We just have a window AC unit; it’s set to 67-69 depending on how hot it is, or shut down when we can. We’d probably have it set warmer but the coolness has to filter through the rest of the floor of the house (it’s not that big of a unit), and our rabbits can’t handle extremely hot temperatures. So the actual temperature is probably somewhere in the 70s, easily.
In winter, the heater is set to around 62-65, typically.
Totally agree. I love hot weather, but I don’t know how people can sleep with the house at 80 degrees. Even 75 is pushing it. I’m sure it’s different if you’re in truly extreme environments, but even when it’s in the 90s here (or the teens in the winter), it’s not that expensive to keep the place a comfortable temperature. Absolutely worth it.
Also, I’ve often wondered about the economy of letting the temperature deviate far from the set point when you’re away. It seems that there has to be a point at which it’s actually more efficient to let the heat or a/c run periodically than to let the house get so far off that it has to run for 30 minutes straight to get back to temperature when you get home. Right? I dunno. If anyone has seen analysis of that, I’d be really curious to see it. I wonder what the sweet spot is. I usually set our “away” temperature no more than about 7 or 8 degrees off of our “home” temperature (except if we’re going to be gone for a long time – I’m talking about when we’re at work, etc.).
No, although there is some (misinformed) debate about it, it’s better to let the temperature rise if you are not in the house, since heat flow is proportional to the temperature difference between inside and outside.
I run very, very warm. I also rent a studio space at the bottom of a house where my particular thermostat belongs only to my space, and the owner of the house pays the electric bill. So I’m the guy that voted at 68. Of course, that’s only when I’m home – I turn it off completely when I’m at not at home. It doesn’t seem to ever get hotter than 73 in my dungeon.
I live in Los Angeles, by the way.
Yup, my probe thermometer in the kitchen is reading an ambient temperature of 75.
55, the minimum, though it’s never relevant. Heat from the rest of the building keeps it warm enough during the winter, and nobody around here bothers with air conditioning.
64 - heating only -------- don’t have AC except for the bedrooms.
No thermostat in use in the summer here. I regulate inside temps by opening/closing windows or tolerating what nature throws at me. If it gets too hot, I run down and stick my toe (or more) in the lake.
I just got a new furnace installed and haven’t used it in the winter yet, so I don’t know what it will be set for yet. My old furnace/thermostat was poorly calibrated, so that doesn’t represent the real world.
Programmable thermostat: 76 morning and evening, 80 during the day, 78 at night. Hubby doesn’t like it hot, so we keep it cooler (e.g., 76) when he’s home and awake.
In the winter, the heat is set around 65-68.
DC suburbs.
I like to keep it 75-78ish; Husband likes it 65-70ish. We have Thermostat Wars regularly.
Right now? It’s set at 55, and the heat is turned off (because even at 55, the heat came on once in June).
Denver.
No AC. I love hot weather. Pity I live where there isn’t much of it.
I’m weird: in the summer I’m always too hot, so I set the thermostat low, but at that very same temperature in the winter I’m too cold.
I keep the A/C around 72 in the summer and the heat around 75 in the winter. Yeah, that’s a lot of heat. But I hate being cold. I can tolerate being too warm if I have to, but if it’s even slightly too cold I’m miserable.
Utilities are included in my rent, so I figure I should take advantage of this while I can and just be comfortable.
Edit: I’m just outside DC.
Columbus, OH. It is set to 80 during the day, and 74 at night.
Central Mississippi. I like my A/C on 75; I put the heat as close to 68 as people will let me. The kids in the other half of the house have the A/C set on 73. That was a compromise (they wanted 70, I wanted 75).
The damn electric bill was still over $300 last month. Grrr.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty well established that it’s better to only heat or cool when you’re actually in the house.
I mean, I’m away from the house about 10 hours / day. It takes, at maximum, 2 hours to hit a cooling temperature. This intuitively seems better than running the whole house cool for 10 straight hours. At the “cool” temperature, it seems to be pretty consistent - 15 minutes off, 15 minutes on. So 10 hours of this is 5 hours running the AC, 5 hours not. Even at the max - when I come home from travel and the place is 85 F - Two hours to get back to “cool” is still far better than 5 hours on.
My thermostat is “smart” in that if I have it set to say 75 F at 5 PM, it will kick in around 4:30 PM or so and start up the AC to get it to 75 around 5 PM or so. It claims to be “smart” in that it supposedly “learns” how long it takes to cool the place down so that it hit’s that 5 PM mark closer every time.
Dunno how “smart” it is, but it does manage that 5 PM 75 F most days.
No thermostat here, but no A/C, and in the winter I have baseboard heating but don’t turn it up very high; I think my house is probably usually in the low 60sF at the most in the winter. Hey, I have warm PJs and sheepskin slippers, I do fine. And if I had cold guests I’d turn it up, to a point at least.
I don’t know how you people who keep the house over 70 sleep at night, but then again, where I live it gets down to around 50 at night even in August. (Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.) South-central Idaho, in the mountains at about 5800 feet. I was made for this climate.
79, but I just dropped it to 78 and feel guilty. I live in central Illinois and it’s hot.
83/84. Jersey City, NJ (2 miles from the WTC site). It’s been ass-hot here this Summer, and we have a studio with big South-facing windows, so we put the AC in the window. Last Summer, we did not.
No AC here, generally in the winter we keep the heat around 63. We’re getting a wood stove this year, though, so it might be a bit warmer, which will be nice.
Baghdad.
115-120F during the day. Maybe down to 90F at night. A little refrigeration is welcome, but it is nice to go outside to thaw.