Please tell me you live in an apartment. I’d give one of my little fingers to have a $30 electric bill, and I live alone in a small house.
In the winter I’m the Heat Miser - 62 at night and when I’m at work, 68 in the evening. If you’re cold, put a robe on.
My apologies. I thought you people were talking about regulating heat, not cold.
75° during the day in summer - if I’m home. 77° when I’m not, but my dad is there and doesn’t mind it a bit warmer. Before he moved in, we set it to 80° when we were at work. 73° at night.
In the winter, I think it’s set on 70° when we’re home, and 65° at night. But I’m in hot and humid Houston, where we hardly have winter. It’s only June, and we are having $300+ electric bills. (I have an ancient AC unit.)
$30 electric bill? Phht.
I don’t have central air but old houses were designed efficiently. Of course it helps to have a bunch of huge old shade trees around the house and high ceilings. It stays very comfortable with the door transoms and attic windows open. I very rarely use the window AC units in the bedooom and office but tend to keep a window fan running most of the time to prime the pump, so to speak. Get the hot air moving and it goes up–and out. My energy bill is minimal for about 7 months of the year.
I freeze people out in winter, though. I hate, hate, hate being hot. The house has two furnaces so the front (living room/bedroom areas) thermostat is kept at 64. The back thermostat (spare rooms, office and kitchen) is kept at 60.
It does make for some morning shiver-and-dash until the shower warms up though.
Out here in the desert, there’s a billboard encouraging people to set thermostats at 78F. I have mine at about 83F. Unless I’m working actively inside, it’s decent. Also, I don’t wear jeans inside, which helps.
Mine is set at 70, summer and winter.
I cannot stand it to be too hot in the house. I find it almost impossible to sleep in extremely hot conditions, and can end up with hives all over if I get too warm.
I would love to keep it around 65 in the house all year.
I haven’t turned on the A/C this year, and was only tempted once.
When it gets hot, I set to 85 or so - it is on enough to remove humidity and take off the edge.
Brian
During the Summer, I set it at 78, between 4-8:00 p.m. when it’s really hot. Then turn it completely off, and have the fans on until bedtime. Then turn the AC back on while we sleep. When we wake up, I turn it off and the house stays cool until after noon.
In the winter, we use 2 oil filled electric heaters during the day, and turn the central heat on at 68, while we sleep.
We haven’t got any kind of airconditioning in the house at all.
When it’s too hot in summer, we either go and sit in the pool, or else put a couple of pedestal fans on, and during winter it’s never cold enough to really need a heater.
Airconditioning? Luxury! 
The A/C is on year-round: 82 when away; 77 when home. I don’t remember the last time we slid the thing over to HEAT – for much of the “winter” the inside of the house can easily reach 77, if you leave the windows closed. If I had a choice of temperatures, it’d be 70 or lower all the time, but the power bill’s already $300+ in the hottest part of the summer.
Huh. I’ve only had the air conditioner on once this summer, for about a week, back when we were having 90 degree days. My husband doesn’t care for air conditioning, and it’s been quite nice lately, so I haven’t had it on. When it is on, however, I set my programmable t-stat for 76 when we’re home, 82 or some such when we’re gone.
I’m home all day with my infant son. It’s a comfy 75 all day here.
I would much rather be cold than hot, and my wife’s the same way. So, we usually set ours to 70 while we sleep, turn it up to 75 when we’re gone during the day, then down to 72 in the evening. We have a new house with good insulation, so the power bill isn’t too bad.
Sure they were, if nobody in the intervening 77 years not only nailed the windows shut but cut the cords to make doubly sure that nobody would ever, ever, ever be able to open a window. I’d love to either refurbish the old windows (the smaller panes are original) or replace them, but it costs an amazing fortune which I don’t currently have.
Thanks for that, previous owners. Thanks a lot.
78 or 80 in the summer. Sometimes 80 because my computer sits near the thermostat and when it’s on my AC tries to freeze me.
74 in the winter.
What do you set your thermostat at?
I set it at that little dial thingy on the living room wall, usually. Every once in a while I’ll set it at the one in the bedroom.
What?
Seriously, our condo has a sophisticated climate-enhancing system. Instead of fighting AGAINST the climate, like inefficient thermostats, our works WITH the outside climate.
Let’s take a hypothetical case. One day it’s confortable in the condo (I did say this would be hypothetical!), but outside, the temperature drops as rain and cold winds move in. Our AC will continue to labor for days to intensify this chilly condition. Even though it’s SET for 72, the temp will fall to 60 degrees and the AC will keep roaring away. If I turn off the AC manually, turn on the heat, and set that to a HIGHER temp like 74, the heat will gradually bring the house up to WAY TOO HOT.
I can manually juggle heat and AC to get back to 72, but it requires me to focus on twiddling the temp contorls over and over for hours.
Now it’s 68 degrees at last, close enough to the 74 setting to have fooled the people who inspected our thermostat in Quality Control. Suddenly the sun comes out and it gets hotter. The AC will quietly relax like a civil-disobedient protestor going limp in the arms of riot police, and the temp will rocket up to 80-85. If I come by and so much as NUDGE the setting, the AC will kick on furiously, and stay on, even if I immediately reset the thermostat for a much higher temperature – I can slam it to 90 and the AC will roar away, lowering us back down into the 70s, just because it is filled with pride at my personal attention, I guess.
I can’t WAIT until they invent some automated way of adjusting the temperature, like, say, a bimetallic strip attached to a dial. That would rock! Imagine being abole to set a desired temp and the systems would labor to maintain equilibrium. That will totally replace my kind of thermostat within a few years – should such a fantasy become reality.
Sailboat