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Do we or don't we?

Change thermostat morning/evening, or leave it a constant temp?

  • Yes I reduce temp at night and raise it back in the morning (manually or automatically).

    Votes: 12 92.3%

  • No I don't change thermostat setting.

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • Total voters
    13
  • Poll closed .

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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A poll!
Thermostat set-back: Do BCF'rs lower house heating temp at night, and raise it back in the morning?

Seems there are two distinct camps:
(1) lower at night, raise in the morning saves energy and lowers heating costs.
(2) leave thermostat alone, as more heating in the morning uses more fuel than less heating at night can save.

Enquiring Minds Want to Know!
 
We like it cooler at night, overhead fan on and warm covers. 73F during the day and 70F at night. :encouragement:
 
Year-round: 72 in the day; 68 at night, and ceiling fans constantly on.
 
I guess I'm in camp #3. I turn the heat to 68 in the evening and turn it off around 5:15AM when I go to work. Cat uses sunshine to keep warm.
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Said #1 to th' poll, but on the few days of cooler weather the heat is set to 72°F for a couple hours in the evening, then turned off again. Ceiling fans run 24/7.
 
My heat pump is set at 70 in the winter in the evening. It sets itself back to 63 at night. It's programmed to hit 68about 7AM and depending on outside air temp it can take 2+ hours to reach the temp.
Tom, I understand your dilemma as I ponder it all the time.
In the summer the AC is set at 75 and never budges
 
Mickey Richaud said:
Year-round: 72 in the day; 68 at night, and ceiling fans constantly on.
Click to expand...
That's about what we do - 72° in day, 69° at night. However, our thermostat is programmable by day of the week and hour. We program it to reduce to 70° when we know we are going to be gone for long periods (e.g., it reduces at 10:30AM on Sundays, which is when we leave for Mass and it goes back to 72 at 2PM.
 
GregW said:
I guess I'm in camp #3. I turn the heat to 68 in the evening and turn it off around 5:15AM when I go to work.
Click to expand...
If it were up to me, this would be my house as well. Unfortunately my wife is of the "crank the AC and run the ceiling fan all night" opinion. So guess what we do.
That's right, I bundle up and shiver while she kicks the covers off.

When we lived in WI and neither of us worked from home, we'd run the heat from 7pm-9pm, turn it down to sleep, run it again 6am-8am, and turn it way down while at work.
 
Generally 70 during the day when home and turned back at night. Unless it's really cold out it usually doesn't get cool enough inside to kick back on until I turn it up in the morning. When I was still in an office it wouldn't get turned back up until I got home around 4pm. Now with WFH it goes back up at 6am when I get up. I'd replaced the A/C unit at the start of the pandemic and got the furnace replaced along with it, I found last winter that now having a 98% efficient furnace my overall heating bill stayed about the same when it was running 16 hours a day as it was when the old one was only turned up 6-7 hours. Course this year with fuel expected to be more expensive, that may not longer hold true.
 
I usually only turn the A/C on in the summer when the inside temp hits 90. In the winter I try to keep the house between 60 and 70.
 
Used to keep the heat at 68 but now I'm very cold so 70 all winter. Wife is hot (temperature-wise), My normal body temp is 97.8.
 
I use a programmable thermostat to regulate the temp. in the house. In the summer I let it get up to 85 while I'm at work and it clicks back down to 75 when I'm coming home. My A/C is incapable of defeating a Texas summer - if I left it on 75 all day it would run non-stop for 12 hours which is not good for the system and it would still be close to 80 inside. No point in killing the system and slamming my electric bill through the roof when I'm not even home. In the winter I let it go down to 60 in the daystime when I'm at work and it clicks back up to 70 when I'm home. The furnace showed it could keep the house warm even when we had the single digit freeze a year ago, but it ripped through propane like mad to do it, so I do see a reduction in how often I buy propane by using the programmable thermostat. A higher end home may have enough insulation and capacity in the systems to make this unnecessary.
 
We have one of the Program thermostats.
Heat is set to 68 when we are home and 65 when we are gone. AC is 70 and 75 when we are away.
Ceiling fans run 24/7

David
 
NutmegCT said:
A poll!
Thermostat set-back: Do BCF'rs lower house heating temp at night, and raise it back in the morning?

Seems there are two distinct camps:
(1) lower at night, raise in the morning saves energy and lowers heating costs.
(2) leave thermostat alone, as more heating in the morning uses more fuel than less heating at night can save.

Enquiring Minds Want to Know!
Click to expand...
I've never understood #2. Assuming:
The furnace efficiency does not change with temperature.
The house looses less heat when it's colder. (Because the temperature difference is lower.)
So the net energy required to keep a house at a lower temperature, then heat back up, is less than to keep it at a higher temp all the time.

Granted, it takes a lot of energy to heat the house to a comfortable level - but the total energy use over time should be less. Am I wrong?

Having said all this: I have hot water heat, and have increased my nighttime temperature after a freeze-up a few years ago. Basically, once the thermostat reduces the temp, the heat turns off. And one part of the house cooled more than the rest... and the radiator pipes froze before the heat kicked back on again. Once the heat stopped working, more bits froze... My mistake!!
 
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