What do you keep the thermostat at inside the house in the winter?

[BoylermanCT]

68 during the day and 60 at night. I keep the wood stove going all winter long, and that keeps the living room at 72-74, the kitchen and dining room at 70 and the bedrooms at 65. The thermostat is there to keep the house from getting too cold if and when the fire dies down.

 

[NoTrespassing]

It's 3 degrees outside right now. The propane forced air furnace is set at 66 and that's the warmest place in the house. The kitchen is 62 degrees facing the northwest. I run 2 small electric heaters to supplement the propane, one in the kitchen and one in the kid's bedroom. Electricity is cheap here but so was propane this year. I think I paid 99 cents per gallon and will burn about 400 gallons for the year. That includes the water heater and oven/stove. Power runs about 70-80$.

I remember frost on my bedroom walls as a kid and using electric blankets. We had a glass of water freeze in the bedroom next to mine that the floor register was closed off to. We also never had air conditioning when I was growing up. Getting out of bed in the morning for school was an experience in itself. brrrrrr......

Kevin

Woo Hoo! 750 Posts!

 

[smstonypoint]

Surely you have days when you wonder, "Why do houses in cold climates tend to be kept warmer in winter than those in warmer climates, despite the greater cost of heating in colder climates." Then you come to the same old realization, "I need the advice of an economist. An economist would be able to answer my question."

It's funny how something I read 30 years ago came to mind when I started reading this thread. "Cold Houses in Warm Climates and Vice Versa:A Paradox of Rational Heating" by David Friedman (son of Milton) appeared in the Journal of Political Economy in 1987. Here's an ungated version of the paper: Cold Houses in Warm Climates: D. Friedman.

Steve

 

[Ehanson]

ours is set at 60 at night and 65 to 67 during the day. We usually where a sweater throughout the day. Slippers help as well.

 

[newbury]

It's 3 degrees outside right now. The propane forced air furnace is set at 66 and that's the warmest place in the house. The kitchen is 62 degrees facing the northwest. I run 2 small electric heaters to supplement the propane, one in the kitchen and one in the kid's bedroom. Electricity is cheap here but so was propane this year. I think I paid 99 cents per gallon and will burn about 400 gallons for the year. That includes the water heater and oven/stove. Power runs about 70-80$.

I remember frost on my bedroom walls as a kid and using electric blankets. We had a glass of water freeze in the bedroom next to mine that the floor register was closed off to. We also never had air conditioning when I was growing up. Getting out of bed in the morning for school was an experience in itself. brrrrrr......

Kevin

Woo Hoo! 750 Posts!

Maybe that's my problem with heat. The house I grew up in (northern Vermont) was old with single pane windows and I'd swear at times leaked so much air that I could fly a kite inside.
Routinely there would be a half inch of ice ON THE INSIDE of the windows. I'd wake up and be able to see my breath.

58 degrees??!!! Are you nutso? Who the heck can stand 58 degrees?! No way, man. I need at least 70, and I freeze my a__ off if my wife turns it down to 68 for sleeping. (Same with our daughter, who doen't have an ounce of fat on her.). And we are in Canada, where everyone lives in igloos!

Brrrrr! I have to go and get a blanket now.

The first two years (1984, 1985) in my present house in northern Virginia we had no storm windows and were tight on money. Our eldest son still tells stories of seeing his breath inside.

 

[techman]

Geo heat pumps, 71-72 day and night

paul

 

[jk96]

Geo heat pumps, 71-72 day and night

paul

Same here. Geo heat pump as well with all zones 71-72 all winter. We also have a wood burning fireplace insert that is cranking out the heat as I type with a little osage orange in the mix. 4 degrees outside right now an main living area (living, dining, kitchen, entry, loft) is 74 currently with the fireplace going. Any warmer and we turn the blower down.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The last few days of sub-freezing temps we have left the heat pump set at 63 degrees, so we will notice it's chilly and feed wood into the stove. When temp gets about 40, we sometimes let the wood fire go out and use the heat pump at about 68 degrees.

 

[TnAndy]

No thermostat as such, heat with wood. Do have a couple of mini-split heat pumps we could use as backup, but almost never do. Keep the living area mid 70's, bedroom mid-low 60's for good sleeping.

 

[Bird]

I grew up in the days of a propane heater in the living room; only heated the living room, kitchen, and dining area; no heat in any bedroom. I was 19 years old before I ever slept in a room that had either heat or cooling. And now we have a heat pump HVAC with heat strip in a total electric home. We have a programmable thermostat at eye level in the living room, and we NEVER change it or use that programmable feature; it stays on 76 24/7 year round. We only switch it from heating to cooling in the Spring and Fall. We also have ceiling fans in the living room, bedrooms, and in the "bedroom" I'm currently in that is my "office/library/desk/computer" or whatever room. Now 76 at eye level means 70-73 at eye level when sitting down. In this room, the ceiling fan is ALWAYS on and on medium speed. Right now the NWS says it's 9 degrees outside, and I'm sitting under the ceiling fan, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. A good part of many days, my wife sits in the living room under a blanket while I sit in shorts and a t-shirt under the ceiling fan. In summer that fan's running, in winter it's not.

 

[jack707]

Either 68 or 70 it all depends if I wanna split more wood.

 

[Oldtink]

70~73 in the winter. We heat with anthracite through winter with a stoker boiler that I tend to once every 3~4 days and use an oil fired boiler in spring and fall. I prefer the anthracite heat source since it's all made or produced in Pennsylvania by Pennsylvanians. :cool2:

 

[oosik]

I keep the living room around 66 to 68. The bedroom is 64. Same temps in the summer - except a few times when it won't cool off at night. No AC - just big fans that pull the air thru the house, at night, in the summer.

I remember the year we lived in Glennallen, AK - in a small log home. It would get so dam cold in the house - ice would form in the toilet bowl. Old oil furnace in the basement - heat came up thru big grate in the floor, right in the center of the house. Used a hot wash rag to clear the frost off the ice on the inside of the windows so you could see outside. Big celebration in town the day the daytime temps reached -15F. Everyone knew spring was on its way.

 

[Looking4new]

In this log home I heat with two wood stoves. I have a mid efficiency forced air oil furnace (installed in 1995) that still gets 85.5% efficiency. This furnace gets professionally cleaned and a new nozzle every year. The furnace is set at 55. If I (70 yrs old) get cold I put on a shirt/sweater. The old girl (60) likes it cooler in the house than I do. Her hubby [my stepson] at age 50 wont make any waves with her. She does the cooking, so I wont make waves either.

 

[Deere Dude]

58 degrees??!!! Are you nutso? Who the heck can stand 58 degrees?! No way, man. I need at least 70, and I freeze my a__ off if my wife turns it down to 68 for sleeping. (Same with our daughter, who doen't have an ounce of fat on her.). And we are in Canada, where everyone lives in igloos!

Brrrrr! I have to go and get a blanket now.

I'm in the nutso camp. Ours is set at 58 just in case it really cold at night in which the furnace will kick in. We have a fireplace which I start in the morning to try to get the temp back to where I like it best, around 75. Sometimes it takes almost all day to get up to temp so we don't stray to far from the living room during the process.

If I had to keep it a temperature to be comfortable it would be around 72. As it is I go from jeans and a sweatshirt in the morning to maybe gym shorts and bare back if it really heats up.

 

[LD1]

Hard to just one vs the other because t-stat calibration varies. Dad keeps his set at 74. I keep mine at 71. I cannot tell the difference between his house and mine. Yet if he lowers his to 71 it's cold, and if I raise mine to 74 it's hot.

I have confirmed there is about a 3 degree difference in the calibration with a hand held meter. So I would say that anyone saying they have theirs set at 68 to 74....Are probably all the same and t-stat are just a bit different.

I an not a believer in lowering it at night or when going out. Easier on the system to just maintain instead of trying to play catch up. Which on 2-stage systems will push you onto the less efficient second stage. So savings is minimal, so why be uncomfortable? If you want it cooler in the bedroom to sleep, close the vent.

Those that have electric or propane or gas heat....Playing catch up isn't as big of a deal, but on a 2-stage system....You ain't saving much if any.

 

[dmccarty]

If we are using the heat pump for heat, we set it at 73 or 74 during the day and turn it down at night into the low 60s so the heat pump does not turn on. On a normal cold nights this means the house gets to maybe 65. I bump up the heat when I get up in the morning so SWMBO is sorta comfortable. SWMBO is really on warm in August when it has really gotten hot outside. :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:

We do heat, or try to heat, mostly with wood. With the wood stove, depending on the quality of the wood and outside temp, the living room will be at 72 to 85. :shocked: Usually in the mid 70's if we have decent wood and it is not too cold outside.

Right now we are burning some low BTU hardwood that is all but a softwood and it is not producing as much heat as the normal red oak we burn. Tis getting to record lows tonight and tomorrow so I will be burning some of the red oak and hickory I have been saving. We have a electric heater that we bought to keep the laundry room warmer when we get abnormal cold down to single digits. The water supply to the house enters at the laundry room and one year when it got to 6 or 9 the water froze a bit. We saw a rather large and ungainly electric heater at Costco around XMAS and decided not to buy it because it was so large. We should have bought it then because we bought it this week. :laughing::laughing::laughing: Figured we should have two electric heaters in the house since it is critical to keep the laundry room warm. I need to check the well house/rock to make sure the lights are running to keep it above freezing....

We were supposed to get 6-8 inches of snow overnight and today. Looks like we might get 2-3 inches. Maybe. Got a bit more ice than they guessed too but not enough to cause problems thank goodness. Supposed to go to 6-9 degrees tonight and 0 tomorrow night. :shocked: I have not seen 0 degrees since living in KY many decades ago. Going to run one of the heaters in the laundry room and likely keep some water faucets dripping...

Later,
Dan

 

[jcbGM]

T-stat is set at 67-68. We have our own gas well with free gas, but seldom turn it up over 68. We do however have a woodstove and really enjoy keeping it burning over the weekends.

T-stat on the boiler for the shop (2500 ft) in-floor heat is set at 57. Reznor air handler in shop is at 55. That works really well Floors are a nice even temp, but the air handler kicks on when we open a door or turn in up for a short burst of heat.

 

[RoyJackson]

62 degrees with an occasional increase to 65 (if a damp cold).
The wood stove gets the center of the house into the 70's (I'd estimate since we don't have a thermometer in that part of the house).
We keep it at 62 to reduce heating costs (oil as primary, wood as needed...but wood costs money too). If necessary, it's easy to put a sweater or sweat shirt on and cheaper then buying fuel.

 

[BoylermanCT]

T-stat is set at 67-68. We have our own gas well with free gas, but seldom turn it up over 68. We do however have a woodstove and really enjoy keeping it burning over the weekends.



Wish I had my own gas well! Why burn wood instead of having a gas fireplace?