So now that winter is on its way, I have turned the heat on in my house. My house has a programmable thermostat, which I love. But the question is always what to set the thermostat at.
I am a firm believer that during the summer, I should not have to sweat inside my house. Sure, I could save money by doing so, but I don’t want to. It’s how I choose to spend my money.
But I balance that out in the winter. I keep my house quite cool and always wear layers while inside. Conveniently, I love sleeping snuggled up under a bunch of blankets, so I set my thermostat fairly low at night. It does make it tough if I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but it’s not that bad.
I know a lot of people who set their heat significantly lower during the day – mine drops, but not significantly. I have cats in the house, and I would feel wrong letting the temperature getting down to 60. Yes, they have fur, but that’s not the point.
And the best part? If I’m home and things are just too cold for comfort, I can raise the temperature a few degrees by overriding the program. Easy as pie. I’m hoping to see the results of this when the next gas bill arrives. Keeping my fingers crossed that the winter budget isn’t ridiculous!
I live in St. Louis where it’s deathly humid and nasty in the summer and freezing in the winter.
In the summer we set our thermostat at 78 when we are home and 83 when we are not (this often goes back down to 80 during the really hot parts of the summer).
In the winter it’s 68 when we are home and 63 when we are not.
We have a dog so the differences aren’t significant either.
I grew up in the STL area, Tom, so I know the weather well. Here in DC, we get the same sort of summer humidity, but it doesn’t get as cold. I actually miss STL winters. A normal winter day here is 35 degrees and raining. Let me tell you, I would take 0 degrees over 35 degree rain any day.