What is your thermostat set at?

[caribear]

I am getting colder just reading some of these temps!! I think living in Florida has thinned my blood....our heat is on 71 at night...maybe 69-70 during the day...for the past several days. During the "summer" it is set at 78. My DS2 throws the covers off all night long and even though he is in his "furries" he still feels cold to me without covers on. I also do not think they insulate against the cold as well when building houses down here....we have such a draft coming in from our french doors...all 4 sets of them!! The heat seems to be running constantly and I have the "emergency" heat on too! Only a couple more days and the high will reach 60...yeah!!

 

[eatatmidnight]

Here's what our thermostat is set on M-F
5:30-8:00 am 72
8a-3p 65
3p-11p 70
11p-5:30 65

On the weekends
7a-11p 70
11p - 7a 65

Our family room is usually 8-10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. That is where our fireplace is. Even with the damper closed, it is colder in there. If we are in there, we have a small space heater to keep it warmer.

This may be a bit off topic, but I have a bit of a theory about trying to save on gas, oil, electric bills. It seems that the more we (as a community) move toward more energy efficient appliances, doors, windows, etc., the amount of energy we use goes down. But the profit of the gas, electric, oil companies goes down too. Then they aren't making the profit they are used to and raise rates. In the
past 10 years, most every applance we have has been replaced with Energy efficient. A 90 % efficient gas heater and 19 seer central air. We bought new windows and paid extra for "low e" glass. Insullated the attic, put new siding on the house, but added sheets of insullation before hanging it. All that to say this. Our usage has decreased. But our bill continues to rise. I can only believe that the less energy we use, the higher the rates will be in order for the utility company to make a profit to give the shareholders. ...OK sermon over.

 

[QVCshopper]

Live in PA, so it gets moderately cold -- 20s and 30s right now. Anyway, I was at 62 day, 57 night, until my DD got sick and we were home a lot. So, I put it up to 64 day, 57 night, which seems warmer to us. I'll see how our next gas bill is and adjust accordingly. Opening windows on sunny days helps a lot--the sun can get it up to 70 inside for free!

 

[Vivianne]

CT here.

We're just 2 adults, we have a digital thermostat...so it's 62 at night 64 during the day. Once in a while, if it's a windy day, I'll manually override it to 67 but very infrequently. Yes, it's cold! I wonder about the birds outside but always make sure to keep our bird feeders full.

 

[Mrs.Reese]

I am so cold! I feel like I shoud be Mrs. Freeze. We set our thermostat to 65. I got a call from my work telling me that the classrooms may experience brownouts and to wear layers. I'm thinking sweatpants..

 

[java]

We ran out of propane last night. DH woke me up at 5 to tell me. Um thanks now I'm up and cold.
Thankfully tank back in business heat back up to 64- At the coldest we were well under 50 inside early am.
I volunteered to drive everyone to CCD and to pick up breakfast- so I could be warm in the car!

 

[mom2d&b]

I am feeling pretty bad reading this. Right now it is 67 in the house, when we got home this afternoon it was only 54. I struggle putting on heat since we are in South Florida. Last Friday I compromised and cleaned the oven ( self cleaning of course) to warm up the house.

 

[Mickeyorbust]

Wow, I'm kind of feeling guilty here. We keep ours at 72 24hrs a day. Our house it totally electric, we're on the budget plan which is $164...but we haven't had to pay the past two months because there was an overage.

 

[tonilea]

Northwest Arkansas here and it has been crazy cold! We have a propane stove in the living room and cook w/ propane. I keep it about 70-71. A little warmer than DH would like, but the bedrooms get too cold if we don't.

The last two years, we have only used one tank (500gal tank) a year, but I suspect this year might be different! Our monthly bill is $72 year round and we have always over paid in the past.

 

[Shleedogg]

Wow! I'm shocked to see how chilly some people keep their houses! I can understand though, we've had monstrous gas bills. Our first winter in our house, we were paying $500+ gas bills through the winter months. The next winter we got a new furnace and the bills went down into the $300s. Our old furnace was running at about 60% efficiency, plus we had the vent to the basement open on the duct, so basically we were heating the basement. DH put in some insulation when we were gutting some rooms and we definitely notice a difference this winter. Our house is only 1700 sqft, our big heat loss though was due to the furnace and lack of insulation. The 100 year old, crumpled up newspapers we found in the walls don't help much .

To answer the question, we keep our house at 68 always. I used to insist it be over 70 in the winter when we were home. We also used to turn it down when we went to work, but now that I stay home w/ DD and DH works from home, we keep it up at all times.

 

[RadioFanatic]

I try to keep it at 68 but my husband tries to put it up to 70. Then I put it back, rinse, repeat. And this is the same man who wants to put our ac on to 60 if I let him. Makes no sense. I would put it on colder, but for two things - my 2 year old and I'm worried the pipes will freeze if I do (we live in upstate NY).

 

[Helene]

Thermostat? What's a thermostat?

We have a pellet stove

My house is currently 73 degrees.

My heating bill for the whole winter will be $770 (3 tons of pellets).

We do have an oil fired boiler as back up. If for some reason the pellet stove runs out of pellets in the middle of the night (in other words if I was lazy and didn't fill it ) then the temp has to drop to 60 before the oil kicks in. We put 100 gallons delivered in back in September. So far we haven't had to get more - and we heat our water with oil. DH works for an oil company as a service guy and one of the benefits they get is that we get to pay cost for our oil so I can't compare our rate to anyone else's.

Just curious.....how much $$ per gallon do you save paying cost??

 

[tinkmom2]

We rent and have a really drafty house. I try to keep it lower at night around 65 but sometimes have to put it higher when it's closer to zero out. We have the old thermostat so it's either blasting heat or freezing in here. Covering the windows with plastic does little to keep the air out so most of the time we are covering with blankets or sweatshirts.

 

[Shleedogg]

I try to keep it at 68 but my husband tries to put it up to 70. Then I put it back, rinse, repeat. And this is the same man who wants to put our ac on to 60 if I let him. Makes no sense. I would put it on colder, but for two things - my 2 year old and I'm worried the pipes will freeze if I do (we live in upstate NY).

We're in upstate NY too, and our pipes froze yesterday! I had no idea it was even a possibility when we kept the heat so high.

 

[DebMcDonald]

After reading some of the posts I'd need to have my winter coat on visiting you.

We're mainly 68 during the day, if we get cold I do bump it up to 70. When we are not home I think it goes down to 63 and at night it goes down to 65.

I'm one of those people that refuses to be cold in my own house, if it means I have to cut back in other areas I will.

My electric runs around 140 a month give or take. We're oil heat, but also in a brand new house, so that makes a big difference with no drafts etc.

 

[minnie1928]

I have a 3 floor home with bedrooms on the top, living space in the middle and a finished basement on the bottom. I've closed off rooms that we're not using to help reduce the amount of area that we're heating. However, I don't know if I should leave the door to the basement area open or closed? I have the vents down there closed, so very little if any heat is being blown into that area. Thoughts?

 

[luvmy3jewels]

I just received two budget busters this weekend relating to heating my home. One was a gas bill (we use gas logs to supplement our electric heat pumps), which was $100. I also got a $300 electric bill, $50 of which was for our Christmas lights (I'm married to Clark Griswald).

Our house is 3,000 square feet and we usually keep the thermostats set at around 70 or 71. After seeing what some of you set yours at, I'm thinking maybe I need to lower ours a couple of degrees more. My kids were complaining about being cold this morning, but they want to run around in shorts and short sleeves with no socks all of the time.

 

[kinntj]

We keep our house at 72 during the day and 70 at night. If it's sunny out, I put it down to 70, since the sun helps heat the house and I keep the North side of the upstairs thermal shades pulled down. My mom has severe COPD and only weighs 77 lbs, so she needs it warm in here.

During the summer we need to have the ac running, so she doesn't deal with the windows open. I'm glad she helps pay for some of the extra cost of keeping it running.

 

[Vivianne]

We're in upstate NY too, and our pipes froze yesterday! I had no idea it was even a possibility when we kept the heat so high.

Sorry to read about that. I have heard that for plumbing that runs along an outside wall, i.e. sink, it's good to keep the cabinet doors slightly open so warm air flows into that area.

 

[Cdn Gal]

We keep ours at 70 during the evening and 58 during the day and at night. Our friends keep their house at 76 all of the time. But our heat is gas- not as warm as wood.