What temperature to heat house at for fuel savings?

[whalemama17]

It gets chilly here in the Northeast but I am trying to save $ this winter. What temperature do you generally keep your house at during the day and night during the fall and winter months?

[purslaine]

I am a non-heating zealot.  Heating is so expensive!  

58 at night, 63-65 during the day.  

I set it to around 63 during the day - but will put the heat higher in the morning to take the chill off, and again at night when my patience for the cold has run out.

[zebra15]

I love the winter months. Since I live in AZ this is the only time I get a break on the electric bill.  We do NOT use the heat.  This is our time to recover from 8 months of continual A/C (which is still running).

While we may get a cold spell - temps in the 40's-50's its only temporary and for a few nights.  Days are still in the 60-70's.  For those few over night hours we wear socks, and use extra blankets.   I really wish the weather would cool off and I could turn off the A/C.

[SunRise]

I live in the northeast (central ny) in an old drafty house. When I am in the house I keep it at 68 degrees. I wear a sweater. Or put the fire on.  While sleeping or away the thermometer drops to low 60's (I haven't set it yet). When I want to have a nice hot bath, I put the temp up to 72...so my water doesn't get cold to quickly.

I have a programmable thermostat, which is great...although it doesn't have the night time bath setting on it,

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12720

[MacroMama]

We have it set to 68 degrees.

My MIL however, has it set to 54 degrees all the time. Sometimes she'll use a small heater if we're all in the same room in the house so it's not so cold.

[RainbowTurtle]

58 at night, 63 during the day.  We haven't turned our furnace on yet, though it's been tempting a few mornings like today when it was 53!  We're getting a wood-burning insert in a couple of weeks, so we'll see what our house temperature ends up being.  I don't like it too hot: 65 is pretty much my maximum.  I'm downright grumpy at 68. 

[Ramzubo]

We have 4 different thermostats. During the day 3 stay at 60. The kitchen stays at 68, I work from home and live in the kitchen during the day. At night the bedroom zone goes up to 66 and the kitchen drops down. Love, love, love programmable thermostats. Our first winter here we only had one and we wasted a bunch, plus it doesn't feel cold since the heat kicks in a little before we go to bed and turns off at the time we get up.

I have a small space heater to warm up the bathroom and if we're watching tv or something in the living room in the evenings. Otherwise we keep blankets for curling up on the couch.

[ollyoxenfree]

Last winter, I think we set it to 65 degrees daytime, but I can't recall for sure. That's where we'll start this year. 

[Ruthiegirl]

64 is our standard for the daytime.  55 at night.  We heat with a natural gas fired boiler with radiators, so it is nice heat.  My kids drape themselves all over the radiators when they want to be extra warm.  

[parsley]

We live in Western PA (it's cold) in a 100 year old house. 

For the heat we have two zones.  The second and third stories where the bedrooms are is on one zone.  The first story is on another zone.  We basically keep the heat off on the second and third story.  I don't like to sleep with heat and the heat rises from the first story during the day so we can still go up there to play with DD. 

We set the first floor to come up to 68 at 6:30 am so it's warm when we go down around 7, it drops to 65 during the day and then back up to 68 at 4.  Someone is always working from home so it makes sense to heat the first floor.  But, we also have a gas fireplace that produces heat.  So, I'll often turn that on when chilled.  We have the downstairs set at 50 overnight and on vacations so the pipes don't freeze. 

We insulated our house using a foam sealant and bought new windows so we find we need very little heat to get the house comfortable. 

[amydidit]

58 most of the time. If we are having colder than normal temps then I'll turn it up to maybe 63, temporarily, to take the chill off.

[taubel]

We have ours at 65 or 66 during the day, but turn it up to 68 at night. Our house is not insulated (aside from attic insulation added later) so the bedrooms get very cold at night. I am always cold and have to wear socks and layers at all times. The kids don't seem to care what the temperature is!

Last winter, I decided to see if we could get by with less heat, and then our kitchen sink pipes started running as just a trickle (partially frozen). It would cost hundreds of dollars to move them "inside" the sheetrock, so I'm just going to keep the heat the way it's been.

Our lowest utility bill (for electric and gas) in the summer was $127 (with very minimal AC, usually set to 79 or 80 degrees in the summer). The highest total utility bill in the winter was $262. I'm OK with these numbers for 5 people and a home in the Northeast. Our house is pretty small, though.

I'm curious to know what other people's utility bills run.

[amydidit]

We have two bills, electric and gas. Our electric runs about $120 all year round. In the summer our gas bill goes down to about $20 a month, and in the winter it's about $60-70.

[purslaine]

Canada, natural gas, about 150-250 in winter.  I make out way better than some of my friends, though. Natural gas is cheaper than electric or oil, and we do keep it on the cool side.  

[aeterna]

I'm really pretty sensitive to temperature, and particularly the cold, so I use my heat/AC with wild abandon. Usually keep it at 72 during the winter (and I'm bundled in sweats, socks, robe, and blanket most of the time... seriously, I'm ridiculous), 74-76 in the summer (depending on the humidity - Ohio Valley here). We pay $120-130/month year-round (our utilities company averages your prior 12 months of spending every 3 months and charges that instead of your actual useage, so we don't have huge spikes and volleys in the bill, and then you adjust to zero at those 3-month marks if you happen to owe a little more; we never owe more than $10 extra, and often have a credit instead).

However this year I'm pregnant, so the heat is currently set to 68 and I'm complaining it's too hot to sleep, and the hubby is shivering under a blanket and wondering who took his wife and left this uncomfortably warm person in her place. 

[swede]

Originally Posted by SunRise 

I live in the northeast (central ny) in an old drafty house. When I am in the house I keep it at 68 degrees. I wear a sweater. Or put the fire on.  While sleeping or away the thermometer drops to low 60's (I haven't set it yet). When I want to have a nice hot bath, I put the temp up to 72...so my water doesn't get cold to quickly.

I have a programmable thermostat, which is great...although it doesn't have the night time bath setting on it,

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12720

Thank you so much for this link! I have been trying to figure out forever how low I can go at night without negating any energy savings when heating the house back up in the morning.  This was really helpful!

[SunRise]

That link was helpful to me too! I had originally learned and believed that if you adjusted your thermo stat by too many degrees you were not saving any energy as it cost so much to re heat the house. But this link says differently and gives an estimate on over all savings.

Originally Posted by swede 

Thank you so much for this link! I have been trying to figure out forever how low I can go at night without negating any energy savings when heating the house back up in the morning.  This was really helpful!

[journeymom]

Seems like we have this discussion every year.    It's a good one, very eye opening.  Seems like a big Duh! to say that heating needs differ all over.  But it was kind of startling to me how dramatic the difference is.  When it gets cold here I generally put the heat at 66F during the day and down to 58F at night.  The Sacramento Valley gets snow rarely and most people use natural gas or electricity for heating.

Kathy, seems to me you're on a coast.  Which one?

[lilyka]

My thermostat is set t0 50 at night and 60 during the day and jumps up to 74 around 7:00AM for about 20 minutes so we can get out of our very warm beds and get dressed without freeing our btuts off.  I have to learn how to reprogram it because I wake up at 5AM now LOL  SUCKS!  

If I knew how to program the stupid thing i would be much more reasonable.  I usually turn it up to 70 when I am home.  (I have a flexible schedule so I like that it snaps back down every few hours.)  I am just crabby when I am cold and it gets cold here.  When it is 70 on the main floor it 60 in the kids rooms and about 55 in my room.  Unacceptable for functioning.  I am looking at eden pure heaters for the main floor and for my dd room (she has no heat but it is the third floor and the best insullation and best windows in the house.)  if i got one of those it would probably heat my house much better and more effeciently and I could turn the furnace down a lot.  

You can save about $10 for every 2 degrees you turn down your heat.  So 1- degree would be about $50. Totally worth it.  I can skim $50 somewhere else.  beans for supper one more time a week, driving a little less, whatever.  $50 is nothing to make mama tolerable to be around.  not to mention nothing gets done when we are that cold.

I should mention though that my house is 98 years old and the windows and doors are original to the house.    and who knows when the insulation was replaced (although i have a pretty good idea that it was 1914).  and it is cold here.  hovers between 10 and -10 most of the winter.  and it is always windy.  every day of the year.  Why do I live here again?

[purslaine]

Originally Posted by journeymom 

Seems like we have this discussion every year.    It's a good one, very eye opening.  Seems like a big Duh! to say that heating needs differ all over.  But it was kind of startling to me how dramatic the difference is.  When it gets cold here I generally put the heat at 66F during the day and down to 58F at night.  The Sacramento Valley gets snow rarely and most people use natural gas or electricity for heating.

Kathy, seems to me you're on a coast.  Which one?

Ontario.  I am about 20 minutes north of the New York State border.