2025, Family, home, Kids, Seasons, Uncategorized

Freezing

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The only issue I have when we visit our son is the temperature of his home. He lives in a split level home, and the guest room is in the lower level. No matter the time of year, I always freeze in his house. I am always pretty cold in most settings, I must admit, but it is really cold for me there. (I have a space heater under my desk at work that I run most of the year, but our office building is generally experienced as a cold place and they can’t seem to regulate the temperature.)

Son got heat stroke a couple of summers ago and keeps the house very cool ever since, especially at night. The design of the house means that the cold air stays in the lower level and the hot air rises to the upper level. There is a big ceiling fan on both levels, but they don’t seem to do much in terms of drawing the warm air downstairs or pushing the cold air upstairs. Son and DIL spend most of their time on the upper level. Son closes the vents in the lower level in the summer, but I am still cold. I wore a down vest around the house on Sunday.

I sometimes resort to surreptitiously turning up the thermostat when no one is looking, but Son notices and turns it back down to 70°. That doesn’t sound cold, I know, but 70° there feels a lot colder than 70° in our house. I am thankful he has nice down comforters on the beds so I am warm enough when I sleep.

What are your standards for house temperatures?Where have you visited or stayed where you been the most uncomfortable? Ever had heat stroke or heat exhaustion?

25 thoughts on “Freezing”

  1. Huh! Interesting how the heat stroke affects his movements afterward…

    We keep our winter temps at 70, and have even stopped lowering it at night, reading that it overworks the furnace to crank it back up in the morning.
    When it’s warmer outside than in here, I open the windows and let the warm air in… till it gets TOO warm, then they’re closed again. We only use the A/C once it gets above 82 or so.

    Will finish later…

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  2. 67 during the morning and evening hours in winter. 61 at night and turn off heat during day (a throwback to when wife was working and I was not always home). I didn’t mind it getting down to 61 during the day too much. Used to set at 66 for the am/pm several hours, but wife asked for an extra degree.

    76 at night in summer for sleeping if AC is needed. Let it rise to 81 during the day if it gets warm. 78 for late afternoon/early evening. We can always retreat to our basement if we want to cool off but don’t want to turn on the AC.

    I grew up sleeping in a barely insulated top floor of a 1.5 story tract house. Parents were frugal, closed the upstairs door so heat wouldn’t escape the main floor. (Or god forbid, give us kids a few moments of warmth!) I’ll bet it was sometimes about 55 degrees when we woke up. We had one main furnace vent in the center of the house that we’d all crowd around on the brutally cold mornings.

    Summer was the opposite. No AC, of course, so we had a big noisy box fan in the upstair window that supposedly sucked all the hot air out of the house and replaced it with cool air. But that took all night to get the upstairs cool. The folks and my sister (later when she had her own room downstairs) got first crack at the cool air as the night passed.

    I remember many nights lying in my own sweat as hot air streamed across my body and out the window through the fan.

    I’m still a frugal old fart, but thank goodness for insulation and AC. I don’t deprive myself of more comfort than seems reasonable when balanced with the money savings.

    My desert friends—Palm Springs, and now “rural” Phoenix—don’t cool their house much at night, so the guest room I sleep in rarely gets below 80. There’s a fan in the room, but only blows hot air around until the outside temps drop enough to suck in some 70s air.

    No heat related maladies other than I’ve soaked my clothes completely playing golf on sweltering, humid days. Very uncomfortable and glad to be done, but a shower and dry clothes are the cure.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. My family lived in the same 1.5 story house for 4-5 years. My sister and I slept in the same very hot upper story with the same inadequate box fan.

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  3. Right now, contrary to my life history, I am cold all the time. Even at 78-79°. Internet search points to several possible causes. One is anemia, which I have had much of my life. Lab report, says as it usually does I am just below the line. I see my gp Friday for annual visit. I will bring it up.
    Clyde

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I had heat stroke in 1986 on a Boundary Waters Canoe trip on an unusually hot summer day (over 90°). It was miserable, especially while camping. But the entire trip was miserable and unlucky. On the same day while guiding the canoe through a shallow rocky spot the canoe bumped me and I sat down hard on a rock which left a huge bruise on my rear end. Next a bear also got our food supply, hung high in a tree according to all the instructions about bear-proofing your camp.

    We keep our heat at 70° in the winter and 74° in the summer. Right now the smoke in the air activates my allergies, so I use AC along with air filters to manage. Today I can smell the smoke.

    When my mother was in the nursing home the last two years of her life, she kept that room so hot. I could hardly stay awake in there because it made me so drowsy. It was also uncomfortable.

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  5. I’m hot nearly all of the time. No, it’s not hot flashes. I’m just hot.

    The warmest I set my thermostat in winter is 65 degrees. It’s often set cooler than that. On cold or cold and damp mornings, I use the gas fireplace for an hour or so. That’s enough to take any chill out of the air. When I’m gone for more than a day (in winter) I set it at 59 degrees.

    My condo unit faces south. All of the windows face south, and they give me a lot of solar gain. Right now it’s almost 90 degrees on the deck with the air temp at 71 with an overcast sky. This extraordinary heating arrangement helps me save money in the winter, but I lose all the money that I saved in the summer. When it’s really hot and sunny outside I close the drapes between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to keep the heat out. I set the AC at 73 and use ceiling fans and a box fan. If the weather is cooler and cloudy and the air quality index isn’t high, I open up the doors and windows until about 9 a.m. That causes the AC to stay off for a while, which helps. When I’m gone for more than a day in summer, I set the AC at 76.

    Right now I’m having trouble with air quality. The reading is 92 now, still in the moderate range but approaching “unhealthy for certain groups.” I stay in or wear a mask when it’s becoming unhealthy.

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  6. There’s a difference between “heat stroke” and “heat exhaustion.” Heat stroke is life threatening and the victim needs medical attention. Heat exhaustion can become heat stroke if you don’t take steps to cool yourself. Hydration is important. You can use damp cloths applied to your face, abdomen, and underarms to cool yourself. Be sure to get out of the sun and stop the activity that was causing you to overheat.

    I have had heat exhaustion, but not heat stroke. I over-did it every time I had to mow that lawn on its hill. Once I pushed the lawn mower back up the hill after finishing, abandoned it in the yard behind the house, went in the back door and immediately laid down/collapsed on the floor in the basement until I felt better. My body was beet red and my heart was pounding. Then I drank a lot of water and took a cool shower. I felt wrecked for the rest of the day.

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  9. I’m the opposite of you Renee. I can handle cold way better than hot. In winter we keep the house at 65 during the day and 58 at night. We have a boiler instead of a furnace so no worries about overtaxing. During the summer, I just set the daytime and nighttime back to 55, so heat rarely clicks on. Neither YA nor I have put our window AC units in yet. I didn’t put mine in at all last summer. We’ll see what the rest of this summer brings.

    As my mother has gotten older, she feels the cold more and more so her place is where I am the most uncomfortable. When I visited in January, I only took one sweatshirt and at the last minute packed one of my summer nightgowns. Saved my life!

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  10. Off topic but Brian Wilson.
    The renovation of Main Street here in Franklin, Ohio, included the addition of speakers that played music controlled by the city administration which is two blocks away from where I live. I’d heard of Wilson’s death earlier this morning, so after getting home from work this afternoon, I went over to the city manager and requested Beach Boys music.
    My request was granted!
    I have power over city hall!

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  13. I don’t like being cold in the winter or the summer, at least during the day. I find most public places overdo the air conditioning in the summer months.

    At night, when I’m tucked in, 65 – 68 is quite comfortable. I sleep better if it’s on the chilly side.

    .

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