of the pipes.
i am living on less than £10 a day income. and savings.

We have our thermostat at 18°- 19°c. We turn it right down at bedtime as neither of us like a warm bedroom. We do have a log burning stove in the living room which we light when it's very cold.
Older people need to be warm!

We have regular arguments about this - husband likes it warm and 'stuffy' and I like it much cooler.When it's too warm I keep dozing off. I feel as if all the oxygen is being sucked out of the air. So I go out for a walk every morning and come back refreshed.
That's during the day - at night we sleep separately and I have no heating on, window open.

Our downstairs heating is always on 20C throughout the day, my mobility is not so good, and I spend much of my day in my recliner chair. I don’t like to feel ‘bunched up’ by a lot of restrictive clothes, and prefare light soft easy to wear garments. I also keep a single 10.5tog Cotton covered Duvet over the back of my recliner chair in case l fancy a snooze!
DH often complains that he’s too warm, and takes himself off to watch Tv upstairs where the heating is set at 18C, some nights l prefer to sleep in my big recliner and can happy sleep soundly fully reclined until l awake the next morning, having changed into my night clothes in my downstairs bathroom.

Franbern Your daughter is right, what you are describing is a route to hypothermia, which is slow, quiet and can eventually kill you.

You do not feel cold when you have hypothermia because you cool down very slowly, so as your outer body calls down so does your core, and that is the danger, you just gently start slowing down, feeling a bit drowsy. In extremis your organs fail and you die.

I speak with experience. I first suffered from hypothermia on a sailing holiday when I was 20. On a cold day I had been in the cockpit manning a sail for about three hours when all of a sudden the skipper told me to go into the cabin and get into my sleeping bag and he called other crew members to make me a hot drink and heap more sleeping bags on me. He was an experienced offshore sailor and had recognised the symptoms. I wasn't aware of anything wrong. I felt a little spaced out, but otherwise fine. he explained it all to me later

It has happened to me a number of times since. Most recently just before Christmas, when I stood in the market in the rain queuing for vegetables. I had gone out in a wool coat not a waterproof because the rain was unexpected. My coat - and me got soaked. I then queued, outside, but undercover for an hour at the farm shop waiting to collect the turkey. Fortunately I realised what was happening and as soon as I got home I asked DD to make a hot drink, and as she was only just up she brought her still warm duvet from her bedroom and wrapped it round me. After about an hour I warmed up, but I was left exhausted and slept for several hours after.

Hypothermia is insidious and dangerous. This American site explains it better than the NHS site.
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/182197

I think that the optimum for the older person is 21c, particularly if their health is not up to scratch.

We like ours at about 21/22deg. Cooler in the bedroom, of course.

Isn’t there a danger in not being mobile and not heating the room enough that hypothermia can set in without the person being aware? That might be what your dd is concerned about.

Horses for courses, isn't it. Ours is a constant 21 from 6.30 - 10.30. Going into my neighbours houses is like walking into a cooler room.? They are not wrapped up in fleeces or big cardigans, not one throw in sight.
But they just don't feel the cold.

Oh, Monica has just explained it very well!

that's interesting Monica. getting wet and cold is risky; if that was me i would have got into a warm bath on return home.
i operate in farenheit. i do feel a bit chilly sometimes when i wake if my room is in the low 50s. but i wear thermals in bed plus winter pyjamas and thick socks or wellington liners which are v comfortable. i do not like too much heat, it makes me feel imprisoned.
62 F would be ideal for me. 68 F would feel too hot.

Yes, I agree MOnicas advice is correct. Personally, I feel the cold and typically wear 4 layers and keep my living area around 22 degrees. I’m fortunate to not have to choose between heating and eating though I am concerned about the cost. Being cold makes me miserable though.

Welbeck without intending to, you are falling for one of the fallacies of wrapping up protecting you from cold.

No matter how well wrapped you are, if you are breathing cold air, it is going to cool you down from the inside out and you could end up with hypothermia. It is a mistake many older people make and why the death rate from hypothermia among older people is so high.

I am not someone who likes to be over heated and we normally have the thermostat set at 18.5 during the day. At night it is set at 15.5, for just the reasons given above. it means most nights of the year the heating is off all night, but in the recent cold snap, it has come on again on several nights.

21

Welbeck forgive me if I overstep, but if you are having to live on £10 a day, you may need a benefits check? You should be entitled to pension credit at least. That's if you are in the UK.

The temperature varies.

We have a room thermometer which has been known to register 10°C on cold mornings. Only heating we have is log burner+ back boiler (which is loaded up each night before we go to bed) and also a range which give additional heat in our one room cottage when the oven is on.

So, until the fire gets roaring again, I'm in lots of thin layers and get busy. We are both really active and the layers soon come off. The living area is part workshop for me.

One big advantage. The fire's hot water tank is behind our bed on the mezzanine level. Very warm up there when I go to bed.

Some would say, get more heating or get the cottage insulated. Thought about it 6 years ago and the plans to improve the cottage would have spoilt its looks. So we've now almost built a super energy efficient bungalow that will have a Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery Unit. Constant temp and a dramatic improvement to the indoor air quality. Roll on next winter.

Thank you all for replying. Yes, Monica it is hyperthermia that my daughter keeps on about and and has sent me various articles.

Problem is that I do not feel the cold very much. Cannot sleep in a warm atmosphere, so heating is off at night and I only have a 4.5 tog duvet. My flat is quite warm, and only if it gets very cold at night -below 0 degrees outside, do I need anything in addition to that.

Due to mobility problems and COPD, I do not do a lot except for housework and cooking. Do about 10-15 mins of gentle exercise each morning. Otherwise I do spend most of my time in my recliner chair, on laptop, listening to radio, watching tv.

In the past, I would be going out most days to things like U3A meetings, but they are on zoom now.

So, yes, I will try to be more careful and put my heating on during the day and keep an eye on the temperature, not allowing it go below 18 degrees at any time indoors.

Wellbeck, I have Pension Credit and some Attendance Allowance. As I have no mortgage, although do have maintenance agreement for my flat, I can live well within that and really do not have to consider a little extra cost with regard to heating. If you are on just £70 per week total income, then you really do need to find out how you can top up that income.