(no subject)

[which_chick]

We installed a user-controlled thermostat for one of the apartments at the office today. (This was because we had upgraded, if you can call it that, the tenant from accustat-controlled landlord-paid heat to tenant-settable, tenant-paid heat with reduced rent.) The tenant will actually show savings on his rent+heating bill if he does the really difficult heat management technique known as Turn It Down When Nobody's Home. That's a tough one, though... lots of people seem to find it challenging to put into action.



And that got me to thinking about people and their heat. (The fact that it was in the single digits this morning, with high winds, did not do a damn thing to distract me from thinking about heat.)

My house is heated primarily (and by "primarily" I mean so that the pipes do not freeze) by electric baseboard. The thermostat on the electric baseboard is set to fifty degrees. It is a rare day indeed where I move that thermostat, probably four or five days a year, if that many. If I'd actually like to be warm and "wear more clothes" is not cutting it, I build a fire in the woodstove (fireplace insert, with thermostat-controlled electric blower to move hot air around lots) and make the house somwhere between "warm" and "really too fucking hot" depending on my fire building skills, the outdoor temperature, and my general mood. Most of the time, I get the couch in front of the stove (about 6' away) to the mid-seventies. Even with the blower, areas of the house further from the woodstove are markedly cooler than the couch in front of the stove. The kitchen is never really warm and neither is the bedroom. Oh, and the bathroom has a huge electric wall heater that I run for the duration of my morning shower because I do not like being wet and cold at the same time.

Tell me about your heat. Is it #2 fuel oil, natural gas, propane, electric, coal, wood, solar, geothermal?

I don't really turn my heat down when I'm not home. I don't move my heat much at all. It's set to fifty. I generally let the fire go out when I'm not home for more than a few hours, too. If it's bitter cold, though, I throw in some big logs before I go to work and damp it down so that I have nice coals to work with when I get home.

How about you? Do you have a programmable thermostat? Do you turn the thermostat down when you're not home? Yes? No? Sometimes? Only when you're going to be gone on vacation for weeks at a time? Never?

I let the fire go out if it's a reasonably warm night. Single digit nights, I get up about 2x per night to throw more wood on the fire. I'm used to it and it's no worse than having a small baby for the ten or so nights a year that it's so cold as that. Do you turn your heat down at night when you're asleep?

As for temperature, I do the Tinfoil Hat 50, with accessory wood heat to comfy and beyond. How warm do you keep the place when you are heating it? Do you do the energy-concious 68, the comfy 72, the hedonistic 75, or the Truckle The Uncivil Bastard 65?

Tell me, how do you keep warm?

One nice thing about keeping my house colder than most people prefer is that it makes my cats very affectionate. They will sit quietly on my feet and purr for extended periods of time in the winter. It's nice. I'm not sure why they're so affectionate when it's winter. Probably they've got some sort of seasonal affective disorder...

Comments

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Current place is natural-gas forced-air with a programmable thermostat.

For whatever reason, "64" on the thermostat most places I've lived has been comfortable-to-hot in underwear and flipflops, so that's the highest that's programmed, for 2 hours of the morning, intended to get me out from under the covers more easily.

60 is for evening awake-time, and I think 56 for sleep-time and 50 for gone-time. We try to leave vents open only in rooms that are in use, and in the dining room, which has the thermostat.

maru_mari's room's heat is provided by rat food, with supplemental electric forced-air (for some reason the central heating doesn't go to that room) and tiny space-heaters for the snakes.

Wish there was such a thing as wood heat around here (for aesthetics, not cost; wood doesn't grow on trees around here), but it seems to be limited to single-family owner-occupied houses, none of which are in my current price range down-payment-wise, or to high-end apartments, which I can afford only by not saving for a down-payment.

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

We are Truckle the Uncivil Bastard, but that means the downstairs is generally a flat 60 (the thermostat is upstairs).

Our programmable thermostate is programmed to turn down at night. We are rarely both out for more than a morning, and if we're heading out on a trip together Eric will turn it down for the duration. If we do the simple turn-down, it will come back up at the next programmed point, generally 6 pm. If we hit "hold", then we will need to cancel the turndown when we get home.

It is fuel oil. Cursed, cursed fuel oil, probably now available at 1/2 to 1/3 the price we dutifully locked in in July.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Fuel oil, as I had occasion to check this afternoon, is selling for $1.52 a gallon in my area. Your area might be a few pennies different, but not more than a dime or so per gallon.

[zhasper.livejournal.com]

Previous house: a couple of oil heaters, used on the few coldest days of winter. It was a nastily designed (from a heating point of view) house, with leaks galore, a wall of glass, and a glass-enclosed lightwell that functioned as a perfect heatsink during winter, so it could get down to maybe a little under 10 degrees Celsius on the coldest days.

Current apartment: close the windows a bit if it's too cold in midwinter. Aside from that, haven't had to do anything at all - it's been a steady 16-24ish ever since we moved in, regardless of the outside temperature.

Insulation is wonderful. Living at ~33 degrees south is wonderfuller.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Yes, but when we run out of fuel and the gears of the world stop, all ya'll will have to dress up in feather boas and motorcycle gear. (I've seen the movie and everything.) That sort of attire wouldn't look too bad on you, but not everyone where you live is young and pretty. On the whole, it will probably not be scored as a win. Fashion apocalypse. Who's laughing now?

[cousinsue.livejournal.com]

We have a kerosene stove that works really well once Spouse gets it going.

We also have electric heat, and I don't think enough insulation.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

Forced-air natural gas heat. Magic naphtha elves rush molecules of natural gas into the heater without me having to do anything other than pay a soulless rancher in Wyoming for the gas. He then uses the money to bribe his local Senator to cause him to send my tax money to keep ranchers in golden calves, or whatever the fuck ranchers in The Square States want. (All I know is, they hire conservatives who hate taxes to send them my tax money. And thus is the Circle of K-Street Life completed.)

In any case, we have lots and lots of insulation. The walls of the house were actually removed several years ago to insert enough modern insulation to choke a pink panther. We keep the heat at 65 - 68 all winter, which I deal with by working in my office with several computers running and which Ivy deals with by wearing lots of wool. I'm almost certain the looks she gives me when she gets out of the shower on cold mornings aren't ancient Ashkenazim rituals of death.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Considering that it's Ivy, the way to bet is that if you're not dead yet, then they're not rituals of death. If she wanted you dead, you would be.

[moeckie.livejournal.com]

Our place is small - 600 or so square feet. We have a couple oil filled radiators we will use when it's too warm to run the woodstove but maybe a little too cool to just tough it out and the stove would make it Africa hot in here. Otherwise, it's woodstove. When David is home, I wait til he gets up to start a fire (I let him do it), and we keep it going all day with the hourly log system, til a bit before bedtime because we both sleep better when it's cooler. Keeps it around 70ish where we are, cooler in the laundry room and bathroom. David built the place and was raised here, so believes in insulation. We let the fire die at night because even in below zero temps, the coldest I've had it get inside is 45 or so, which, with proper application of wools and a nice quilt, is bearable until the wood gets burning. Most mornings it's 60-64 before the wood gets burning. Right now there are young chickens (7 weeks old) in the garage, so we have a small ceramic heater blowing in their pen. The well house is also my studio, so we keep an oil-filled radiator on in there to protect the well and art supplies. Our electric bill goes up to about $200 in the winter due to the extra heaters , balanced by the $50 summer bills, so we have the average budget thing going with the electric company to just pay $140 every month. Oh, and this year we haven't bought wood because in the early summer we felled some trees and are burning those.

David wants to build a passive solar house when we build (hopefully in the next few years). I want radiant floor heating then.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

My friend La has radiant floor heating (hot water in pipes that run under the floor) and it's nice. The floors in my house are ice cold.

[gwangi.livejournal.com]

My apartment has some sort of heating system (there are baseboard radiator thingies), although I've never actually turned it on. All of the heat for the rest of the building runs underneath my floor, so during the winter when everybody else has their heat on, my apartment gets it for free. I usually have to have a window cracked. Yesterday, for example, we had a high of -3, and with the window closed it was about 75 in my house.

There are laws here that require apartment managers to provide us heat for free, I think, because every place does it. So it's not like I'd be spending anything for it anyway. But it's still pretty nifty that I've never had to turn it on.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

Electic base-board heat. I keep it warm enough to (hopefully) keep the pipes from freezing, and since I haven't had that happen in the eight-and-change years I've been here, I guess I'm doing it right. I don't own a thermostat, and the base-board heaters just have knobs with the high medium and low hash-marks. Even when they're turned "off", they still will kick on if the temperature for a particular room is below some mystery temperature, as I've often been woken from a fitful sleep by the heater in my bedroom - which I never, ever turn on - clicking wrathfully to itself as it comes to shambling unlife on particularly bitter nights.

I will occasionally turn up the heat when visitors are expected, but otherwise it's layers, slippers, and a blanket on the couch in front of the TV. My electric bills are the envy of my family, especially since the landlady replaced the leaky roof with something with apparent better heat-retention properties than the tar-paper sieve which used to serve as my overhead shelter.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

My winter electric runs between thirty and forty dollars a month. My summer electric is generally under twenty bucks a month.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

You win.

I hit $95 on my worst month in the last twenty-some months - Feb 20th. In my defense, I don't supplement with a franklin stove. But yeah, summer electric is always south of $20.

[The wonders of online bill payment - you can easily look up your payment history at the drop of a hat.]

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

We have a natural gas furnace thingy. I wouldn't really call it a "furnace" compared to the gigantic contraption my friend has here, but it does have a floor opening thing and it goes "fwoomp" when you turn it on.
We only turn it on when it's REALLY cold, to take the chill off. Our house isn't well insulated so when it's getting down into the 20s outside it is pretty cold inside.

Of course I live in California so it doesn't get "really" cold... I still maintain anything below 40 degrees is "really cold."