<p>What temps do y’all set your thermostats at home for…</p>
<p>The AC?</p>
<p>The Heat?</p>
<p>AC - supposed to be 78 but we run it more like 76
Heat- 68 - but we nudge it up to 70 most days. 68 upstairs going down to 62 overnight</p>
<p>Don’t have AC.</p>
<p>Heat, 60-63F when at home.</p>
<p>AC depends on how hot it is outside, honestly. When it’s in the 90’s, then it’s set to around 78. When it’s in the 80’s, usually 76 with it going down to 74 at night. I cannot sleep when I’m hot.</p>
<p>Heat- depends on whether the kids are here or not! I’m totally ok with 68 during the day and 64 at night but the kids want it a lot warmer so I’ll go up to 71 or 72 for awhile if they complain. It does go up to 72 from 5:30 am - 7:00 am because getting out of the shower in the cold is not tolerable…lol.</p>
<p>WE have ac, but have not been using it for 4 years owning our house. I test run it every year when season starts to make sure it works. Its a feature to sell the house in the future.
Heating is set at 62 only.</p>
<p>The big problem is the water bill during the summer, sprinklers uses a LOT of water and I have almost half an acre grass to water. And the swimming pool eats up electricity like no tomorrow. If I don’t run the pump long enough for the pool, algae will grow right away. It is a big expense</p>
<p>Buy a lot of vegies and pasta from 99c ONLY stores, it will save some money.</p>
<p>Regal cinemas will give half price popcorn and soda with an aarp card. Probably the only good thing about getting old. Also u get a free donut at dunkin.</p>
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<p>I wonder if you are ok with the lower heat because you are the one seeing and paying the heating bill, while the kids do not directly see the costs of the higher heat setting.</p>
<p>Goto Netflex instead of IMax or any movies! Last time was at IMAX the bill came $38 for two, that is WITH one senior discount. Microwave popcorn is about 50c/bag and I rarely buy it.</p>
<p>Have not bought a tee-shirt for over ten years, free tee-shirts are always available in various trade conventions.</p>
<p>We program the thermostat based on our normal life pattern during the week:</p>
<p>WINTER (down blankets, socks and sweaters keep us warm)
10 pm to 5 am: 60
5 am to 9 am: 67
9 am to 4 pm: 60
4 pm to 10 pm: 68</p>
<p>SUMMER (I need it cooler at night to sleep 
)
10 pm to 5 am: 70
5 am to 4 pm: 78
4 pm to 10 pm: 74</p>
<p>Weekends we extend the “comfortable” temp times as we are in the house more.</p>
<p>We have been doing this for the 24 years we have been married. Kids came home this break and complained about it. DH is deaf to all the griping - he pays the bill, they don’t.</p>
<p>Heat low-mid 60’s and AC low-mid 70’s.</p>
<p>We don’t water. My perennial garden is like Survival of the Fittest…if they can’t make it without water they don’t stay. I definitely never water grass. It can get a little brown in high summer but always comes back green in spring. I also only plant herbs like basil that really don’t care about being watered (in the ground). The only thing I water is a hanging plant on my front porch.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus- I think it has more to do with menopause than the heat bill! And perhaps activity level too. I’m usually rushing around doing stuff here. </p>
<p>I don’t water my lawn. I’d rather keep the AC set cooler than water the lawn! </p>
<p>I do know someone who charged his girlfriend when she took a shower at his place. I think that becomes miserly penny-pinching-tightwadding to a new level- not a good one!</p>
<p>We keep our heat at 75 from 5pm to 10pm, then it goes down to 60 from 10pm to 8am while we sleep, then to 55 from 8pm to 5pm since we are not home. My mom thinks this is bonkers but her thermostat is set to 68 all day every day (works from home) and her heating bills push $300, mine seldom goes over $100-- for a similar sized house. My moms house is also a lot colder at 68 than mine is somehow, her house is unbearably cold to me.</p>
<p>I wondered if 55 during the day was too cold since nobody else seems to go that low, but I’ve never seen it read colder than 60-65 in the house no matter what the thermostat is set at. We seem to retain the heat we get from 5-10pm pretty well.</p>
<p>We also never watered once this year, we havent bought a sprinkler yet. Nothing died or turned brown at all. I was stunned. My parents used to water their lawn twice a day and it still died. Yay for high water table I guess.</p>
<p>We have no central air or A/C of any kind, only one fridge and of course, no heating. Our electric bill would range between $65-$150 (the higher bills when one or both kids were home). With the photovoltaic, we pay about $17 every month (service charge to remain connected to the power grid. We currently produce more energy than we use nearly every month, but someday may get one or more A/C units.</p>
<p>I found if I let the heat go too low when I wasn’t home, it would have to run constantly for a really long time (sometimes the whole evening!) to get the house up to where we want it when we are home. It didn’t seem to be an effective way to save.</p>
<p>We have dual zone heating & A/C. When the kids are all off in college 
the upstairs bedroom level is set at 60 degrees overnight during the winter, goes up to 65 degrees in the morning for about 1 1/2 hours, then goes back down to 60 degrees until about 6 p.m., when it goes up to 65 again. Downstairs, which covers the kitchen, living room, dining room and family room, it’s set at 58 degrees over night, with the same day time temps as upstairs. If I’m home, I’m always wearing a sweatshirt in the house.</p>
<p>Now, when the kids are home on break, and they have guests especially, the heat is set 3-5 degrees higher and is on all day. Our bills are semi-astronomical when they are home. :D</p>
<p>Re # 176
Maybe you need a bigger fan?</p>
<p>When my daughter was home, she kept turning off the heat and the extensions to which the clocks etc were plugged into.
She does the same at her house, ( turns everything off whenever she leaves), but they must have a huge furnace cause it heats up fast.</p>
<p>I have replaced the blower motor recently. I guess we’ll see with this cold snap how things fare.</p>
<p>When we are going from 60 to 75 or 76, which I think is the broadest range we ever cover, my thermostat estimates it will take like 3 hours to heat the house but it never takes anywhere near that long. Maybe 15-20 minutes if that, I haven’t paid attention but it’s not running long. I live in a 1700sqft ranch house, though, so it is easier to heat and cool than a larger house or one with multiple floors. My parents house is similar sqft but has a second story, and is also just not as well insulated anyway.</p>
<p>In the summer we keep the temp around 72 during the day in the summer and 76 at night and while we aren’t home-- but the temp never gets that high. It stays around a constant 72. We have a great, quiet ceiling fan over our bed that we run every night in the summer. Our gas and electric bills alternate seasonally from being around $100/$60 to $60/$100, so we spend about the same on utilities year round.</p>
<p>Our furnace and water heater look to be about 20 years old, I’ve been meaning to replace them before they fail-- since they’re THIS old I would rather replace them on my time than when they fail and cause an emergency. I wonder if our bills could go any lower if we did replace them, I would assume they have become more efficient in the last 20 years?</p>
<p>ETA: I guess I don’t know how long it takes to go from 55 to 75 because that happens when I’m not home. I realized what I said in this post contradicted my other post… we do go from 55 to 75, not just 60-75. I think it is scheduled to kick on an hour before we get home.</p>