House temperatures

[Argyll]

My parents is permanently set at 25 degrees

I have mine set at 13 degrees overnight and between 09:00-16:30. It goes to 19 degrees between 8-9am and 19 degrees between 16:30-22:00.

I had it set to 21 degrees last week and it was too warm.

[Argyll]

Back in the 50's when I was born there were few houses with any form of central heating and the heat was usually from one or two fires in the main rooms. You would hop up quickly to the loo as it would be cold when you left the hot room. I recall having an electric blanket which was great after having hot water bottles previously. When my parents moved in 1967 we had central heating and it was luxury, it was comfortable all over the house. Your description reminded me of the 50's R, I picture you all warming your hands on a light bulb we will be going back to that with heat pumps. Thank f*ck I have lived through the best of times, there is nothing to look forward to.

DWD

We only got gas in our village in the mid 80's. Before that it was coal fires and we only had one in the living room. It was always my job to make the fire in the morning and get coal at night because I was the only boy. My two sisters had to wash up. Fair trade.

Mum had wee paraffin heaters in our bedrooms which were only turned on an hour before we went bed and then were switched off.

[etaf]

our is around 20ish , but i monitor with a thermometer connected up to a weather station display i have - so i can see the temp over time
I think the thermostat is around the 22 mark -
right now its at 22 and the thermostat just below , shows 20.4
we turn down to 18 at night

my daughter has now set house for 18 24/7 - seems to be ok for them

But an elderly freind of mine - with individual wireless thermostats per radiator - (fischer system) usually has setting between 22 & 26

[Grendel]

we bought a 12 tog goose down duvet the other month and it made a big difference.

Wife says she feels hot in bed and for christmas got a one tog duvet. I must admit I'd never heard of one and thought it couldn't be much more than a sheet..

[oz0707]

we bought a 12 tog goose down duvet the other month and it made a big difference.

Wife says she feels hot in bed and for christmas got a one tog duvet. I must admit I'd never heard of one and thought it couldn't be much more than a sheet..

when women get to a certain age do we even need to put the heating on for them?!

[Rorschach]

we bought a 12 tog goose down duvet the other month and it made a big difference.

Wife says she feels hot in bed and for christmas got a one tog duvet. I must admit I'd never heard of one and thought it couldn't be much more than a sheet..

I am not looking forward to dealing with that in a few years. The missus is bad enough now with her current hormone levels.

[chrrris]

I am not looking forward to dealing with that in a few years. The missus is bad enough now with her current hormone levels.

Heh. Me & my Mrs went round to my my (single) mates house for dinner a while ago. He's not blessed in the arts of tact or diplomacy, and he mentioned, in conversation, that "women don't seem to understand it's very difficult for the man to do deal with them going through the menopause". My (menopausal) Mrs saw red and let rip in a massive way. I just sat back p**sing myself laughing as she was pretty much proving his point in real time.

[Rorschach]

Hahaha, awesome.

He's absolutely right though. My missus has often said to me (when calmed down) that she doesn't know why I stay with her as if she were me she would have left long ago. I have learned not to take it personally and over the years we have both improved our handling of these things.

[dewaltdisney]

Let me tell you it does not get better, Mrs D still goes from zero to crazy in 2 seconds.

DWD

[Someone-Else]

May I suggest your respective partners enquire with your Dr. about HRT, my oh is on it, works wonders.

[dewaltdisney]

Mrs D did look at HRT but decided it was too risky for her with the potential side effects of weight gain, heart disease, blood clots, and breast cancer. Now, this is probably not an issue for most but her Doctor swerved her from going on it. The madness remains.

DWD

[Tom d'Angler]

When I was a young lad in the mid- to late-sixties we lived in a 1930s council house with no heating apart from one coal fire in the sitting room that was replaced in the late-sixties with a gas fire. My parents invested in a paraffin heater. As I was the youngest, it was put in my bedroom first. When I went to bed, it was moved into my sisters' room, and when they went to bed it was moved into my parents' room. I don't know how we didn't suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning! On the rare occasion that I smell a paraffin heater or lamp now, it brings back lovely memories, and coal brings back memories of our coal house that was a brick cupboard inside another brick cupboard off the kitchen that we called the "outhouse". I remember thin ice on the inside of my bedroom window during the colder mornings of winter.

In 1973 we did a council exchange and moved to a new house on a huge experimental estate (Thamesmead in south east London) that had warm air central heating powered by steaming hot water from a community boiler house (still had metal-framed single-glazed windows though!). It was luxury compared to our previous house, although we all developed dry throats throughout the winter that my dad blamed on the heating.

To fellow long-suffering husbands of menopausal women: HRT does improve things, for the woman as well as for the man. Everyone in our family suffered from Mrs d'A's menopause for years, not just Mrs d'A, so much so that our youngest son and his girlfriend moved out before they were planning too because they couldn't stand it any more (the elder son had already left home, lucky bugger). For years Mrs d'A refused to consult any doctors and flatly refused to even consider HRT because of what she had read on Doctor Google. She even ignored a female friends who told her that HRT was a godsend and to ignore Google. It almost tore us apart as a couple. She regularly accused me of not understanding but many male friends told me I was very understanding, very sympathetic, and extremely patient. Eventually, after about five years, and an ultimatum from me, she went to see our GP. He was honest and said he didn't know much about the menopause and suggested she see another GP in the practice who, despite being a man, had attended lots of training on the menopause and was very sympathetic. He was indeed worth seeing and he counselled her on starting HRT and it improved things greatly. It didn't happen overnight, and it took a few months for the missing hormones to build back up in her body, but it made a huge difference, enough for many people outside our family to comment on how happier she seemed. Of course, like any drug, it does have side-effects but, as the GP showed her using reliable statistics, the dangerous side-effects are very low-risk. The only noticeable side-effect seems to be weight gain, although, other than our day job of decorating (during which she does the more sedate job of cutting-in, leaving all the more heavier-duty rolling to me), Mrs d'A doesn't do any exercise, spends every evening watching television, doesn't eat properly (leaning on processed foods for more than half her meals) and drinks a couple of bottle of wine a week. Before she was menopausal she would go to boot camp three times a week, went walking and swimming, and watched less television. Over time, the doses of HRT have been increased as her body loses even more of its natural hormones (her HRT dose is now seven times what it was), and her mood swings are still there, just not as often; when she's really moody it coincides with her doctor recommending an increase in HRT dosage so we go through a month or so of her bad moods (more snappiness at those closest to her than anything).

As has already been said, many people, mostly women, believe that the menopause doesn't affect men at all. I believe the timing of the traditional "midlife crisis" being a few years after his wife's menopause starts is no coincidence and that is is nothing more than the man's reaction to the monster that has replaced his previously loving and fun-filled wife. I am certain the average man just believes that his wife has stopped loving him so he looks elsewhere for fun, a fast car or a motorbike, lads' holidays, and younger women who are still interested in sex, being the obvious escape routes. One of the most damaging aspects of Mrs d'A's menopause-induced mood swings and snappiness as that whenever we discuss it after one of her "episodes", she just says "I can't help it!" without ever apologising for her behaviour, even though she acknowledges her behaviour was unacceptable, and that just seems to make it feel much worse for me and the others around her.

There is no doubt that the average GP (even a lot of the female ones) is untrained and unprepared to treat patients who have started the menopause, with many of them prescribing tranquilisers as they think menopausal women are just depressed. However, Davina McCall recently did an excellent (see * below) series about the menopause and is continuing her campaign to have better training for doctors so they can recognise the symptoms and start treating women more effectively, but bring new properly-trained doctors on board and re-educating existing doctors takes time and money, so it's going to be many years before women (and their families) are treated effectively.

* It makes my blood boil that men are still being treated as the villains when it comes to the effect the menopause has on their relationship. It is high time women, especially the professionals like doctors, counsellors, and other women who our wives take notice of (like those dreadful shouting and seemingly-deranged presenters on "Loose Women" and even Davina on her very one-sided series on the menopause), had sympathy for what they put us through even if they can't help it. Misogyny is rightly being called out at the moment but there is also a lot of misandry going on, especially when it comes to the menopause, and that needs dealing with too.

[chrrris]

Mrs D did look at HRT but decided it was too risky for her with the potential side effects of weight gain, heart disease, blood clots, and breast cancer. Now, this is probably not an issue for most but her Doctor swerved her from going on it. The madness remains.

Yeah, same here. My Mrs knows a couple of people who've had the dreaded tit-rot over the years, that they've put down to HRT so she's not having it. Bit of shame as I heard it makes them randy as anything

[Tom d'Angler]

I heard it makes them randy as anything

Can you tell Mrs d'A that please?

[Grendel]

Mrs G is on HRT and to be honest there seems to be little in the way of side effects. I seem to have missed out on the mood swings that some talk of , she doesn't shout and ball at anyone and although she's a little bigger than she was 25 years ago there hasn't been any real weight gain. The menopause seems to manifest itself as hot flushes and a bit of forgetfulness .
Going back to the house heating I grew up initially in a caravan then a couple of 1950's council houses which had coal fires and no central heating so perhaps that explains why I'm comfortable with a lower temperature. My parents only had central heating fitted late in their lives but seemed reluctant to actually use it. A one point they tended to stick to one room with an open fire supplemented by a portable butane heater. It has been interesting asking this question on here and a couple of other forums. In the albeit relatively small survey it seems the majority of people fall into two camps , either 18 or 22 degrees with a small percentage either hotter or colder.