What do you set your thermostat to?

[Spritenaut 32]

Wife and I are arguing over how high to set the thermostat this winter.  Curious what other people are doing.

[steve]

70 ideal. As low as 68 in the summer, as high as 73 in winter.

[Bustronaut]

As high as 68 in the winter (61 overnight)  As low as 75 in the summer (84 overnight.)  We have a 2700 sqft. house and our energy bill is regularly below $150

[driver]

Furnace is set to 63. A/C is set at 75.

[CSC]

Ceiling fans on in the summer, blankets in the winter.

 

[grilledcheese]

Winter temp in my house is set to 64, summertime is 74.  A/C is the bigger deal, because we get a fuckton of triple digit days in my neck of the woods come summertime. We haven't gotten down below 35 or 36 at night here yet, so 64 is more than warm enough for us.

[steve]

So, this thread is telling me I'm glad my utilities are included in my rent. 

[AxB]

Between 15 and 17 Celsius. Why is America still in the 19th century?

[Michael Sweetser]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

Between 15 and 17 Celsius. Why is America still in the 19th century?

Why are you still using that foreign measurement?  U-S-A NUMBER ONE, brother.

[Bustronaut]

I prefer Fahrenheit because it gives a more accurate measure of temperature, and thus affords more control over the comfort of a house than the larger swings of the Celsius scale.

[Craig H]

We have a programmable thermostat. Nothing nice like a Nest, but a normal programmable one. 62 from 10 PM until 5 AM, 67 from 5 AM until 9 AM, 62 from 9 AM until 6 PM, and then 67 for that last block of time.

I work from home quite a bit, so I'll sometimes bump the temp up to 64 during the day or at night.

I also learned a trick from a friend. I basically only ever pay $50 for gas. His point, and something I learned too, is that the gas company's "budget" plan is bullshit, but if you pay the same amount each month all year long, you'll build up enough credit to ride out the higher bills in the winter. Sometimes during the spring or summer, I'll only pay $20 into it, but once it's September, I start paying the $50 again. Last month my bill had an $80+ credit on it and this month it was a $66 credit. As long as we're reasonable about the heat, we have no surprises.

The electric bill on the other hand is bullshit. Our electric bill is still over $60 and I don't understand why. All our light bulbs are LEDs, any TV is an LED tv, we're vigilant about not leaving lights on, we rarely use a space heater or fan, and of the things in the house that have vampire drain, it's not going to add up to that much. We're paying almost as much as we did with the AC running in the summer time.

[Craig H]

OH, one other thing for saving money. I really, really hate the plastic sheets that you put over windows. I swear, they either never stick or the hair dryer melts a hole in it. If you have old, shitty casement windows (the ones that crank open) then you probably have drafts from them. I found this caulking compound that has the consistency of rubber cement. It's specifically a temporary solution to seal up windows instead of going the plastic sheeting route. So you use a caulking gun to put a bead of this stuff all along the inside of the window where it should normally seal shut. Then in the summer time, you just peel it off. One word of warning though, it smells really strong, so run a fan or something to get the fumes out. The fumes only ever last a few hours.

[Ryan]

I prefer it about 70 in winter, up to 72 if it's extra cold. At my parent's place they keep it as low as 65 overnight and 68 during the day because I think my dad is secretly cold-blooded. "Put on six sweaters, it builds character!" - Calvin's dad, probably.

[Red is Dead]

I dont.

Real men dont fucking bitch and moan about the cold.

[AxB]

You can take the man out of Scotland...

[Michael Sweetser]

9 hours ago, Craig H said:

We have a programmable thermostat. Nothing nice like a Nest, but a normal programmable one. 62 from 10 PM until 5 AM, 67 from 5 AM until 9 AM, 62 from 9 AM until 6 PM, and then 67 for that last block of time

We actually have a Nest (plus two Nest Protects for smoke/CO2 detection) and it works fairly well.  It feels its "learning" setup could use a lot of tweaking, but it's nice being able to control it and see it remotely - and with the Nest Protects, it's really nice to get alerts on the phone if there's an incident.

[J.T.]

My house has two HVAC zones.  I keep both floors set to 72 at all times.

I also flip the reverse switches on my ceiling fans and run them on the slowest setting to draw the heat up from the floor and better distribute it through the house.

My system seems to keep the house nice and mild.

My woman has hot flashes at night and will sometimes turn the heat off in the middle of the night.  This infuriates me. 

 

 

[Ryan]

Crank up the A/C randomly one night as revenge. Sleep outside for the next week as punishment, worth it.