Heating: 19°C is outdated-experts share the new recommended temperature

Outside, drizzle taps the window. Inside, her teenage son is wrapped in a blanket, claiming he can’t feel his toes. The gas bill on the table looks menacing, like an unopened exam result. She hesitates, finger hovering over the button. One more degree? Two? Or is that breaking some unwritten rule?

For years, people have been told that 19°C is the “good citizen” temperature. Warm enough, not wasteful, endorsed by governments, quietly loaded with guilt. Yet the room doesn’t feel like a guideline; it feels like a negotiation between comfort, health, and money. In the background, the boiler hums, stubborn and old, as if it still believes it’s 1998.

Outside, streets glow orange in the early evening. Inside, the debate about the “right” temperature is just getting started.

The 19°C rule is fading - your body has moved on

Walk into ten homes on a cold January evening and you’ll feel ten different climates. One apartment feels like a greenhouse at 23°C, another like a drafty station waiting room at 17°C. Yet the old manual for a “proper” home still whispers: 19°C is the magic number. That number was born in another era, with different houses, different energy prices, and honestly, different lives.

Public health campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s used 18–19°C as a benchmark to prevent the worst cold-related illnesses. It was a floor, not a finish line. Since then, our homes have filled with screens, remote work, sedentary evenings, and aging populations. We sit more, we move less, and we stay indoors longer. The 19°C rule never really caught up.

Ask doctors and building engineers today and you’ll hear a different story. They talk about zones, not one rigid number. About bedrooms cooler than living rooms. About children, older adults, and people with chronic conditions needing more warmth than the mid-century “average man” used in old studies. The rule didn’t just age. It squeezed the huge variety of human bodies into a single, tidy digit.

In a recent review of indoor climate research, temperature ranges linked to health and comfort are more generous than the 19°C slogan suggests. Many experts now point to 20–22°C as a healthier range for living rooms in winter, with 21°C emerging as a balanced sweet spot. Below 18°C, respiratory infections and cardiovascular stress start to rise, especially for vulnerable people. Above 23–24°C, you edge into stuffy, lethargic territory-and higher energy bills.

The data matches what people quietly report. Surveys across Europe show that when people can choose freely, they gravitate toward 21°C for daytime spaces. Not tropical, not Spartan. Something in between, where you can type, read, or cook without layers of fleece and resentment. The 19°C rule looks less like science and more like a compromise from another decade.

So what’s the new recommended temperature-and does it really matter?

There isn’t a single new “law,” but a growing consensus is forming. Many building and health experts now recommend aiming for around 20–22°C in main living areas, with 21°C often cited as the modern reference point. Bedrooms can run cooler at 17–19°C to support sleep, while bathrooms are safer and more comfortable closer to 22–23°C.

This shift isn’t about living in a sauna. It’s about recognizing that living at 19°C all day-especially if you’re older, have heart or lung conditions, or work from home at a desk-can be a quiet stressor. Cold air makes blood vessels constrict and nudges blood pressure up. Over winter, that adds up. It’s not dramatic like a burst pipe; it’s a drip-feed of extra risk.

At the same time, no one is pretending energy bills have become friendly. Rising prices and climate goals push in the opposite direction. That’s why many experts now talk about “smart warmth”: targeting temperature where your body actually is, for the hours you really need it, instead of blindly heating empty rooms to an outdated ideal.

Imagine two identical homes. In the first, the heat is set to a flat 19°C, all day, all rooms, from November to March. In the second, the living room sits at 21°C from late afternoon to bedtime, bedrooms hover around 18°C at night, unused rooms stay at a frost-safe 16–17°C, and the system switches to eco mode when everyone is out. The average temperature might be similar, but the experience is wildly different.

In one UK survey, people who heated their main room to around 21°C reported feeling “comfortably warm” far more often than those at 18–19°C, even when clothing was similar. They also logged fewer days of “chills” and less use of portable heaters. The higher set point didn’t necessarily mean higher bills once smart controls and zoning were in play. Heat where it’s useful, not everywhere.

There’s also the invisible cost of being slightly cold all the time. Parents quietly bump up the thermostat when grandparents visit, worried about their circulation. People with arthritis say their joints are worse on those long, lukewarm days. The 19°C rule never accounted for that low-level discomfort that doesn’t show up on a chart but shapes how winter feels.

The new recommended range of 20–22°C acknowledges that most of us aren’t living like the “average healthy adult male” from 1965. Our homes double as offices, classrooms, and therapy spaces. Our stress levels are different. Our population is older. A rigid number starts to look like a blunt tool in a very nuanced season.

How to heat smarter: from blanket guilt to targeted comfort

So what do you actually do when your thermostat still carries the ghost of the 19°C rule? Start small and local. Pick one room that truly matters-often the living room or home office-and make that your comfort zone at around 20–21°C during the hours you’re there. Leave other rooms slightly cooler rather than trying to pull the whole house up by two degrees.

If you have thermostatic radiator valves, use them. Turn down radiators in rarely used spaces to 16–17°C, and let bathrooms be a touch warmer. This alone can keep bills closer to what they were at 19°C, while your main living space actually feels livable. Short bursts of heat timed to your routine beat a constant, lukewarm trickle.

Then layer comfort on top of temperature: a thicker rug on bare floors, draft stoppers on doors, heavy curtains at night. Those aren’t just cozy Pinterest ideas; they change how your body experiences the same air temperature. A 20°C room that isn’t leaking heat through a single-pane window will feel far kinder than a 21°C room with an icy draft on your ankles.

A lot of people still heat reactively: they wait until they feel cold, then crank the thermostat up, then back down when panic about the bill kicks in. That yo-yo effect doesn’t help. A gentler approach is to plan three “comfort slots”: a morning warm-up, an afternoon or early-evening boost, and a pre-bed wind-down if needed. Outside those windows, let the house float a degree or two lower, rather than dropping into refrigerator mode.

Work-from-home days are another trap. Sitting still at a laptop at 18–19°C feels brutal by 3 p.m. Instead of cranking the whole system, heat your workspace to 20–21°C while you’re actually using it, keep your feet warm with socks and a small rug, and move-even a brisk walk around the block-once or twice. Your body reads movement as warmth more strongly than you think.

Be kind with yourself, too. Energy advice can sound like a list of strict rules. In real life, people juggle kids, shift work, and old boilers that have minds of their own. Let’s be honest: nobody really does this perfectly every day.

A common mistake is chasing a number on the thermostat instead of listening to your body. If 20°C feels chilly when you’re standing but fine when you’re sitting with a throw blanket and a hot drink, that might be your sweet spot. If you’re still shivering at 21°C in thick clothing, something else is off-insulation, drafts, or health. Guilt over “betraying” 19°C only muddies the water.

We also tend to forget about vulnerable people in the house. Babies, older adults, and anyone with heart disease, chronic lung issues, or poor circulation are more sensitive to the cold. A living room at 21–22°C for them is not indulgent. It’s protective. That doesn’t mean blasting the heat for empty rooms; it means aligning warmth with the bodies that actually need it.

Experts are blunt about this shift.

“Nineteen degrees was never meant as a moral badge,” says one public health researcher. “It was a rough minimum. Treating it like a sacred target has left a lot of people quietly underheated.”

To translate that into daily life, a few simple anchors help:

• Keep main living areas around 20–22°C in winter, especially when occupied.
• Let bedrooms run cooler, 17–19°C, with good bedding rather than blasting heat.
• Protect vulnerable people first: lean toward 21–22°C when they’re present.

Those numbers aren’t commandments. They’re a more realistic starting point for a world that doesn’t look like the one that invented the 19°C rule. Within that frame, you can carve out your own version of “enough warmth” without living in fear of every extra click.

The real question isn’t the number-it’s how your winter feels

Stand at your thermostat for a moment and forget, just for a second, what you’ve been told. Ask yourself: does this room feel like a place where you can actually live, or just endure? Your answer will likely land somewhere near that updated 20–22°C band-warm enough that your shoulders drop, cool enough that you’re not drowsy and anxious about the meter spinning.

The 19°C rule had a long run. It spoke to an age of cheap energy, thick sweaters, and shorter showers. Our lives have stretched around it in ways its designers never imagined. We turn living rooms into offices, kitchens into classrooms, and bedrooms into refuges from outside chaos. A single, rigid number can’t carry all that weight.

What’s emerging instead is a more flexible, honest conversation about winter indoor life: about health, not just bills; about the quiet strain of spending months at the edge of comfort; about recognizing that good insulation can justify a lower thermostat, while a drafty rental might require that brave tap up to 21°C just to keep you safe and sane.

On a cold evening, the new recommended temperatures aren’t really about digits on a wall. They’re about giving yourself permission to pursue real comfort, not an old slogan. That might mean admitting 19°C isn’t your personal sweet spot. It might mean sharing tips with friends about what actually works in small apartments, sprawling houses, or shared housing.

Some will stick with 19°C and be fine. Others will quietly nudge the dial and finally stop feeling guilty about enjoying their own home. Somewhere between those two gestures, a more modern rule of thumb is taking shape-one that leaves room for your body, your budget, your walls, and your winter to have their say.

Key point	Detail	Why it matters to you
The end of the 19°C rule	19°C was an old minimum, not a universal target	Helps reduce guilt for people who need more warmth
New reference: 20–22°C	Experts are converging on ~21°C for living spaces in winter	Provides a modern baseline for setting your heat
Targeted heating, not uniform heating	Heat living rooms, bedrooms, and unused rooms differently	More comfort without a massive bill increase

FAQ

• Is 19°C now considered too cold for a living room? For many people, yes. It’s more of a lower safety limit than a comfort target, especially for older adults or anyone at home all day.
  
• What temperature do experts now recommend at home? Most point to about 20–22°C for living areas in winter, with 21°C as a practical middle ground, and bedrooms a bit cooler.
  
• Won’t raising my thermostat automatically explode my bill? A small increase paired with zoning, shorter heating windows, and fixing drafts can keep costs close while comfort rises sharply.
  
• Is it unhealthy to sleep in a warm bedroom? Very warm bedrooms can disrupt sleep; 17–19°C with good bedding is usually better than running radiators hot all night.
  
• What if my house never feels warm, even at 21°C? That often points to poor insulation or air leaks. Rugs, heavy curtains, sealing gaps, and checking windows can change how that same 21°C feels on your skin.