What're your home thermostat settings?

I’ve got the system switched back to heat. A cold front with rain rolled in. Good bye summer. :confused:

I’ll be heating with the heat pump until some time in November when it will automatically switch to propane when nearing freezing temps. Come December I’ll supplement the heat with my airtight wood stove whenever I’m home. I usually set the thermostat to 70 F during the day and 65 F at night. :)
 
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It’s 80.7F, 47% humidity in the living room right now. With the ceiling fan on directly above me I feel like it’s almost too cool. I might turn the single 10k window off or down.

I don’t like running the window units at lower fan speeds; I FEEL as if they don’t run as efficiently that way. The Energy Saver modes on every single one of my four window units (two different models) is garbage. It doesn’t ever seem to run long enough to get an accurate read of room temperature. At night I leave them always-on with the temp I want (we like the white noise anyway). During the day, while home, I just turn one or both window units off when it gets too cool ( 55% is just too much for me.
 
We use propane heat in this house and Day is 68 and night is 64. Have electric blanket at night. If I get up at night and can't sleep I put on a lands end sweatshirt and fleece jammies. Works for me.
 
OFF ... my apartment stays at about 72 degrees year 'round. Sometimes, on the coldest of days, the temp will dip to 68 degrees, and depending on various factors, I may turn the heat on for a while.
 
Heat Pump

71 - Winter
73 - Summer

Also, I run a window unit in the master bedroom in the summer. Work nights, sleep days and it is the hottest room in the house. If I run the temp down to where I'm comfortable to sleep, the Wife/Kid are cold and it's a waste cooling the whole place just for me to sleep.

Power bill goes from about $165 in the spring/fall to $230 in the hottest/coldest months.
 
gathermewool said:
I found it curious that I was given such a hard time for my routine the last time a post like this came up. Well, I'm a glutton for punishment, so here goes! The main theme is temps, but feel free to share recent upgrades, suggestions, etc.

Heat: all electric baseboard, non downstairs (ranch style with semi-finished basement used only for storage, laundry, hot water heater)

Last month, December, we were home the entire month and spent at least eight hours out in the main, large and open space, with the heat set to somewhere between 65-70F. Our bill was around $420 (2250 kWh used). This is unusual for us. We usually maintain:

Master BR: 60-68F all day and all night (we use a space heater with a digital thermostat, since the wall thermostats are ancient and wildly inaccurate!
-----I hate to admit it, but the 5 and 2 year-old sleep in our bedroom with us.
Rest of House: Thermostat remains OFF all day, except ~55-60F when we want to watch a movie on the larger TV or do some chore
-----I'll toss a space heater in the basement during cold weather (negatives F), but mostly the areas that aren't heated stay above freezing all winter long.
-----We have two larger-than-average skylights facing directly south in the living room and one normally-sized sky light in the bedroom.

Right now, the daughter is napping in the warm room, but my wife, son and I are out in the living room @ 51.5F, 49% RH.
-----I've got a hoody, scarf, beanie, and normal socks on
-----My wife is on the treadmill with just a hoodie and sweats on
-----My son and daughter rarely care how cold it is; we have to make them put more clothes or slippers on. My son takes after me most. He asked earlier to go out to get the mail for us barefoot rather than go through the hassle of putting shoes on.

/

I've found that I can FEEL cold at 70F and, like now, completely comfortable at 51F, depending on the day. I don't make anyone suffer. If any one of us is feeling cold, we turn the heat up. By up, I mean 10F or so to 60F+ which is pretty darned warm to me. I hate it when I come inside after working outside and it's a balmy 65F. I don't usually say anything about it, because I know I'll cool down and might get a chill, but the back of my mind screams, "wasteful!"

The same goes for all of our resource usages. I turn the shower off while lathering and I'm trying to instill in my kids that showers don't need to take more than five minutes. I actually prefer giving them a bath. Our house came with a large spa/tub and we have a smaller china-special tub within it. My kids LOVE baths and it likely uses less water than having them hang out in the shower for more than five minutes.

Actually, the wife and I haven't used the spa/tub even once. Well, that mainly because every time I've tried to clean it, more brown suds and slime come out of the plumbing.

/

The next step is to get a home energy audit to see what they can do, and what coupons they offer for upgrades. Our hot water heater is likely 20+ years old, though the pipes are all wrapped and I have two covers on it. With basement temperatures in the 50's, I shoved a thermostat down to the tank and it read 20F+ higher, so that's good.

Besides that, I know we need more insulation in the attic, however, the attic is a crawl space, with access only through a tiny square in a small hallway closet. At 6' tall and 200# I was able to scramble my way up there, but it was a tight fit.
Click to expand...
68F to 70 in winter and 72 - 73 in summer. We have some really old style double windows that are nothing compared to the newer high tech ones sold today but they work good. Everyone I know with total electric homes are screaming at their $300+ light bills.
Mine was $52 electric and $59 natural gas. Natural gas heats so much better, Last home was total electric and we were always cold.
Been in this home 23 years. Attic full of newer blown insulation. Also have nat gas water heater/ central heat / nat gas clothes dryer which was install 2 years ago. That was a shocker. I had been telling wife we needed to convert to nat gas dryer. When the electric died we did. Its been an eye opener how much the power bill dropped as we do lots of laundry (somehow) with just the two of us.
Our A/C used to go on at 0900am in summer and run ALL DAY as the temp inside crept up to near 80f. It would not stop till 0900pm. As soon as we put the insulation in the attic ______ the A/C goes on and off and freezes us out. It cycles as should (4 ton high efficient Rheem) and the liight bill does not exceed $180 in hottest summers, it averages near $110 to $150. Used to be in the $200 - $300 range. When we bought the house it had really old shrunken blown insulation that was almost nothing. That new recyled non flammable blown stuff from Home Depot works great. I put 200 bags in the attic in one day. Planning to move one day and that is the greatest sorrow that we will not find another home as efficient. It took work to get this one like it is.
 
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