What we’ll cover…
- Understanding ‘thermo-spats’ – how common heating disagreements actually are, based on new research among 2,000 UK adults.
- The most common flashpoint – why doors, not dials, top the list
- The secret thermostat adjustment – who is really doing it, and in which direction.
- Why we can’t agree – the surprisingly narrow temperature range the whole country is arguing over.
- Keeping the peace – the four things most people try before they touch the thermostat.
Are you ready for a ‘heated’ argument?
It’s almost winter (unless you’re reading this in May and it isn’t, but either way it will still make sense and is more than relevant, I promise).
The clocks have (almost) gone back, and you’ve no doubt turned the thermostat up a notch or two. If you’ve been allowed to, that is.
As it happens, the clocks are a bigger deal than we realised.
When we asked people when winter properly arrives, a quarter (25%) said it’s the clocks going back – more than named the first frost, the first snow, or the temperature itself. Winter, for most of us, starts on a Sunday morning in late October when it gets dark at half four.
And with it comes the drop in temperature, the longer evenings, the forecasters telling us to “wrap up warm”, and the thing you already know as well as I do – ‘argue over the heating’ season is upon us.
There have been plenty of studies over the years into why couples fall out.
Who does the washing up. Who’s walking the dog. Not picking up after yourself. Why it’s inappropriate to wear my t-shirts to bed every night (I hate that).
But the one that grinds the gears more reliably than any of them is how we heat our homes and how we keep warm.
So we decided to find out how big the problem really is.
We commissioned research among 2,000 UK adults, asking what genuinely causes friction at home once the heating goes on. The answers were not quite what we expected. The thermostat, it turns out, is not the main event!
What Britain actually argues about
Ask people to name the heating argument they have most often and you’d expect the answer to be the thermostat.
It isn’t.
Nearly a quarter of us (23%) named doors left open and heat escaping as the single most common household flashpoint of the winter, ahead of every other disagreement we tested.
It’s the one that gets shouted up the stairs. It’s the one that gets muttered about from the other side of a closed door, by someone who has just had to go and close it. And it’s the one that absolutely nobody admits to causing.
The thermostat is a quieter sort of battle. It’s fought by stealth rather than by argument.
20% of people admit to secretly turning the thermostat down without telling anyone. 19% admit to secretly turning it up.
Those two numbers are close enough that it’s fair to assume a decent share of them live in the same house, cancelling each other out in perpetuity, neither of them any the wiser.
Then there’s the one that begins as a sensible bit of household logistics and ends as a standing dispute – 27% told us they dry clothes directly on or next to a radiator. Convenient in January, certainly. A source of tension in a fair few homes, definitely.
(And worth knowing that a covered radiator can’t convect properly, so the room takes longer to warm up – which tends to start a second argument about the heating being rubbish.)
23% name doors left open as the most common winter household disagreement.
The winter arguments Britain has most often – Perfect Winter study of 2,000 UK adults
The battle for control of the thermostat
By this time of year, most of us will have taken steps to winterproof our homes and turned the heating on to combat the drop in temperature.
But the level it’s set at, how long it stays on, and when it goes off again cause enough unrest in houses up and down the country to keep the argument running from October through to March.
And as our research shows, the sneaky adjustment is very much a two-way street. 20% have turned it down behind someone’s back. 19% have turned it up. Nobody has clean hands here.
The rise of smart home tech hasn’t helped either. When the controls live in a phone rather than on a hallway wall, adjusting the temperature stops being a visible act and becomes a deniable one. There’s no satisfying click. There’s no one standing in the hall with their hand on the dial looking guilty. There’s just a room that’s mysteriously four degrees different from how you left it.
Shocking behaviour, if you ask me.
What are we fighting for?
As you’d expect from British households, there isn’t just one thing that irks us.
That would be far too easy. We are extremely adept at finding things to argue about, and heating gives us a generous supply.
Doors left open leads the field at 23%, and it leads it comfortably.
Beyond that, these are the ones that come up again and again – in our inbox, in the comments below, and in most living rooms in the country at some point between Bonfire Night and New Year –
- The cost of the energy bill, and who is responsible for it.
- Someone hogging the duvet.
- Freestanding heaters being plugged in “just for a bit”.
- Curtains: open to let the light in, or closed to keep the heat in.
- One person in a jumper and slippers, the other wandering about barefoot in a t-shirt.
- Drying clothes on the radiators (27% of us, as established).
Notice how few of those are actually about temperature. Most of them are about someone else’s behaviour, which is a different argument wearing a coat.
It’s no wonder we’re fighting!
Here’s the strange part.
When we asked 2,000 people where “just right” actually sits, the country turned out to be in near-total agreement.
The average ideal living room temperature in winter is 19.8°C, with 20°C the single most popular setting, chosen by one in five people (20%).
Behind it come 18°C (15%) and 21°C (11%). Around one in ten are perfectly happy at 17°C or below.
We went looking for the north-south divide everyone assumes exists. It isn’t there. Every region we surveyed sits between 19.5°C and 20.4°C. Northern Ireland runs warmest, the North West, North East and Yorkshire run coolest, and the gap between them is less than a single degree.
So the entire national argument is being conducted inside a range of about two degrees.
Which sounds ridiculous, until you remember that two degrees is exactly the difference between comfortable and quietly furious when you’ve been sat still on a sofa for an hour.
And then there’s the detail that explains an awful lot – 13% of people told us they don’t monitor their home temperature at all. More than one in eight households are having this argument with no agreed way of settling it – no number to point at, no thermostat reading to win with. Just two people, both certain, neither able to prove it.
No wonder it comes back every year.
Why the heating argument matters more than it sounds
It’s easy to write all this off as a bit of seasonal bickering. The research suggests it runs deeper than that.
We asked people what makes a good winter evening at home, giving them a free choice of everything from a favorite film to a home-cooked meal. A perfectly warm room came top, on 42% – ahead of a favorite film or series (41%), time with a partner or family (36%), a meal (36%) and a hot drink (36%).
Read that again.
Given the run of everything that makes an evening at home good, more people picked the temperature of the room than picked the television.
And these aren’t occasional evenings. Britons spend an average of 5.2 evenings a week at home during winter, and 37% spend all seven.
So when two people disagree about the thermostat, they’re not really arguing about a number. They’re arguing about whether the next five months of evenings are going to be enjoyable. Which is, when you put it like that, a perfectly reasonable thing to get worked up about.
What can you do to avoid a thermo-spat?
Short of filing for divorce, walking out and moving to Timbuktu, there are a few things you can do to smooth the passage of winter and avoid a falling out.
And it turns out most of us already do them. When we asked what people reach for before they touch the thermostat, only 5% said they simply turn the heating up. Everyone else tries something else first.
Here are the four most popular, in the order Britain actually ranks them.
Number 1 – Get under a blanket (44%)
The nation’s undisputed first response.
Nearly half of us reach for a blanket before we reach for the dial, and it’s easy to see why – it’s instant, it’s free, and it requires negotiating with precisely nobody.
Snuggling up with a partner or a pet counts too, provided you haven’t already fallen out about the doors.
Number 2 – Thick socks or slippers (40%)
Four in ten of us go straight for the feet, and they’re right to.
Cold feet are usually the first thing you notice and the last thing to warm up, and no amount of thermostat is going to fix them quickly.
Cheapest fix on the list, and the one most likely to end the argument before it starts.
Number 3 – Have a nice cup of tea
Despite the fact that a warm drink won’t actually warm you up, it’s a good idea to stick the kettle on and have a brew. The placebo effect of drinking a warm drink will make you believe that you’re getting warmer, when in reality, it’s just your mouth and your hands that are feeling the benefits.
I’ve probably spoilt that for you now, haven’t I? Sorry.
Number 4 – Put on another jumper (36%)
You don’t have to go as far as a hat fit for The Elephant Man, but an extra layer will buy you a good hour before anyone needs to touch anything.
And the ones that didn’t make the list
These are ours rather than the nation’s, but they’ve served us well over the years.
Stand against (or lie on) your radiator. We wouldn’t recommend getting too close – it can be dangerous – but a quick dose of heat after a long walk with the dog is hard to beat. Watch out for chilblains, though. And if your radiator isn’t getting properly hot in the first place, it may simply need bleeding.
Don’t even bother getting out of bed. Simple, really. It’s always warmer in bed than it is when you get out of it. And I don’t ever remember John and Yoko getting in a strop over their heating.
Sit in front of the fire. If you’ve got an open fire or a cast iron stove, forget the central heating and curl up in front of the logs instead. Unless you’re both pyromaniacs and you both want to light it, in which case you’re doomed anyway.
How do you keep the peace?
If there’s one thing the research makes clear, it’s that we’re all much closer to agreement than the arguing suggests.
Two degrees apart, most of us. Less than a degree between the warmest region and the coolest. And more than one in eight households having the argument with no way of measuring who’s right.
A blanket, a decent pair of socks, a shut door and a bit of give and take will settle the vast majority of it. Everything else is just something to talk about while the room warms up.
Let me know how you keep the peace in your home in the comments below, and don’t forget to share this with anyone whose thermostat habits you’d like to draw attention to.
Stay safe and happy heating.
Frequently asked questions
What do people argue about most when it comes to heating?
Doors left open. In BestHeating’s Perfect Winter study of 2,000 UK adults, 23% named doors left open and heat escaping as the most common household heating disagreement of the winter, ahead of the thermostat itself.
Do people really turn the thermostat up and down in secret?
Yes, and in both directions. 20% of UK adults admit to secretly turning the thermostat down without telling anyone, and 19% admit to secretly turning it up.
What temperature should a living room be in winter?
The average ideal living room temperature in winter is 19.8°C, according to a study of 2,000 UK adults. 20°C is the single most popular setting, chosen by one in five people, followed by 18°C and 21°C.
What do people do before turning the heating up?
Most people try something else first. 44% get under a blanket, 40% put on thick socks or slippers, 39% make a hot drink and 36% add another jumper. Only 5% said they simply turn the heating up.
Why can’t couples agree on the heating?
Partly because the gap is smaller than it feels — regional ideal temperatures range only from 19.5°C to 20.4°C. And partly because 13% of people don’t monitor their home temperature at all, so there’s no agreed measurement to settle the argument with.
About this research
All statistics are taken from the BestHeating Perfect Winter study, conducted among a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults by Censuswide in August 2026. Some questions allowed respondents to select more than one answer, so those results total more than 100%. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
