Do you set it at a different temp when you’re not at home?
I pretty much leave mine the same even though the critters don’t seem to mind the heat as much as I do. (How is that possible anyway? They’re wearing fur coats in the summer!)
Yep.
I’m quicker to turn on the air conditioning because of pets then I would for myself. Especially for old animals. It’s a wonder of modern technology I’m happy to be able to share and make their lives easier.
But I never keep things too cool.
I set the thermostat to 84 degrees when I’m not at home. When I am at home, it’s at 78 degrees.
I don’t know if my cats care. I’ve noticed their behavior changes when it’s cold, but they seem to be more tolerant of the heat. But I don’t want them to be uncomfortable, and I don’t want to come home to an easy-bake oven.
When climate dictates, I leave it on timer to come back on (typically 67 Degrees Fahrenheit on energy saver) about half an hour before I expect the first person to return home. However this is in New England where I’m much more concerned with making sure my house is always warm enough in the winter to prevent pipes from freezing.
I bump it up to 80 when I’m leaving the house, and 74 when I come home. The cats don’t seem to care either way.
I leave it on all the time. I’m rarely gone more than a few hours, so it doesn’t really matter. I know the cats reacted before I had central A/C, as well as in the winter when we had a power outage.
A/C? What A/C?
I have a box unit that goes in the bedroom window when it get brutally hot, otherwise, the house is whatever temperature it is. Last summer it was 30C in the living room for a couple of days when we had a heat wave. The dogs have the option of going to the basement, where it’s cooler, but they rarely do.
My dog (golden retriever, 12) can’t do heat. In fact I got central air because of her - the first summer in the house, I thought I could get through it but she was miserable and it was making me miserable.
She likes it best at 70, but sometimes it’s too cold for me so I put it up to 73 and she makes it through. If I was leaving her home alone, I’d leave it on 70.
I don’t. I don’t run it much when I’m home either. I live in Arizona and I’m trying to keep my electric costs within reason. It’s usually about 85° inside when I’m not running the AC. When I have it on, it’s usually set between 82° and 84°. I’d go broke if it were set at 70°. My dog seems comfortable enough. I always make sure he has plenty of water to drink and he does fine. He’ll lay on the kitchen floor or the bare floor in the hallway and that seems to be cool enough for him.
Emphasis mine.
If someone knows more about anatomy or physics than I do, I’d like to know about that too.
The cats have their own house with A/C. 78 when it is hotter than that.
We keep the house much cooler.
Poor Dawg is a cold country guy so he does not get active until about 50 F.
½ St. Bernard & ½ Pyrenees. Big boy, makes heat internally real good. He is a rescue.
- They have a pet door and an enclosed area outside, so they can get a change of environment if they want. If it were just me I’d turn it off when I wasn’t sleeping, but my partner gets uncomfortable.
I only have AC in the bedroom. On extremely hot days, I will leave it on and I also have a box fan going in the living room. The cats are desert animals, basically, and can deal with heat. But my Rottweiler is not that heat-tolerant; Rottweilers are cool-weather dogs. So I leave the AC and fan going for him.
When I’m home during the heat of the day, his default is going under the back deck, where he has dug out several craters in the dirt to nap in.
- They have a higher natural body temperature to start with.
- They have more surface area per unit volume than humans, and so can lose more heat for a given level of insulation (it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s true even taking their fur into account).
- They’re closer to the floor where it’s cooler anyway.
- (pure speculation) As lazy as they are, they can go into a more dormant state than humans, generating less heat per unit weight.
No AC. I live in Denver. House has never been warmer than 85F and that would be once or twice in the summer.
The dog goes into the basement when he gets too hot, but he really doesn’t, very often. He doesn’t have a lot of fur and what I really don’t understand is why he doesn’t freeze in the winter, but apparently, he doesn’t.
The cats seem to like it warm. Too bad for them, it’s Denver.
My woman is peri-menopausal. The thermostat is always set to the low 70s. Any higher and she would go ballistic, and NOBODY wants that. That’s plenty cool for the puppy, so he is never the determining factor.
Our house has multiple A/C units and timed thermostat settings. Although the house resets itself to “economy” temps during the day, it never gets above 83 where the dogs are. They seem content with this.
I have mine set on 85 when I’m home, but I don’t close the windows and turn it on until the indoor temperature reaches 90. Which, here in south Texas, is early afternoon. Average summer day, I run the AC about 6-8 hours a day, never at night. I read for an hour or so every afternoon on my front porch, even when the heat index is 110 (which is not uncommon). It’s fine in the shade.
Pets are animals that evolved in jungles and tundras. Without AC or central heating. If I can take it, so can they.
When my cats are alone, I keep my place at 81. When I’m home, thermostat is usually between 79 and 81 (I like it on the warm side).
I keep the AC on trying to keep the house below 72F all the time for both myself and Blackjack. I have a log cabin which is very efficient in the winter because of the priniciple of thermal mass. Unfortunately this is a double edged sword and it is very difficult to cool the house in the summer if interior temperature rises. Besides that I’d never consider letting the best dog ever to suffer in the heat in order to save a few cents.