I'm home all day and am gone for just a few hours at night for work, so I generally leave it on 70°F.

When I was working days (12+ hrs), I did 60°F while gone, 70°F while home. That's for heating. Cooling, 77°F home, 82°F work.

69 or 70 during the day (we are home most of the time), 65 at night and in the winter we sleep with the bedroom window open about an inch.

64 all the time in the winter. 78 in the summer. We're home all the time. I'm a SAHM w/ 2 kids. DH works from home.

I leave mine at 62 almost all of the time. It's not bad; if I'm sitting, I pull an afghan over me. If I'm working throughout the house (cooking, cleaning, or whatever), I'm warm enough.

66 during the day; 56 at night. I'm a Minnesotan! I like to sleep in a chilly room with a sheet, a wool blanket, a huge down comforter, and two bottle-warmer cats.

Our house has zones for the heat. We keep the master bathroom at 70-75 (to keep the boiler from freezing) and all of the other thermostats are generally switched off. Sometimes the zone for the kids bedrooms and bathroom is turned on when Dh leaves for work and I turn it off after a couple of hours. The kids and I are home all day. In general, we try to use only the woodstove.

Our only form of cooling comes from ceiling fans in the summer. We never turn the swamp cooler on.

After paying an obscene amount of money for heating oil when it was at it's highest, I now have the thermostat set for 62 when I'm home and about 56/57 at night. My cat doesn't seem to mind and I've acclimated myself to the day temp. I sleep with flannel sheets and a down alternative comforter, so I don't feel the lower temp at night. The tank has been going down LOTS slower since I started this.

We leave it on 70 day & night in the winter (which is about 6-8 wks of the yr) and keep it on 80 in the summer. We have an electric heat pump. Summer electric bills are the pits :(

Posted by bmmalone: In the winter we sleep with the bedroom window open about an inch.

Why? Why open a window and let all the heat out?

Usually 74. My husband is very skinny and is always cold. He also sits in front of a space heater almost all the time that he's sitting, plus wears a heavy polartec robe over his clothes and heavy wool socks. I'm hardly fat, but it's still particularly miserably hot when he's baking.
P.S. Been wondering what DH is? De Husband?

usually Dear Husband or Darling Husband...
sometimes D@mn husband

About 10 years ago when I first started visiting message boards I would giggle because I thought that it meant dumb husband until I saw that people used it for their kids too.

We live in SW Florida so for us it is how high can you go.
We did not turn on the heat at all last year. We only had a couple cold nights so we used small electric heaters in the bedrooms and added extra blankets.
Summer however is tough. We set the AC at 80 and do not go below unless the humidity is out of control. When we leave we turn it off for the day. We are gone long hours at a time so we just suffer a short period when we first get home.

We have obscene weather flucations here in Kansas, often from hour to hour, let alone day to day. This morning it was 27°F at 5 a.m. when I got up, which was 30°s WARMER than yesterday morning.

We don't heat any of the bedrooms, just the main area of the house (living, dining, and kitchen), and keep the temperature 60-62°F. Up to 66°F in the afternoon with the help of the sun or after baking something.

The bedroom will be anywhere from 52°-57°. All beds have cozy flannel sheets and down comforters.

We didn't turn our furnace on this year until Sunday when the temperatures were below zero and we were traveling out of town for several days. We normally use a Sun Cloud Infrared Heater, and occasionally our energy efficient gas fireplace.

BTW, our gas bill is 75% lower and electricity is less than half what our neighbor's is (similar square footage).

I can't stand the heat, so I thrive on this frigid weather. I'm one of the first ones to crank the air conditioner on, however ;-).

-Grainlady

"About 10 years ago when I first started visiting message boards I would giggle because I thought that it meant dumb husband until I saw that people used it for their kids too."

What makes you think that someone would not use DD/DS and mean dumb. Kids do a lot of dumb stuff. Young kids and grown up kids.

SW PA here. 64 when we first turn on the furnace - usually November. It's boosted up to 66 once winter truly sets in.
We have central air, but usually don't use it. for those 2 miserable weeks in July or August when we break down, it's set at 80 just to take the moisture out of the air.

60 during the day, 50 at night, 65 from 6 pm to 9 pm. Weekends 60 with a fire if necessary. Down comforters on the beds and L.L.Bean slippers for all.

65 during the day if we're home, if not 60 until we get home. 50 at night.

We live in Central Ohio. Both myself and DS #2 wear sweatshirts and shoes all the time. DH and DS#s 1 and 3 walk around barefoot and in tshirts all the time. They complain about my parents' house because my folks keep it at 78 all day. I love visiting my folks! They're trying to spend my inheritence in heating oil!

Set to 68 during the day and 55 at night. Upstate, NY.

These posts used be more relevant when we all had our location or at least zone alongside our names. Now most of them aren't even our pages.

I meant ON our pages.

During the day when we are at work and the kids are at school and then again when we go to bed, the temp is set at 62 degrees. About a 1/2 hour before we get up in the morning or are to arrive home the timer clicks on the thermostat and raises the temp to 66 degrees. That is plenty warm for our family. We live in Maine and are accustom to the cold. Our pets don't mind it either. It's the summer heat that does me in. NancyLouise

Programeable thermostat zone 5

wake = 68
away =60
return = 70
sleep = 62

18 y/o cat loves heated cat bed (4 watts and thermostated)

Wow have never heated our house! Live in Qld, Aust and its subtropical. During Oct-Mar (summer) we will turn on the air-con if its sticky to combat the humidity. Temps are usually 28-34 C (83F-93F), but its the humidity that wilts you. So fans are useless & just blow around humid air...yuk.

We will set the air-con down to 24 during summer when humidity is up over 75-80%. Yep its almost raining by then :)

Winter is gorgeous. Never goes below 20 C (68F) by day and a beautiful 10 C (50) at night. No need for heating!

Oklahoma here. Like Grainlady from KS said, we have wild fluctuations in our weather. In winter, we run 70 (F) during the day and 65 at night. DH does a lot of sitting around and so he gets cold. He wears his robe and slippers in the evenings after his bath and a sweatshirt jacket over his jeans and shirt during the day. Neither of us go without shoes and socks during the day, and I wear my socks to bed because it's real hard to sleep when your feet are cold! I do a lot of moving around during the day -- puttering around in the kitchen, doing my housework, etc., and I get too warm. We've had our house reinsulated in the walls and in the attic. Our natural gas bill that we just got was about $120.

I really could stand it to be a little cooler, but DH has the attitude that he's going to be warm in his old age regardless of the cost. It is a stretch getting him to wear that sweatshirt jacket in the house. He also has the attitude that he worked hard all his life and now that he's retired, if he wants to sit in the La-Z-Boy all day, that's his right. That's also why he gets cold quicker than I do. Men. I'm thinking of getting him some kind of heating pad or something he could slip in his chair. But the chair is leather, something he just had to have. And maybe it was a good thing as he tends to wear out upholstery cloth. Would the heat damage the leather, though?

The last place I worked, I had to sit in a draft. As soon as I got home, I would go take a hot bath and that would be the first time my feet would have been warm all day. So glad I can stay home now.

In summer, we don't turn the AC on until June. Some of our neighbors have theirs cranked up 'way earlier than that, but I think they must not be very well insulated. We have an attic fan that pulls the hot air out of the house in an instant. I would recommend an attic fan to anyone who doesn't have one. You do get a draft from the louvers in the winter, but we have built a styrofoam box that we keep in the attic. We climb up there and put the box over the fan in the winter. We run our AC at about 80 during the day and 85 at night, but I have to watch DH as he keeps turning it down more until I notice I'm cold, and then I go adjust it back. It's really hard to be a frugal wife when your DH is not.

There's been some discussion elsewhere over how low you can turn your temperatures in the winter before it isn't cost-effective. I'm not sure I understand the logistics of it, but I did get a bit of an understanding of it one time when we went to visit DH's brother in Illinois. Their guest room was upstairs where normally they don't heat in the winter. Even though they cranked the heat up for us, that was the coldest darned bed I ever tried to sleep in. It was like laying on a block of ice. All the surfaces were cold. I guess that's one way you can keep family from visiting too often! LOL

We heat with wood at home, always comfortable. At work, M-F job always little chilly. Weekend job- COLD! Wear long sleeves, Lab jacket, and coat or blanket is normal. I waited so long for Hot Flashes that didn't last long enough!
GrainLady- where in KS are you? I'm in NE KS! Cold and windy today!

not to low here. i usually keep the thermostat at 70 in the winter, my friends wrap up in throws and blankets and i won't do that as long as i have money to pay the bills. i will put on a sweater, but with this broken arm i do a lot of sitting and i feel like i am freezing to death. i can't put on jeans which are warm, so have it set it on 71 most of the time and sometimes on 72. sure will be glad when this is healed.

pammiesue - I'm out here at about the bellybutton of Kansas - central. And you're right, it WAS cold yesterday - even for me - but much nicer today. :-)

-Grainlady

68 degrees here... plenty warm enough with winter weight fabrics and/or layers on.

Chicago suburbs here. A few weeks ago wind chills was
-49F. Yes, 49 BELOW zero.

Away from home: 60
At night: 68
During day: 70 but if I am cold I turn it up to 72.

N. Virginia here. Programmable thermostat. 60 when we are not home or sleeping and 65 when we get up and from 6 - 11 PM and on weekends. I tried to get DH to set it at 55 at night, but he says he hates to see me so cold.

Summer, we keep it around 75 when home and 85 when not home. DH has promised he will help me finish insulating the upstairs this month. Did the eaves and part of the ceiling two years ago and it helped. No way to get insulation in the walls, sigh.

I used to try to keep it about 60 - 62, which is O.K. when doing chores, as one is moving around. But when sitting, at computer, reading, writing, or whatever where there's little movement of one's body (only in the head), I find that a bit coolish, despite having about half a dozen layers on the torso, but two on the legs - sometimes put a blanket or coat over the knees: sometimes wear coveralls. The non-working hand is O.K. - I can slip it under the bum when it gets too cold. But life was rather hard for the mouse-operating hand ... till I pinned the two ends of one side of a washcloth and slipped it over my wrist. Since I have minimal hair on top ... a cap is essential in the house ... they say that a substantial amount of the heat that our body radiates comes from the head.

But I have an unproductive habit - I tend to stay up late during the cold night, then sleep part way through the day, when usually the sun is out to add warming.

Hi Ilene who's O.K. in n-e somewhere,

When you visited the relatives in Illinois, did they have flannelette sheets on the bed? Many of us find them less chilly to slip into on a cool winter evening. If I feel cold after about 5 min. to warm up in the bed, I pull on another blanket (folded at the foot, for easy, i.e. unchilly, access).

Memo to folks who feel that it's solely their business how much energy they use for heating/cooling:

our glaciers are melting, the Arctic ocean is getting more ice-free each summer (and blue water absorbs a lot more heat than does white ice) ...

... plus permafrost is melting, which releases methane, adding far more increase to global warming than does the carbon dioxide that we've been fussing about.

ole joyful

Enjoyed reading this thread, esp. from the folks up north, in the midwest, and Canada. Don't have any lower temps to offer, except that I recall my mother breaking out her mittens, scarves, and heavy coats when the temps got below 70. This was back in Hawaii, where blood runs a bit thinner.

Maryland here. In winter, 65 degrees when we are home and awake, 55 when away or asleep, and we watch TV, work on the computers, and sleep upstairs. In summer, we keep the temperature between 70-75 degrees and mostly live in the lower levels of this split-level house.

The lowest of course, is to turn it completely off! :-)

RI here:
62 during the day.

At night, I tried to turn it down to 58-60, but boyfriend got cranky. Until, I pulled out all the recent oil receipts and showed him the frequency of oil we are going through. So, now the thermostat is 58 at night.

So, we wear knitted hats to bed if it is really cold, and have heating blankets if necessary.

very interesting thread..

Winter 63-64,except from 4-8pm,where it is set for 68 for that time frame

summer 73-74...ceiling fans make it feel closer to 70,which is where i'd prefer it..LOVE the cold,hate the heat

South Central Pa here

Furnace set at 58 degrees for nightime sleeping.

Propane fireplace runs during the day when someone is home (which is nearly all the time!) It keeps the house at a balmy 72-74 degrees (I like being comfy).....furnace kicks on at 64 degrees during the day if nobody is home/fireplace not on.

Mid west Michigan here

9am -5 pm 58 degrees (working) 5pm-10 pm 68 degrees 10pm-6 am 58 degrees 6am-8:30 am 65 degrees, that is during the week. and week ends 68 if we are home 58 if were gone.

After sleeping all night when I get up is when I am the warmest one of the only times my feet get warm. I am going to make more effort to not go bare foot in the house. seems like a no brainer, feet always cold don't go barefoot.

This was posted by a man! :)

Hi dadoes,

When you turn it off completely ...

... that's just before you move out, I imagine?

Up here in Ontario, there's a big difference between turning the thermostat to the lowest level and turning the furnace off completely (unless you have no freezable stuff in the house).

At lowest level, and in cold weather you'd better have someone check the place every couple of days to ensure that the furnace is operating, the temp usually runs around 55 degrees - stuff doesn't freeze.

Throw the switch, the furnace goes to sleep, within a few days, freezable stuff has friz.

When daughter and hub. bought a house that had been unoccupied for a while several years ago, the bank swore that heat had been maintained.

Yeah? Well, if so, how to account for pipes, having frozen, now be leaking in about 8 places in the walls??

Big difference between thermostat turned to lowest level and throwing the switch, in many areas.

Hope you can find all of the hot air that you need (at this time of year).

ole joyful

Also you can break your little toe by going barefoot. LOL

I broke the same one twice.

we do 57 at night, but fill a hot water bottle for each of the kids. they love it so much, they beg for them in spring and fall, even though they don't really need them.

My mil smiled when she heard about our practice. Growing up in MN in the 20's and 30's, they were given a brick off the stove wrapped in an old blanket to take to bed, and loved those too.

The temperature is set at 66° for an hour in the morning when we get ready and in the evening when we're home and awake. At night and during the day (when we're at work/school), it's set at 60. It's not a sacrifice - we all like it cool.

The trouble comes in the summer, when I want to set the air conditioner at 66 ...

Temporary stay in AZ.

Warm.

Delightfully warm.

Three layers top, instead of six.

No washcloth over mouse hand.

No chattering teeth.

Great.

(Arizona tourist bureau should take me on).

ole joyful

Just visiting from ther GardenWeb site and saw this thread. We are transplants from AZ (Zone 7b) to Niagara, NY (Zone 5)and try to kep the house about 70F. Everyone wears long underwear, sweaters, socks and slippers. If we let the house get below 70 it gets cold quick and takes all day to get back up. When its 15F outside or windy, we really struggle to get up to 69F inside with hot water baseboards and 4 space heaters.
Have not been warm since we left AZ so don't mind not having A/C in NY. Does not seem necessary here although some have it anyway.

Hi fleethart,

Have you taken on some alcoholic beverage on occasion?

Some anti-freeze in the veins might help ... do ya think?

ole joyful