[jen]

A question now that it's winter: what temperature do you keep your home?

We have central heat in our new house and have been wondering what's a reasonable temperature to keep the house at for day/night. We've been turning it on in the morning to get it to 18, then usually turn it on again around 5pm for awhile. We leave it off at night - the coldest it's been when I looked at the thermostat in the morning is 12 (brr!)

I'm trying not to turn the heat on too much until I get the first gas bill & get an idea of how much it costs to run. It was cold this week-end (at least to this former coastal Californian) and in the evenings I was keeping the heat off and bundling under two layers of clothes and some very fuzzy socks :)

So what do you all think is a comfortable temperature? Do you heat the house or do you pile on the jumpers?

Jen

[Sam B]

If I had heating, I would heat the house. When I used to read this forum in Britain I have to admit to feeling slightly scathing about all the cold house comments, because we had no central heating in our house there, just a coal fired esse (like a primitive aga) and a solid fuel burner in the living room, and it always felt pretty toasty. The bedrooms were cold, but we liked it that way. However, what I was totally failing to appreciate was that our house had stone walls that were 2 feet thick, loft insulation etc. i.e. it kept the heat in and kept the rain out.

Our rental in NZ is really a glorified wooden shed with absolutely no insulation. Cambridge has little wind, but quite a lot of fog at the moment, and there is a general feeling of dampness about the place. We have plug-in radiators, and they do take the edge off, but the house is not just cold, it's damp, and that can be quite depressing. During the day, with the sun on the windows, it probably gets up to about 19, but at night, even with the plug in radiators, it must be not much above 12, less in the unheated rooms. And damp, did I mention the damp?

Brrrrr.

[clg]

Last winter we set the heat at 20, we have toughened up a little now and have it at 19 which feels fine. We had the heat set to 12 at nights last winter and it only kicked in once that I was aware of. This winter we bumped it up to 15 at night (4 month old this winter). I don't think it has turned on yet at night. No damp problems with our place so lucky there I guess. Our old house in LA had a lot of mildew, leather shoes got all sorts of strange growths on them after a few months. None of that here so there are some Kiwi houses that are not damp!

Last summer we had all of our windows worked on to make sure they seal properly, the aluminum windows tend to sag after about 20 years and don't seal tightly so we had quite a few drafts. Fixing that (and weather stripping doors) has really made a difference.

[Angelonthemove]

Not sure if all themostates are acurate. I am at home and have just turned ours up to 21.5 as its cold and the heating had not kicked it. Normally we have it on 20. Night time 17 its has only once come on this year at that. I thought it was morning so got up and it was only 3am!!

We have just found out we have been heating the outside outhouse as that is where the air central heating ducts are , we did not know they had broken so we have been turnig up the thermostat and heating outside. Hate to think what our heating bill will be. Move out Friday so not long in rented.

No central heating in new house so will notice the difference I think :laugh

[swissmissdesigner]

Jen: I sent you some sunshine from California.
We definetly need to "cool down" here.

By the way: I bought my place 6 years ago with central heater, I don't know If I ever have to use it.

[Tia Maria]

Jen,

Do be aware that where your thermostat is sited can make a big difference so its probably better to check with a thermometer.

Anyway there was a comment on the Wasted programme recently about how warm a house should be to be healthy but I can't find any reference to it online. I think it may have been a WHO figure but I'm not sure - maybe someone else saw it?

I heat the house and use a dehumidifier - there is one room in particular where anything stored under the bed goes mouldy if we don't run the dehumidifier in there. I also find wearing shoes really helps and keeping busy in the evenings.

I know of several locals that just go to bed early! :laugh

Cheers

Tia

[Tia Maria]

I've just spotted the met service is adding a wind chill description to its online forecast:

www.metservice.co.nz/default/index.php

A description of what wind chill is:

www.metservice.com/default/index.php?alias=month_feature_june_2007

And trust me in some villas there is definitely a wind chill factor! :(

Cheers

Tia

[jen]

Jen,
Anyway there was a comment on the Wasted programme recently about how warm a house should be to be healthy but I can't find any reference to it online. I think it may have been a WHO figure but I'm not sure - maybe someone else saw it?
Tia

I think I saw that one - it was the daughter's room & they were going on about how it was under the WHO standard temp. putting her at risk for asthma- something like that? I was trying to remember the number; the only place I found online said WHO recommended minimum 18 degrees. Oh well, it's probably at least 18 UNDER the covers at night, so we'll be all right surely :laugh

We're putting more pink batts in our ceiling as only one small part was insulated. We only have curtains in one bedroom right now (we don't have neighbors close enough to see into the house!) and I really like the sunny open feeling without them but I suppose it'd help keep the heat in if we did.

We haven't felt damp in the house, but we've had condensation on the windows & even a bit dripping off the basement ceiling one morning so I gave in and bought our first dehumidifier today. I've learned NOT to boil things on the cooktop without a lid - I was boiling a lot of beets and after 1/2 hr the walls started to drip :uhoh Now I use lids and turn on the range hood no matter how loud the fan is!

Jen

[Brad77]

currently 11C outside. 20C inside with an oil heater going. I have shorts and t-shirt on.

[Sam B]

Sat in living room with ski jacket on. I hope you can sleep at night Brad77!

[Brad77]

yeah, can sleep at night. I leave heater on 'low' and it is prob about 16 in the room by morning.

[jen]

:laugh :laugh :laugh

[Brad77]

buy a heater!:raebanana

[Sam B]

I would be laughing, but my teeth are chattering too much

[veronica]

As mentioned above the dehumidifyer makes a difference too. Damp cold is horrible. mind you the southerly wind isn't too good either.

[jess]

I don't have a thermostat in the house, but we're running the woodstove in our open plan kitchen/livingroom/study area, and it's staying toasty.

In the rental we had little electric space heaters, and not knowing how expensive it was we ran them a lot that freakishly cold June. Had a $400+ electric bill for one month!! Pretty much turned off the heaters after that and just layered on and froze the rest of last winter.

This year in our own place we bought a load of wood that will keep us warm for 4 months or so for $430.

[sizzlingbadger]

Our place is usually colder inside than out most mornings :roll

But we've got used to no heating during the day and an open fire heating the lounge in the evenings.

Do have the odd really damp day, Sunday was one of the worst and we had the dehumidifier running all day, moving it around to different parts of the house.

We've luckily got ceiling and wall insulation. Hoping where ever we move to will have some sort of insulation but I'm not holding out any hopes :o

[Lupin]

Sam, get a dehumidifier. Damp is a health issue. Our rental is quite hopeless and we have to use the (thankfully massive) kent quite a bit to keep the house tolerable. Usually means we're in our undies in the living room to get a reasonable temperature elsewhere.

We are using gathered free wood (really well seasoned hardwood from roadside etc) which gets really hot. I couldn't tolerate damp though :no

[Lupin]

Right with you sizzling badger....it's very sunny here in Hawkes Bay so we open the door first thing to let the heat in!

[Sam B]

I know You're right Lupin, our dehumidifier is in our container (6 weeks and counting) and I'm too tight to buy another one. Houses in Cornwall are also v damp, so it's a super strength one. Can't wait!

[katandbob]

Last summer we had all of our windows worked on to make sure they seal properly, the aluminum windows tend to sag after about 20 years and don't seal tightly so we had quite a few drafts. Fixing that (and weather stripping doors) has really made a difference.

Hi, I am interested on how you O/Hauled your Ali Windows (its windy tonight in Greenhills and the kitchen & dining room curtains are moving a bit:roll
I am putting up curtains over the blinds to double insulate, there are drafts and Jason's window is hard to open - so your comments would be helpful, as I was thinking the only thing I could do was replace them.

cheers

Kat......
Forgot to put temperature - its about 19 deg in the diner part of our open plan living area (we have the ceramic fan on at the min as its colder in the kitchen/diner part and it heats the hallway a bit too, The lounge is toasty warm as we have the wood burner on high, the next item on the shopping list is a heat transfer kit to take the excess heat from the lounge to the kitchen and hallway.

Its definately chilllier tonight, but we have plenty of free wood to use so I am not worried.

Kat

[clg]

Kat

There are quite a few companies around that seem to do this sort of thing. They basically replaced all the moving hardware on the window except for the window and frame, so the stays and that latch were replaced, they fixed some of the seals as well. What happens is the windows sort of sag from the top and the top of the windows do not seal properly, we had some gaps of up to 7mm on our worst window and almost all of them had a gap of a mm or two. The total came out to around 80 a window, not all that cheap and I was not really excited about it but it seems to have made a bigger difference than I thought. We don't have moving drapes anymore!

Chris

[Debbie]

My house has been freezing the last two days and I'm starting to really worry about the health implications for the kids. Their bedrooms have dropped to between 12 and 14 c over night but they are sound asleep under all their blankets and don't worry. I have heaters in their rooms that bring the room up to 15-17 for when they get up. If I run them all night or have them turn on during the night my daughter throws her blankets off and then gets cold.
We seem very lucky, no damp as yet, ran the dehumidifier 12 hrs and got very little water, probably to drafty for damp issues.
Does anyone know of any good links to look at regarding a health temp to keep a bed room and is it the room temp or the temp in bed I need to look at, or the damp/ cold relationship.
Nobody likes to think that where they are living is unhealthy of their kids and it's becoming a real worry to me.
Debbie

[jubjub]

Not sure Debbie, but I know for babies its meant to be 18, and I think that needs to be air temperature in the room, rather than how cosy they are when wrapped up. I have memories from somewhere of 14 being the lowest temp recommended for general living conditions, dunno where I got that from though.

We run a radiator all night in little ones room, and he is snuggled up two layers, topped off with a big polar fleece sleep suit (which they did adult ones!) and I am thinking of popping a cot quilt on top (for what good that would do with our wriggler!)

I think the main thing is that its not damp, so no mould can form, and they are not waking up cold in the night, so have a good nights sleep.

[zardell]

We seem very lucky, no damp as yet, ran the dehumidifier 12 hrs and got very little water, probably to drafty for damp issues.
Debbie



Now I'm sure that the following post to some of you out there will confirm my stupidity :o but when we first used our dehumidifier (never having used one before) we couldn't understand why we got very little water either.

It was only when we realised that there was a switch on it that lets you choose the humidity that you would like the room to be that we got it to work. It was set on 70% humidity and we changed it (initially) to 40% just to dry out the room. We now run it at about 55%.

But you all knew about that switch anyway, didn't you...........:roll



Julie

xx

[victoria]

Our rental is definately colder inside than out after the nighttime. Fri. night was so cold we had a brilliant idea. We walked down to the local Indian restaurant to order the hottest ones going.The thinking was this will keep us warm as toast right through til morning. Well, the restaurant didn't have heating & by the time the food was served, we we're already shivering.Not to worry though because we got well & truely stuck in.Didn't seem so hot(level 5) but when the beads of sweat came we knew we were in trouble.Being a pair of t . . . s we had to walk home (15-20 mins) in the cold with the lovely winter air on our now sweaty red faces.Flipping shaking like a belly dancer once indoors.Unfortunately the rich hot curries had more in store for us ... (hope you've guessed) but GANGES revenge! In & out of bed to a freezing bathroom all night!!!!And no wise cracks about the rushing to & fro warming us up cos it didn't. I'm buying another heater.
Yours well & truely flushed out.
Vicky

[Debbie]

Now I'm sure that the following post to some of you out there will confirm my stupidity :o but when we first used our dehumidifier (never having used one before) we couldn't understand why we got very little water either.

It was only when we realised that there was a switch on it that lets you choose the humidity that you would like the room to be that we got it to work. It was set on 70% humidity and we changed it (initially) to 40% just to dry out the room. We now run it at about 55%.

But you all knew about that switch anyway, didn't you...........:roll



Julie

xx

Our dehumidifier is an old and basic model, (but works fine) switch it on and it sucks water out of the air. Keep it simple is my moto.
We have a humidity meter in the house, (borrowed from the kids weather station) and it classes 40-70% moisture as normal and we always seem to be in that range.
I don't like the gas heater that we have in the hall as I think they make moisture so we stick to a few oil rads and our fire. If the house was warmer we would probably get more condensation.
Debbie

[pinkpiggy]

We have a heater in each of the boys room which makes their rooms nice and cosy when they go to bed and just before they wake up. We have a heater in our room that is on for about 1-2 before we go to bed otherwise it's freezing. In the lounge we have a heat pump and a very small fan heater that we use in the dining room but it still feels very cold at night.

I think it's partly because the rental we're in faces the wrong way to catch the winter sun!

Still apart from the first few nights when we had no heaters we've not woken up because we're cold, which has to be a good thing.

[Joanne100]

I thought we were all going to be really ill and die when we moved into our house it was so cold , no heat, no insulation, no double glazing, managed two years without any coughs & colds, we get a heat pump, we get double glazing and guess what ive just been in bed for a week with a really bad cold OH had it the week b4, kids starting with cough and blocked nose.
just a coincidence, has me wondering!!

[jen]

Unfortunately the rich hot curries had more in store for us ... (hope you've guessed) but GANGES revenge! In & out of bed to a freezing bathroom all night!!!!And no wise cracks about the rushing to & fro warming us up cos it didn't. I'm buying another heater.
Yours well & truely flushed out.
Vicky

:laugh :laugh :laugh

Poor Vicky, so much for the Hot Curry Theory of surviving a New Zealand winter! Your story made me feel very grateful since OH & I also went out for Indian last night, but fortunately suffered no such problems!

Jen

[Ana&Steve]

I have a thought for anyone with (clean) sheepskins. Put them over your pillow fur side up and snug your face in them, it works very well. (unless you are allergic to wool!) Also if you have enough, sleep on them and or use them with blankets, they are excellent insulators!
We originally found this when we were out at a Ren Faire and there was an unexpected cold snap, and we had the furs to decorate our tent, so we grabbed them to us and the rest is history! (Ok if we're going to be historical about it, our ancestors figured it out first, but what the hey)
Yea I know, an electric blanket is probably cheaper than a bunch of skins, but if you already have them....also the cords don't wear out on the sheepskins!:D
Ana

[swissmissdesigner]

Excellent idea Ana!
I used canadian fury for my kids back in Switzerland.
We never had heater on in the night and windows where little bit open for fresh air even in the winter time.
The kids never got sick..

[Sam B]

We've lived in cold houses without heating for a few years now, and we get much less illnesses than when we had central heating. Viruses thrive in warm conditions. The main thing to avoid is damp and mould, a good dehumidifier is the key. My kids have always been well in their v cold bedroom, just a really good, high tog goose-down duvet each and the dehumidifier on during the day.

Our NZ rental was v damp, but our new house (moved in at the w/e!) is cold but not damp. Such a relief.

[Park City Partner]

Last year when I had the baby I bought a bunch of oil fin heaters to heat the various rooms because I refused to be cold..especially since I was home all the time with the wee one...then we got a "courtesy call" from Contact becuase our bill was so high...I guess they didn't want anyone to drop dead from shock! Well, needless to say after that bill the oil fin heaters stayed off a lot more. This year we got more wood and only run the heater in the baby's room.

My partner bought me a hot water bottle to take the chill of the sheets but that just wasn't cutting it for me. I was in the Warehouse the other day and bought an electric underlay for the bed...I got a single size for my side of the king bed so OH wouldn't complain...it is FANTASTIC! I have it plugged into a timer so it is warm when I get in and then turns off...that is all I need. It is still really cold in the morning but I am SO MUCH happier getting into bed at night now.

[thepiesleys]

What a funny place - how cold is it in the morning?????? Come 10.00/11.00 and it's pretty warm again though.

Dreading the power bill this month though as we have had oil fin heaters in two of the rooms. My eldest has two external walls in his room and it is ludicrious, if I could I would do something but what can I do? I went in the other night and my breath was in the air, I put another blanket on him and he said thanks - to get a reaction from him told me enough, he was cold. Dread to think what the actual temp was but fairly sure it was bel;ow world health organisations recommendations.

Dan

[steviec]

[QUOTE=zardell;136659]Now I'm sure that the following post to some of you out there will confirm my stupidity :o but when we first used our dehumidifier (never having used one before) we couldn't understand why we got very little water either.

It was only when we realised that there was a switch on it that lets you choose the humidity that you would like the room to be that we got it to work. It was set on 70% humidity and we changed it (initially) to 40% just to dry out the room. We now run it at about 55%.

But you all knew about that switch anyway, didn't you...........:roll


We just had an on/off switch with ours Julie, so thats news to us:confused:

[steviec]

Had a few laughs reading the posts on this thread even tho it was probably not so funny to the 'victims' at the time.
I am getting worried now tho as the rental we are in we haven't really suffered with cold, just some condo on windows in the morning.
Set the heat pump to 16-17 for night time and oil fin rad in babies bedroom and so far we have all been ok.
Leccy blanket on 2 beds to take off any chills before getting in. Not received energy bill yet:roll
Are we being spoilt here, even tho we are not paying silly money for rent and are we going to freeze when we move at the end of August:wah

[Toronto_Kiwi]

Thanks this thread is useful as we're thinking about moving to a new rental because we find the current one quite cold this winter - OTOH it isn't at all damp. Sounds like we may not be too badly off and if we try to find a more insulated place it might turn out damper.
Although - we may have to move anyway as I'm expecting and our 2nd floor balcony railings are spaced widely enough for a toddler to fall through. What's up with building codes in New Zealand?

[zardell]

Not received energy bill yet:roll





Maybe we should start a new thread:

Heating Bills for the Winter Months.

Just a thought.........

Julie

xx

[katandbob]

well the coldest its been in the morning here was yesterday when it was 11 degrees c, I just put on the electric ceramic fan heater - I don't bother lighting a fire on a week day since we are only going to be in the house for an hour before leaving for work.

Its Sunday now, it was 12 so I put the fan heater on and started the Fire going. its now 18 and feels fine, I am going to get a de-humidifier this week, to see if it helps to heat the rest of the house and get rid of the condensation.

Its blowing a gale and raining - with occasional sun shine popping its head through the window. BUT we haven't had any snow, must be too near the coast for it (or its blowing straight to Dunedin:laugh )

We have Eleccy blankets with dual controllers on our bed and the guest beds, Jason has a cheapy one that I got from the Warehouse - I got it because its one controller for the whole queen size (since he moves around in bed alot!)
This was a bargain - as I got a single one free! so now I have one for every bed in the house!:nice1

So I turn ours on 20 mins before I go to bed, and we also have an oil radiator set at the lowest setting, It turns on about 4am in the morning - but If the bills are huge this month - I'll turn it off.

Kat

[Lupin]

Mine isn't damp either but I think that is perhaps because it has all wooden floors and no underfloor insulation and is on piles so perhaps the constant draft prevents it from getting damp? I'm not sure really.

[Carol]

little one is snuggled up two layers, topped off with a big polar fleece sleep suit (which they did adult ones!)


They do Sal - have a look in the Warehouse!
Funniest things I've ever seen.


But hey - they are warm!


We have central heating in our current house - which is actually keeping me in it - despite it being too small for us.
And it is STILL damp.
I dread to think what it would be like without it!

[veronica]

with the damp I have been told that the laying of plastic on the earth under the house (IF its on piles) reduces the humidity in the house tremendously, thus raising the tempreture. other wise I suppose its the double glazing route.

[sweetpea]

Let me just say I was wrong, wrong, wrong when I said, while blithely living back in California, that the cold couldn't be that bad! It was 4 degrees in my house this morning. Luckily, the house doesn't have a dampness problem and does have lots of north-facing windows. Still, with no central heat it gets, well, not-so-tropical. I use a mighty oil fin electric heater with the lounge doors closed off, and an electric blanket in the evening, which takes the chill off. But it took a good year to get used to the cold!

[Sam B]

It's f-f-f-freezing...

[KerryS]

I always read the posts about cold houses with some surprise. Every house I'd lived in here had been warm as toast and I really didn't appreciate the problem with cold houses.
I moved into a really old villa last month, which we are planning to renovate. And I have never been so cold in my life! I woke up this morning and could see my breath. I pulled on my gym kit and went for a run to warm up, and it was warmer outside than in!
Roll on the summer when we can start renovations - I've now got insulation and heating at the top of my want list, rather than granite worktops and a range cooker!

[katandbob]

I've now got insulation and heating at the top of my want list, rather than granite worktops and a range cooker!

:laugh yes funny how a transfer kit sounds nicer than a new carpet! I was looking at a humidifier in Bond&Bond, the guy told me to go home and think about it as he says that they don't tend to work very well here.
they need High Humidity and it needs to be about 30 deg c to work efficiently.:confused: he says it works better in summer? so I am going to do some more research, and look into what will be best as we are lucky not to have a mould problem - just condensation on the windows in the mornings.

so I was happy to see that the sky was brightening sooner today- as a herald to the lighter nights that are around the corner and of course the summer!

Kat

[Marie P]

Well in our 7 month old house ,we have been pretty impressed. In the mornings its cool but if we just get up and get dressed and open the blinds to let in the sunlight.
Some condensation on our bedroom windows .

In the evenings when we sit and watch TV we switch on our Rinnai energy saver gas heater {which has a flue so no fumes or condensation}. The room gets really warm and so we open all the doors and let the heat warm the rest of the house .

Marie x

[Pip]

Certainly has got a little nippy of late! We've started getting ice in the taps in the mornings.. so you get a flurry of slushy ice coming out for about twenty seconds before water starts running. Brrrrrrr.....

We've bought a gas bottle fire from warehouse to keep us going until our log burner is installed. Its actually much more effective than the small fan heater in the sitting room wall and also no more worrying about how much the bill will be, as you pay to have the gas bottle filled in advance!

(n.b decided we had to do something after the cat yawned and I could see her breath! - at least I can put on extra fleeces!)

[nippa&pippa]

Our house is surprising very warm, sure Pip would confirm this!
One of kiwi friends mentioned that because we have enclosed gardens with pine tress around us and another pine trees/trees around our paddocks! mean we have less wind into our areas than house not protected against winds (if you live in canterbury areas, you know what winds we talking about:laugh )
Also we have logburner on go all day night so kids is not too cold during days when we have frost. Just turn low on warm days and high on cold days..Moorf gave me a great tip, don't clean out the logburner too often (we do it once a fortnight now instead of daily when we first moved in:o )..this help lots of not waste too much on logs as with pile of ashes, the logs took longer to burn out:nice1 and withheld heat very well....:raebanana
My OH put stack of logs in the logburner and turn low to leave it overnight, and place is still warm in the morning and my OH put more in before he go to work at 6am....Our water is heated by logburner too...

[Debbie]

Prompted by an earlier post I've start a winter bill thread under the money section.
Debbie

[Familyofmonkeys]

Found some WHO guidelines....apparently ideal living temp is 18-24 degrees. Aparently anything below 16 degrees means you are more likely to have respiritory illnesses. That explains why my asthma is worse then....the last few days our rental has been about 6 degrees in the morning. We have a halogen heater in our bedroom all night just to keep the edge off...and the baby still goes to bed with us, it's just too cold so he will not sleep in his cot.
We are going to get a house built....putting the maximum insulation possible in the wall cavity spaces. Don't know why all houses are not built this way. It only costs a couple of thousand $'s more. Nothing compared to the cost of building a house. Add some DVS and hopefully we will not suffer next winter!!

[willsken]

It's not very pleasant being cold is it? We had our wood burner installed last week and I'm a different person. I went from a very grumpy and temperamental and frankly unpleasant person, back to an easygoing person with a pretty happy nature almost overnight. Amazing how the cold house affected my mood! :)

[suzer]

I have to say, being from Chicago, this is the worst winter I've been through. I'm at home sick now with a cough and other unpleasant nasties, and I swear it's the temp. We have a space heater thingie, but are living in an old hostel at the moment (finding it hard to find a reasonable furnished flat in Auckland) and it is chilly. I hate being cold! I feel grumpy...and dirty:/

[Lupin]

Is this thread for real?!? 4 and 6 degrees inside and slushy ice coming out of the taps :(

What kind of homes are these? How can they make so many homes so poorly?!? :no

[Tia Maria]

willsken wrote:

It's not very pleasant being cold is it? We had our wood burner installed last week and I'm a different person. I went from a very grumpy and temperamental and frankly unpleasant person, back to an easygoing person with a pretty happy nature almost overnight. Amazing how the cold house affected my mood! :)

So true! Not that I'm saying you were a grumpy person, but that a cold house can really bring you down.

Some people can't cope with the heat and have to shower everytime the temperature spikes - others can't cope with the cold. I hate walking on cold floorboards - they are like ice at the moment so I always have something on my feet, but I do feel sorry for my 10 month old who has to crawl on them.

We always said that if we bought a cold house we'd insulate and heat it straight away but things are never that straightforward. In our case we don't know how long we'll be in this house so you have to start deciding whether being warm is worth $10,000+, if you're going to move out next year.

Other people face the issue of the upheaval of having stuff done. For some villas its fairly painless to heat and insulate but for others you need to remove all the gib board and redecorate. Even if you had the money its not always practical unless you are willing to move out.

Its at times like these I'm glad I don't live on a hill with a sea view because everyone I know who does, and lives in a villa, is absolutely freezing - their curtains are horizontal when the wind blows! :(

Cheers

Tia