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| Our super awesome new thermostat with some laughable temperatures! |
The first thing we're doing differently this year is that we've kicked our space heater to the curb (aka storage). My older child was overusing the space heater rather than just putting on more clothes. The final straw was hooking it up to our Kill A Watt electricity usage meter. After a few calculations it looked like we were spending something like $600 a year running the damn thing! I know, you don't need to tell me.
Since my husband is off chemo for the next 3 - 6 months (more on that later), he's able to regulate his body temperature a bit better. So, the household temperatures don't need to be as warm. My youngest child walks around half dressed and is impervious to the cold, so that's not a concern there. I tend to be cold, but I have an arsenal of wool and down to employ.
Anyway, the heat first kicked on October 2nd. We chatted a bit about how we wanted to program our newish, more accurate thermostat this year and settled on the following. Our biggest limitation is that there's always someone home. Between working from home and homeschooling, we can't exactly set the thermostat low during the day like I'd want to:
Daytime:
9:00 am - 9:00 pm - set to 67 degrees
Nighttime:
9:00 pm - 9:00 am - set to 60 degrees
Now, before you start arguing that these seem like sultry temperatures, let me remind you that our central heating isn't exactly efficiently dispersed and the thermostat resides in the warmest part of the house. So, if it's 60 degrees in the living room, it might very well be 52 degrees in the bedroom. Or lower. I honestly prefer sleeping in a really cold room so it works out fine for me. And everyone has super cozy, snug blankets so it's not an issue.
What about you? How low are you going this year?
*Warning - this post contains a link to an affiliate program that might make me money, wherein I use said $ for giveaways and suchlike.
Ack, the space heater! They are huge energy suckers, I put mine in the closet too. Still use it if I want a room to heat up fast (as in, people are coming over and I don't want them to freeze) but that's not often.
ReplyDeleteI will probably stick with my usual thermostat settings, 67 during the day and a couple degrees lower at night. Of course the bedroom is the coldest room.
Our settings last year were 65 from 5 am to 10 pm, then 63 from 10pm to 5am. This year I've taken it down further - we're set at 62 most of the time, with the exception of 64 from 5 - 7am and 5 - 7 pm. My husband has to be up at 5 and if the bedroom is chilly, he will hit the snooze button a lot instead of getting out of the warm bed. We homeschool, so the kids and I are home the bulk of the day, but I'm the only one truly cold most of the time due to my RA and generally "always" being cold. Instead of pushing the heat up, I'm layering way more, invested in thicker wool socks, and have staged warm blankets all around the living room; no matter where I sit, I can pull a blanket around my legs. Our bedroom is the hottest in summer and coldest in winter, so bedtime is a bit chilly for me, but when my husband gets home from his current trip, I know things will warm up. We have a small house, and a small bedroom, and thankfully he's the type of person who throws off heat like a furnace. When he's sleeping, you can actually feel a difference in temps between the hall and walking into our bedroom at night! The bump in temps during dinner time is my little treat for myself - I can thaw out a bit in the kitchen and at the dining table. ;)
ReplyDelete@Adrienne - I figured that, since our electricity rates are pretty cheap (thanks to hydroelectric) it wasn't costing us that much. Boy, was that wrong.
ReplyDelete@Melonie - My husband used to be a furnace as well and there was always a fight as to how many blankets we had on the bed. Since his stem cell transplant his body temp has been out of whack and he's *almost* as cold as I am :)
ReplyDeleteWe keep our thermostat at a toasty 62 during the day except when Dan's skin is burning off (which tends to be daily during the morning) then we crank it up to a balmy 70 and I basically have to be in my underwear. At night, we completely turn it off and bundle up under a mound of blankets on my side and one on Dan's. So that's how we do... I am looking forward to hearing how Hank is doing as you mentioned that would be in a future post. Take care.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have your posts in my inbox, CC. I've moved from the middle of the U.S. East Coast to the UK since the last Freeze Yer Buns, and I've tried to carry on the tradition each winter. Since last winter, we have a new boiler, and our thermostat is in a new position. We're currently experimenting with settings for the new setup.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely fantastic posting! Lots of useful information and inspiration, both of which we all need!Relay appreciate your work. Kerry Reynolds
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