What temperature do you heat your house?

[greenskeeper]

with smart thermostats there is no reason not to run your heat as efficiently as possible regardless of what temperature you want it to be while the house is occupied.

Determining how long it takes your heating unit to "recover" is where you should set it to be comfortable when the house is occupied.

Unless you live in a crazy cold climate most people can effectively turn the heat off during the day when nobody is home and still have the house recover to the acceptable temperature when you return from work.

[disneysteve]

Unless you live in a crazy cold climate most people can effectively turn the heat off during the day when nobody is home and still have the house recover to the acceptable temperature when you return from work.

We used to use the programmable thermostat when DW was working and turn the heat down (and the AC) during the day when the house was empty. Since she stopped working, we just keep it on a steady temp. She may go out here and there but not for 8 hours at a time and not on any consistent schedule.

[Bright]

62 when we are sleeping. 67 generally otherwise. If we are sitting around and cold it might go up to 70. Generally with normal activity 67 is very comfortable.

[Scanner]

60-62 @ night
65-68 @ day.

Just bled my radiators of air yesterday - first time I ever did that.

[disneysteve]

Just bled my radiators of air yesterday - first time I ever did that.

Now there's something I haven't done for over 20 years. Blast from the past.

[Scanner]

LOL. .. yeah, never did it.

Had to call dad and ask about it. He said in the old systems, you had to have someone down the basement feeding water into it and the other person bleeding it.

I wasn't sure if it's normal maintenance or not. . .actually only 1 radiator had a bit of air in it. .. most of them didn't.

Hosue was built in 1950 so it's 65 years old. My friend who's an energy maven says hot water radiator heat is the cadillac of heating systems - most efficient distribution of heat.

[HappySaver]

Most housing here in Boston, including everywhere we rented and then our first house (also built in the 50's) have hot water radiators. Work wonderfully. Smooth consistent heat, not too dry. In a lot of ways it's superior and I miss it. But the trade-off with our newer home is that it does warm up faster and now we have central AC. Worth it.

Those old radiators don't need to be bled often at all - we checked them each year but rarely bled them.

[JoeP]

Funny how the season changes my interpretation of air temperature.

In the winter, I keep the house at 65F during the day and 61F at night. Perfectly comfortable in sweat pants and a t-shirt. Anything above 67F and it feels like an oven to me.

In the summer, I am comfortable in the house up to about 78F, and then the AC comes on to get us around 74F. Again, sweat pants and a t-shirt. Anything colder than that in the house and I freeze. BUT, if I go outside, my comfort range is anything 60F to 85F.

[lowriskinc]

77 degrees.

[disneysteve]

77 degrees.

You live in Tampa and keep your heat on 77?