House temperature when your not home & at night, what do you keep it at?!?

[burmjohn]

House temperature when your not home & at night, what do you keep it at?!?

What type of heat do you have?

Right now I have a 7 day programmable thermostat for both the first and second floor.  They are set the same, roughly 67 when home and 62 when sleeping and not home. I have it go off @ 10pm, turn on @ 5am go off @ 7am and back on @ 5pm.    I have baseboard heating, downstairs takes a bit to heat up, as I am on a slab.    I have a 3rd zone in the garage, but that stays at 45, its just used to keep pipes from freezing and or if I am working in there, it rarely kicks off.

Just curious if I would see any $$ benefit from dropping the heat to say 60 or 58 when I am not home?

[Fairgame]

We keep it at 67 when we stay at the house day and night.  We drop it to 50 when we are not there.  I'm going to install a thermostat that will let me raise and lower the heat to whatever temp I want before I get there.  Never have to walk into a cold house.

[WNYBuckHunter]

So here is what I programmed ours for.

5am till 8am weekdays - 66

8am till 4pm weekdays - 60

4pm till 11pm weekdays - 66

6am till 11pm weekends - 66

11pm till 6am weekends - 60

You dont want to drop the temp too much when you arent home, you will lose efficiency if you have to heat too much at once.

[Mr VJP]

That's true.  I find I don't spend anymore for heat if I keep it at 68 all the time.  When I feel a little chill, I bump it up to 70 for 2 hours in the evening at dinner and in the morning when I get up.

I have forced hot air using gas and I also use some oil filled radiators in the bed rooms, which are away from the thermostat in the living room.

[adk3006]

I heat with wood.  I try to keep the temp around 72 or 73.  The thing that sucks about wood is someone got to be there to feed the fire and oh ya, it's a lot of work.  I can't imagine living in a house at 66......brrrrrrr, to cold for me but to each's own.

[biggamefish]

66 try 62 most of the time I swear I am turning into an Eskimo

[Culvercreek hunt club]

what I program it to or what my wife and daughter keep bumping it up to...lol

66 occupied

60 at night and when not home

Think i need a lock box for the thermostat

[Chevy]

66 or 67 all the time. Forced hot air. When I get home from work I stoke up the wood burning stove and crank it up to 76 degrees in the house for a nice warm evening.    While I sleep the temps decrease and the thermostat kicks back in at 67.    Cold in the morning though so I'm having one of those heater vents put in the bathroom. It kicks heat while you shower. Nothing worse than stepping out of a warm shower into an ice cold bathroom. 

[bushnell]

I wish I could bump the thermostat back during the day but I can't since the babysitter comes to my house to watch my one son.

I typically have the house at 67. I will have to program the thermostat for 62 at night. I have hot water baseboard which needs oil to run. Speaking of which I need to get more or I will be out of heat shortly.

[Doewhacker]

67 When home and 63 at night, when not home it goes down to 58, I saved alot by getting a new furnace, new windows, and re-insulating the attic.

[20ftupatree]

I have this argument all the time with the wife, She's the type when she's hot she doesn't just go bump it down a wee bit she shuts it right off! Now by the time I realize it's off it's 50 in there. I think I use less fuel just maintaining a certain temp (my magic number is 67) then I do turning down and up and down and up. I think about it like this .....If I lower it to say 60 the furnace runs longer to get it back to 67 then it does to just keep it 67. Just my way of thinking could be wrong but it's what feels right to me.

[burmjohn]

My wife is always cold, I'm always hot.  But 67/68 seems like a nice temp for the winter, and we love to sleep at about 62/63.  I think dropping it any lower then 62, it takes forever to warm up.

[Jennifer]

We're sort of weirdos in this but we essentially have two 'zones'-- our finished basement and the first floor. I work from home and am in the basement all day, and I have parrots in the basement as well. We heat with anthracite rice coal. The stove itself is in the basement and we keep the downstairs about 62, all the time, and the upstairs is colder; anywhere from 58-52 in the clutches of winter.  By keeping these temperatures constant the stove never has to 'catch up' and plugs along quite nicely. My house is smaller and despite it being cooler, we sleep comfortably under a ton of blankets and the only other thing to do upstairs is use the kitchen, which warms me up anyhow. Our heating costs are low, I think we buy about $600 worth of coal a year and that gets us by from October into the end of May.  Last year we had 1/4 ton leftover and it doesn't go bad! We also have new windows and insulate very well.

[burmjohn]

Wish my heating bills were 600 bux   I'm on natural gas...

[Geno C]

i have a pellet stove and when we go to sleep i keep it around 67ish, our bedrooms are on the next level and i hate when its to hot when im sleeping. during the day ill bump it to 69 and if shes home she will do 70 -71

at night when im home ill do 73 - 75 for a few hours and back down to 67. on nights when its cold and we want to walk around with light clothes ill bump it to high 70s. i dont use base board heat anymore, i only turn it on maybe once a day, on really cold days for 10 minutes so it warms the pipes and then off it goes. i do keep it at 60 in case i run out of pellets when im not home this way the house will still hold heat and the pipes wont freeze.

love that pellet stove...

[Doewhacker]

Wish my heating bills were 600 bux   I'm on natural gas...

I think we only spent 600 on oil last year, before making the improvements it was about double that. Keep in mind I am farther north than you too John.

[HectorBuckBuster]

Wow, I am amazed how low people keep their houses. I have a coal furnace and like to keep it around 70-75, my wife likes if closer to 80.I like coming in from a could winter day to a nice warm house.

[WNYBuckHunter]

70s and 80s are too warm for me. Id be sitting around in shorts or boxers at that point. Id rather keep a lower heating bill and wear jeans and a sweatshirt. 

[Culvercreek hunt club]

I hate sleeping when it is hot. I would rather be all bundled up than sweating my butt off

[steve863]

I keep it at 60 during the day and 85 at night.  My thinking is that this might make my wife warm enough to get naked and hopefully things will just heat up even more from there!    OK, OK, I guy can dream can't he??

[Geno C]

I keep it at 60 during the day and 85 at night.  My thinking is that this might make my wife warm enough to get naked and hopefully things will just heat up even more from there!    OK, OK, I guy can dream can't he??

ill give it to you steve.

A  for effort...

i like it warm in the house mid 70s when im home. just burns a few extra pounds of pellets nothing crazy... the less i have to use for base board the more i save. i only use the down stairs zone and when it warms up the down stairs that heat stays down there because the upper levels are so warm the heat from down stairs never escapes, the down stairs zone usually come on maybe once a day thats it..

[nyslowhand]

From an Energy Saving booklet put out by the US dept. of Energy:

"Programmable Thermostats

You can save as much as 10% a year on your heating and cooling bills by simply turning your thermostat back 10% to 15% for 8 hours."

So in theory, if you turn your thermostat back 2X (Leave & Sleep) you could save 10% to 15% on heating costs.

I did this for my heating and saw about a 10% savings. Eight hours set @ 69º & 16 hours @ 64º for weekdays and the opposite for weekends. I don't have central air, but would assume same logic would apply with modified comfort times.

Oh yeah, in their infinite wisdom the US Dept. of Energy recommends an Energy Star Compliant programmable thermostat. HUH?

[WNYBuckHunter]

Im pretty sure any set back (programmable) thermostat is energy star rated. I could be wrong though.

Culver, I hear ya, we have 5 blankets on our bed, I can shed them as needed or bundle up. I cant stand being hot when I sleep.

[sweet old bill]

we leave the temp on 63 degrees to go on in the winter months, in the summer we have the A/c set to come on at 78 degrees. We also use a pellet stove in the living room, on winter cold days that we are in, best dollars we ever spent, we put it on for 3 house in the morning, it keeps the house above 70 degrees for most of the day, in the evening at 6pm we restart it and run it another 3 hours... we go thru a ton of pellets a year.

[Fantail]

65 occupied, 55 unoccupied.

Durring the winter months if I'm somewhere inside and it's too warm I feel kinda drained.