The number on the thermostat isn’t really the important thing. If you have a sun room that heats up the house, and say it’s toasty warm, the temperature is probably over the 65-66 degrees the thermostat is set on. The heat isn’t going to come on if the house is warmer than the setting.
Some days the sun room gets warm enough to drive the temp up in the main house, but all drops down at night along with what I set the temperature to.
If you’re used to a warm climate my temps would be cold.
I’m used to a warm climate now that I live in Mexico, but when I lived in Canada, my house was kept at around 75 in the winter, even though I was used to cold outdoor temperatures. I’d be cold anywhere at an indoor temp of 65.
I learned from living in the PNW to dress in layers and that’s what I still do. I miss my wood stove, it was toasty back then.
I don’t think this is necessarily a UK thing, it’s a European thing. When I travel internationally I try my best to not bring the USA to the country I am visiting but to honor the country’s social expectations such as for example their tipping expectations, I don’t bring the USA’s tipping policies to their country and tip 20% when the expectations are rounding up or 5 or 10%.
Heat and cooling is certainly another one I conform to. Since I’m aware of these situations and still like to have my USA temperature comforts I have in the past more than once contacted the host and just made an arrangement that was financially agreeable for both of us so I could have my comforts while not put exploiting their expectations.
For instance on one trip to Ireland the host had notes about turning down or off the heating when leaving the cottage. In this case when returning we discovered it took 4-5 hours for the heat to catch up to a comfortable level. We just contacted the host about the situation and we worked out a financial recourse that everyone found acceptable and we didn’t follow the heating instructions from then on and we both were happy.
I find there is almost always a solution to be found but you’re likely going to pay for it, but I find that more acceptable than the alternative of announcing in disgust “how dare they” make me adjust my life to their country. 
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One of the most common summertime questions I get from guests from colder USA climates is “Can I regulate the thermostat?” I always answer “No, it’s on my side of the house and if you put it at 65, you’ll break my HVAC and the number doesn’t accurately represent house feel.” Even hotels don’t let you put the AC that low. They usually argue with me and I say they should find a place that’s a better fit.
I’m thinking of putting in a mini split in that room, which already has a ceiling fan. Guests can control it and I can set parameters on it, too.
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We were hosting my husband’s half brother’s family. Just as a personal visit. And they had 3 teenage boys. One of them would turn the thermostat down to 65 and then close the vents?? It was absolutely maddening.
He sounds unclear on how AC works. Probaby thought closing the vents would somehow keep the cold air in the house. Did you not tell him or his parents not to do this when you realized it was happening?
We told them and they cut it out. But shortly that day, back at their own home in the midwest, their mom’s sister left the pool heating on in the middle of snowy winter and raked up a hefty bill.
Some people just treat utilities as not real, unless it’s their own.
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I have some friends who spend half the year in Mexico and half in Colorado. One winter their tenants called them saying there was no water. After trying to troubleshoot long distance with no success, they drive all the way back to Colorado to find that one of the tenants had left the hose running. It had been running for weeks, continually draining the cistern.
The water level on our pool always looks a little on the low side. It was designed that way for some reason. We’ve had guests try to fill it and of course that does nothing other than run water out of our cisterns, through the pool, and down the hill. We solved that by simply locking up the hoses.
Here in Northern California winters can get chilly - we get snow and ice and well as wind and rain. We are off grid, so when weather gets exciting, and there is no solar power generated, we are on generator completely. Our winter fuel costs for lights, hot water and heat are thus very high. We bundle up, but our guests do not, and we do not expect them to. We keep the same room rate all year, and bite the bullet when 4 figure propane and diesel bills arrive from the fuel deliveries. We make it known that we are like a ship at sea, with no public utilities, thus conservative living is necessary, and water is precious too. We just understand that paying guests will do what they will, and we do want them to have a terrific stay experience, so we just keep quiet and figure it will all balance out eventually. The alternative is to close during winter months, which we are not yet ready to do.
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Ha ha, never mind the cold air, we’ve built a pond so guests can swim with the frogs and newts that’s fed by a natural spring that comes out of the hillside at 4˚C. On several occasions guests have broken the ice for their dunk before walking through snow back to their room… that Wim Hof’s got a lot to answer for in my opinion.
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Yes Kitty, we’re the same but we’ve had a less than exciting, dreary and exceptionally cloudy year with the generator running far more than usual. I’ve just bought a wind turbine that I’m going to erect next week that’ll hopefully keep the batteries topped up enough for us to be generator-free but it won’t help with heating oil costs which are quite punishing. But as I mentioned earlier in the thread we’ve just put our prices up to cover that so we’ll see over the coming months whether the price hike will affect our occupancy and the turbine our diesel costs…
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@jujuba
We tried the wind turbine option for several years and took it down. We are on a mountaintop and our 42’ tower was inefficient due to turbulence and lack of a constant wind source. We loved those calm times, but the wind machine did not. Also taking it down periodically for maintenance was a huge job involving 4 people handling the guy wires. I’d love to hear your experience with this!
While we are in southern Arizona, we are nearly a mile high in the mountains. Hence we get cold here. (We’ve had flurries all day long today.) We’ve opted to close November – January. The heating bill increase as well as all the explanations of how things work in the winter (like the on-demand hot water heater) just wasn’t worth it. This may not be practical for others, but it works for us. Plus we rather enjoy the down time.
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