I wouldn't worry. I had to move and sell my house in chicago during the winter. Before leaving, I set the tstat down to 52 degrees. No problems at all. Also, my house was frame as well.

Northern MO here & I leave mine on 50 all the time, unless company is coming...so far no problems

We have a really old house and the therm is usually at 58 at most. when we go away we set it at about 50. I thought the only dangers of having a lower temp was that your pipes could freeze.

are there other problems that could be caused by keeping a house colder??
-renee

Ours is set to 45 most of the time (which is as low as the thermostat will go) and although we live in the south it does get that cold in the house. I'm not aware of any problems from it.

How could there be problems? Water only freezes at 32, and even if your house dropped to 32, the pipes aren't likely to actually freeze unless it drops even lower or stays there for a long, long time.

You don't experience house problems in the spring and fall when the weather is 58 degrees, do you?

If you're leaving the house, set the temperature even lower so as not waste energy.

Spewey, pipes can definately freeze with an interior house temp above 32. Totally depends on where the pipes are, what type of insulation is in the walls, what the actual temp in the wall is relative to the temp outside.

I've lived in old homes and in many I would have never turned the heat down below 60. Not enought insulation in the walls to allow the house to warm back up or retain the little bit of heat in the house.

All depends on the house. In our current house we have to have heat tapes on most of the plumbing or we would have frozen pipes if I kept the temp at 80 inside. They are all located in a cantleavered section (obviously poorly planned) and there is no way to get heat to those sections except what radiates through the floorboards. Soon to be next summer's project.

Gloria

I have done a little looking into the energy savings of setting back your temp at night and while it appears 53 will do no harm to house, the problem is any energy savings earned by setting the temp down in the evening is somewhat eroded when making the furnace work harder to warm the house back up after more then a 10 degree difference. We keep the temp here set at 66 degrees and lower to 56 at night, just food for thought.

I agree with Gloria. I live in a new construction (well, it was new 7 years ago) and for some reason the builder decided to run the master bath plumbing up the exterior North (ie COLD) wall of the house and not properly insulate it. Hence, despite our keeping the thermostat at a livable 68 degrees, our pipes can freeze at night on the rare occasions that we have an extreme cold snap. We've learned to put an electric heater in there when very cold weather is expected.
I'd say it depends on your plumbing...

How much energy is used when turning the thermostat up to 68 degrees from the 50's when returning home in the evening?

I Live in California. I usually leave my heater at night between 65 - 68. In the morning, if too nippy in the house I turn it up to 70. The heater will usually stay on a little bit and be off for the rest of the day. I try to keep the house the same temp, but a bit lower at night so the heater doesnt have to work as hard to heat up a cold house or cost me more. My bill last month ran me $61.00. That is not to bad.Concidering I was expecting hundreds.
I live in a duplex and I use to take care of the other side. We had a common door in the bedroom before we bought the one side. The landlords would have us set the temp in the 50's for the pipes. Just barley on. So I am not sure what the going temp is for the pipes in the house.