We do have a programmable thermostat, but it has 3 programs - Heat, AC and Off. It’s been set to Off since Labor Day weekend. The question was do I set it to Heat and let it start it’s daily program.
The heat did finally kick on around 4am. The hot dusty smell of the disused vents woke me up.
We try to see how long we can wait every year to turn on the heat. It’s motivated a little by cheapskate-ness (Yankee thrift?) but it’s mostly just playing a game of chicken with Old Man Winter. One year we made it to December but that was an exceptionally warm fall. We do look at it as a minor failure to turn on the heat in October.
I try to go to Nov. 1st, but there’s snow in the forecast for tomorrow, and it’s 60 in here. I’ve turned it on, but will turn it off again once the house warms up a little.
If you happen to think of it, let us know if you come down with a cold in the next few days. It’s long been my crackpot theory that all manner of viruses, er, incubate in that heating duct dust that gathers over the summer.
When it gets to 60ish in the house, we turn it on. Thermostat’s set to, I dunno, 68 (I think). We do like to play the game of “how long can we last” too, but it went on a couple of weeks ago. With the 45 degree temps typical of late October, it just got too cold inside.
It went down to below zero last night outside and the house just dropped to 19 degrees for the first time so I turned the heat on this morning. Had the first furnance use of the year burning dust smell for about 20 mins and then it reached it’s programmed temperature of 20 and stopped. Almost made it to November!
We always try to make it till November as well. But we are lucky we live upstairs in an apartment so we get some heat but also have bummer have thin walls. So a win and a loss. But usually the heat doesn’t get moved past 64 till at least December. But it is still warmer than that in here. Seal windows if you really want to save money. Under door mats. You lose a lot of heat that way.
Heh, today I’m wearing long underwear. My hoodie is in the wash, but I found one of my husband’s old sweatshirts. Under that I’m wearing a turtleneck. I’m also wearing fuzzy socks. Unfortunately they make my feet too big for my shoes, so I’m wearing my winter boots instead. I feel like Nanook of the North!
I did break down and turned the thermostat to 55 last night…
You people are nuts. I’m freezing my ass off if the internal temp drops below 76… (I note that most of the time I’m only wearing boxer shorts - if actually wearing clothes at home then I can stand a few degrees cooler, but not much)
Oh no not 55!! lol. I have my hat on almost all the time when in the house. That is good advice . That is where you lose all your heat. You should go to the salvation army. I have bought so many hoodies there. Most of mine are mens so I can layer and the selection is better. And usually you don’t pay more than 3-5 dollars. And all of mine are Red Soxs or Patriots. Find out when your half off on all tags day is.
You sound like my mom. When I get really cold I go to her house to visit and warm up! And my parents pay for their heat but if mom is cold the heat goes on.
We keep the heat on and set to 60. It’s been that way for 2 weeks, ever since I noticed that it was 50° in the house. We keep it at 60 minimum because my dogs are total wimps and shiver and look pathetic when it gets lower than that. We humans are perfectly fine with blankets and bathrobes.
Of course I do have a fire going but our lack of an insert means it only heats the area around the fireplace unless we get a rager going.
We might be a little nuts, but when the temperature swings in the other direction and gets above 80 indoors I am the first one to switch over to AC. I do not deal well with heat, but I am very comfortable in the cold. My ideal weather is between 62F and 70F. I am perfectly happy down to 45F if it’s sunny.
I live in So Cal so I don’t have much experience with this situation but shouldn’t your pipes start freezing soon (assuming you keep going unheated and the temp drops a little more)?
We set our thermostat to 55 in the winter because we can’t afford to set it any higher than that. We learned our lesson our first winter here when one month’s heating cost $600 keeping it at like 65. So we just wear lots of layers and keep lots of throw blankets around.
I just finished putting up our thermal drapes. I hate the way they make our already-dark house darker in the middle of the day, so I looped the bottoms with ribbon so the sunshine can come through. Around dinnertime I’ll unloop them and let 'em hang the way they’re supposed to.
We’ve got two space heaters. One is of absolutely no use unless you’re sitting less than a foot away from it. The other one is bigger and packs a pretty good punch. We use it in our bedroom. Even set at 65F I woke up sweating!
If it weren’t for the kids, I could stand it being a lot cooler in the house. I know it’s moot at this point since it kicked on, but as soon as I didn’t need the A/C on, I’d set it to heat but set the thermo to as low a temp as I felt was tolerable. It’s a lot cheaper to put on some socks and a long-sleeved shirt!
Around here it’s annoying - you can have one day so chilly that you need the heavy blankets at night, then the next day you need the A/C… then the next day it’s cold again. We finally splurged on a fancy thermostat last year: it’s programmable by time of day, but more importantly it can automatically switch from heat to AC or vice versa So we have it set that, for example, if it gets above 78 inside the AC goes on, if it drops below 62, the heat goes on… with different ranges by time of day and day of week. I luuuuuurve it.
Only if they’re outdoors, completely uninsulated, not in use, and the temp stays below freezing for more than a few hours.
There’s enough residual heat inside the house that pipes inside walls will usually be OK unless it’s way below freezing for several days. If it’s a pipe “circuit” that isn’t used much, it’ll freeze sooner than one that is used several times a day. For example pipes to the outdoor faucets (we drain those every fall). And the pipes to the sprinkler system, ditto.
At our old house, the pipes to the master bathroom shower were on an outside wall and they froze twice (but fortunately did not burst); we learned then that if the weather was awful enough for several days we should leave the shower dripping overnight. We also took to leaving a space heater in that bathroom (away from the water!!) as it was so cold. Again, it only happened overnight because of the temperature drop and the disuse.
I try to hold out as long as possible before turning on the heat. The house was 12.6 C this morning, (that’s about 57F), and pretty chilly. I have to admit that I use the oven to make dinner most nights, so that raises the indoor temperature a degree or two and helps take the chill out of the air.
So we have it set that, for example, if it gets above 78 inside the AC goes on, if it drops below 62, the heat goes on… with different ranges by time of day and day of week. I luuuuuurve it.