How low can YOU go?

Marc · Oct 15, 2007

The temperature in my house right now is a balmy 59 degrees F. I only have two south facing windows and they're shaded by a large silver maple. I'm too cheap to turn my heat on, although it is becoming a detriment to the piano practicing I must say. But it appears that my wallet is winning out. I'll let it get to 55 I think before I start considering heat and only because I want my beer to ferment properly.

So how cheap (or not) are you when it comes to home heat?

And out of curiosity, what type of heating system do you have? I have oil burning forced hot air and an oil hot water tank, however I aspire to have a geothermal system in the first house I own (I'm a renter right now).

Hawkshot99 · Oct 15, 2007

Well i live with my parents so it is not how low I will go. They are on vacation so they havent turned on the heat.

I just looked at the temp gauge in the house, and it is 59.2 degrees. I had my bedroom window open last night. 2 quilts on my bed so I am nice and warm. I love feeling the crisp cold air on my face, as I sleep. Maybe Ill close my windows soon.....

GrilledSteezeSandwich · Oct 15, 2007

I would let the temperature in my place go into the 30s but heat is included with my rent and I have no control of it..My place is heated right now and it's 60 degrees out so I need to open a window..

Grassi21 · Oct 15, 2007

Yikes! It is now 70 degrees in our family room. I probably wouldn't have turned the gas stove on in the family room if it wasn't for the baby. The gas stove in our family room is ventless. We have another large gas vented heater in the basement. Unfortunately our place has electric heat and water heater. We will be updating these systems in the spring. But that gas stove does a great job at heating the main room we spend time in.

nelsapbm · Oct 15, 2007

We havent turned our heat on yet.....we've been using the wood stove to heat up the house when we're home. Probably once we get into consistent cold, freezing nights and temps in the 40s, we'll turn the dang heat on.

roark · Oct 15, 2007

I typically keep it about 58-62 during the winter. Haven't turned it on yet....

severine · Oct 15, 2007

I think the lowest I can be "comfortable" at is around 65. My parents always turned the heat off during the day in our home and my bedroom on the 2nd floor was always freezing, IMHO. I don't want to be that way. We do turn the gas furnace off entirely from about May 1st on (just turned it back on last night). I've found that now that we have kids, the part of the year the furnace stays off is getting shorter and shorter. Can't freeze out the babies, after all.

BTW, we have a really old gas furnace (pilot lights!) that is entirely inefficient. Hot water baseboard heaters. Costs us way too much to heat this apartment for the space there is but it's not our house.

marcski · Oct 15, 2007

Just got home from work its still a balmy 69 in here. NO HEAT yet for sure. Damn, I had the AC going last week still...it was crazy here. I'll let it get down to the low 60's before the heat goes on. Like others have said, I have the baby (16 months now) so can't let it get down too low. We have gas, forced hot air, which is extremely expensive. My january-march bills are like a 2nd mortgage the last couple of years. I should probably do the balanced billing option, but I still enjoy the low bills this time of year and in spring before the ac goes on.

snoseek · Oct 15, 2007

Last january- march averaged 100 dollars a week in my rental, thats with the annoying plastic on the windows and temp in low 60's. It will be someone elses problem this winter. I used to like oil heat... not so much these days.

skidbump · Oct 15, 2007

My bedrooms are upstairs and for all intents and purposes has no heat "electric" .The temps have been in the high 40 on some nites last winter.We have a mattress heater for when we first go to bed and the 2 comforters are good for about 30 below"at least thats what the ad said" . My heat downstairs is oil with baseboard and i have 2 pellet stoves ,1 in basement for when temps go below single digits or really damp winter days and 1 in living room.I burn about 2.5 tons a yr.My heating cost for oil was about 600 last yr "full yr" and pellets were about same

Greg · Oct 15, 2007

We usually set the thermostat for around 66 or 67. I could probably go lower, but the kids and wife take precedent. We used heat only at night a few nights so far. I still haven't lit the pilot on the gas fireplace yet. I do enjoy passing out on the couch when I fire that up. We have propane/force air heat. Our electric bill is only marginally lower in the winter months because the fans still need to blow the warm air, despite the A/C unit not running. We do the budget plan on the propane to spread the cost out across the entire year.

hammer · Oct 15, 2007

Since no people are at home during the day, I have the thermostats set to 55 degrees in the daytime. In the evenings and mornings, the temp's up to 68, and in the night it's set back to 66. When it's really cold, we put the gas fireplace in the family room on to make it a little toasty in there. I would be fine with 66 during prime time but the rest of the family would not...

My son's room in the attic has to be a little warmer in the day (62 or so) to keep his pet tortoise from getting too frosty (we also have a few heat lamps going). Since the heat doesn't reach up there all that well, we have to turn on the supplemental electric baseboards.

We have forced air gas heat...had a high efficiency furnace installed when we added the family room and kitchen extension a few years ago. Prices are high but I pay on the annual installment plan so it's spread out. My electric bills are also just as bad in the winter...between running the fan and the electric heat in the attic, there's no savings.

wa-loaf · Oct 15, 2007

We used to let it get down to about 55. With the kids it's low 60s. My wife turned the heat on (to 64) this morning after it dipped to 60. We have the original asbestos wrapped snowman oil furnaces in the basement and steam heat. Steam heat rocks, but the furnaces need to get replaced soon.

Bumpsis · Oct 15, 2007

Our winter thermostat settings are at about 62 for mornings and evenings. During the day it's programmed for about 58. During the night, down to 55.
I usually don't turn on the furnce until the outside high temps consistently stay in the 40's.

We're of northern/eastern eurpean roots and we like it cold, plus our house seems to have no real insulation, so heating it is like burning money. We actually scheduled a contractor to take care of that - that's our effort to reduce our carbon footprint.

Our kids like it the cooler temps as well. I actually really look forward to sleeping in really cold room under a super warm down cover. It the only way I can get some really deep sleep. It's like cold weather camping but the mattres is much better.

Marc · Oct 15, 2007

I go without in the summer as well, so my electric bill goes up with the use of the blower and furnace in the winter.

Actually, having a waterbed is a wonderful thing from a heating/ac persecutive as well as an ergonomic one, I've discovered. In the summer, the bed acts as a big heat sink, since I leave the heaters off, making sleeping in hot weather much more bearable. In the winter, I keep the water around 85, and it looses very little heat and so takes very little to maintain that temperature being surrounded by thick polyurethane foam on three sides and my down comforter on the fourth, and boy does it make sleeping wonderful.

As an amendment to what I said earlier about wanting geothermal heat in my first house, I'd also like to rely on woodstoves and will hopefully have enough land to cut heating wood from (if you have hard wooded land with average New England growing conditions, you can take about a cord/acre/year and sustain what you have). About five acres would do it for me, depending on the size of my house, of course.

severine · Oct 15, 2007

It's funny so many of you are talking about setting back the temp during the day. We have a setback thermostat and found that when we did this, we actually spent more $ than when we kept it at the same temp all the time. And that's comparing the setback winter (cheaper rate) to the next winter when we kept the temp always at 67/68 degrees (when it cost more $ for natural gas).

Marc · Oct 15, 2007

severine said:
It's funny so many of you are talking about setting back the temp during the day. We have a setback thermostat and found that when we did this, we actually spent more $ than when we kept it at the same temp all the time. And that's comparing the setback winter (cheaper rate) to the next winter when we kept the temp always at 67/68 degrees (when it cost more $ for natural gas).

And who can explain this phenomenon correctly to Marc Engineer and earn a gold star?

:dunce:

wa-loaf · Oct 15, 2007

Marc said:
As an amendment to what I said earlier about wanting geothermal heat in my first house, I'd also like to rely on woodstoves and will hopefully have enough land to cut heating wood from (if you have hard wooded land with average New England growing conditions, you can take about a cord/acre/year and sustain what you have). About five acres would do it for me, depending on the size of my house, of course.

Have you checked out Masonry Heaters? We want to put one in when we build a house. You need an open floor plan, but you'll only burn 3 cords instead of the five.

ALLSKIING · Oct 15, 2007

In the winter I keep the heat on 65 and use the fireplace. I have not used the heat or the fireplace yet since its 68 inside. We have oil heat through baseboards.

wa-loaf · Oct 15, 2007

Marc said:
And who can explain this phenomenon correctly to Marc Engineer and earn a gold star?

:dunce:

I takes more energy to bring the temp back up, than to maintain the higher temp?

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