How are you keeping warm?

58 to 60 at night.
63 to 70 during the day; depending on the humidity level.

The bill is too high even at those temps.

However, I can't stand to go visiting at a "hot house" now. 75 to 79; give me some air so I can breathe!

LOL

Goodness! I thought we kept our house cool and it's at 70 degrees, year around, night and day. If we set our thermostats in the 50's the houseplants and everything would freeze.

Even set at 70 degrees, when the subzero winds are howling, it's still cold.

I endure the cold house with the cat on my lap. We keep each other warm. Plus an electric mattress pad.

keep the house cool to save $ Keep the house at 63 during the day, 68 while were home and up and 63 when we go to bed.

Thermostat set at 56 at night, 60 in the day. In summer I keep it at 82 in daytime and 78 at night - if I didn't my electric bill would be outrageous! You get used to those temps....

I LOVE winter here in Houston because I hate hot weather, and I save lots of money on my electric bill (my heat & A/C are electric). The cold weather is a wonderful (but short-lived) break from the horrible humid and hot 10 month summer weather!!

I HATE central heat, it dries you out so bad.

I've GOT to stop watching this thread! I shiver every time it pops up on my thread watcher! When I see "How are you keeping warm?" I automatically think, "I'm not!" and pull the blanket tighter.

BURRRRR
I crank up the heat---but never over 72. Mostly 70 day and night.
Kinda sad right now cause my electric throw blanket stopped working and walmart wont have anymore til NOV and DEC

lol.

I have a kerosene heater, came with the place, there was a lump sum for heating fuel paid by landlord when I moved in and we figured $60 a month. So, I keep comfortable. Which means setting it in the range of 68-72 depending on factors. However, when the power has gone out (it relies on electricity) I have been pleased at how well insulated this place is, it has not gotten too bad. Twice power went out for several hours while I was asleep -- and when that happens I wake to find it slightly cool, and when the heater comes back on it is automatically set at 56 -- both times it has taken me a while to notice it is getting a bit cool and go turn it up.

I also have an electric throw I use on the bed most nights.

Hate being cold, but will run the thermostat at about 57 to 65
How long will we endure.. depends on if we are on releif or not.
LP is outrageous, electric costs are ridiculous and they will shut you off if you cannot pay. Such a deal when you got medical issues and cant work. Makes a lot of sense for those companies to hurt people even more when they are down. What a system there.

Been known to use space heaters IN DESPERATION when the LP ran out. Had one catch fire. Lucky the house did not burn and glad the dog went off drawing my attention to it.

Weather in zone 5 in winter, spring stinks because it is so unstable anywhere for 40 below with a feels like of 85 below and it almost feels colder at the damp 32 above., least below zero it is a dry cold. but hate seeing that stick around at all

lee i have asthema to but its never stopped me from wanting to crank the heat up :). I used to SIT right in front of space heaters until you could feel my skin was hot but I loved it! I used to ride (pre-passengers as a parent and spouse lol) in the car and crank the heat up there to and have it blowing full blast more of a short trip!

Then I found Texas and I've been quite content :) but even in our winters here the thermostat is scheduled to run on 70 degrees and I just up it to 73 once or twice during the day. And I still use an electric blanket!

You won't find me complaining (much :) of our Texas summers because it's a beautiful trade-off for having mild winters.

Yo Texas, send real estate catalogs!!

Been know to curl up with the dog and a huge pile of blankets on some nights

and been know to go out to the pickup and fire it up and sit in there on occassion just to get a small space warmed to take the chill off too.

I never run the AC.. to expensive, but hate chilled air anyway. It is too hard on arthritis bones.

A cool house to save money and to reduce pollution.

We have the downstairs thermostat set at 62. Although, if it is cold and windy, I will bump it to 66. The upstairs is on a separate thermostat and is kept at 58 or so. We have a heated mattress pad that we turn on about 2 hours before bed and then shut off as we slide under the covers. I really don't like it hot! Summer temps over 80 make me swell up like a balloon! :-)

22 Celsius/ 71 Farenheit. Use an ultrasound humidifier. It's -20 C outside today.

LOL ... I have been enjoying everyone's comments about the temp, but one observation I wanted to make is that 70 degrees in one house may not feel like 70 in another. We just moved into a new home 5 yrs ago that we did most of the work on - we tried to make it as energy efficient as possible - but one thing I learned in my research and have since proven is that making the home "airtight" makes it FEEL warmer. In my old home, which was built in the 40's - there was some draft ...we had replaced the windows over the years and added some insulation into the walls as rooms were redone, but for the most part the walls had no insulation and there were small air leaks here and there ..... sometimes I had to keep the thermostat on 75 to stay warm. Now, in my new house, we caulked EVERYTHING that was humanly possible, used cellulose insulation, and have a geothermal heating/cooling system....and the thermostat stays on 70 in the winter with no drafts. We could actually tolerate it cooler since most of the time we are sitting around with relatively lightweight clothes on ..... If we are planning on having a bunch of people over we actually have to reduce the thermostat or everyone will be too hot ! It has amazed me the difference in the way the "temperature" feels when the drafts are gone.

Genna

Found the lower temps at 57 on the thermostat... have not had any colds in 7 years...

Yes, and more insulation in the attic and a dry crawl space.

Alwasy combine errands when running the car!! LOL!

Now to convince neighbors to stop burning garbage and tires, we woudlall be better off.

Winter seems to have passed Texas by for the most part this year, which is troubling. I already have shrubs that are breaking bud - a full month or more ahead of their ususal bud-break time.

Our house is set to 14 degrees celcius most of the time. (about 55 degrees) and the thermostat is set to rise to 16 degrees (about 58 degrees) for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the late afternoon.

It sounds very cold, but while the dining room stays very cool, with both radiators on in the bedroom, the temperature rises to about 71 degrees.

I have hadit where the house was 45 inside...dont like it.. but the pipes did not freeze and I survived. Be nice to be able to LIVE and enjoy things a little.

During the day.. one space heater at my desk....sweatshirt, sweat pants and gloves on INSIDE whild doing my typing.

I like to keep the house cool around 68. Plus it saves money. At night, I just pile on more quilts or blankets to stay warm and cozy. Sometimes I splurge and have a heating pad on my feet.

I have a programmable thermostat set to 67 except for a warm-up to 74 just before I get up in the morning. The electric furnace doesn't turn on much otherwise as I have a pellet stove in my sun room that keeps my plants toasty and the house at a pretty comfortable temp. I use a portable elec. heater in the most bitter spells of winter weather as my office is about 60 feet from the pellet stove. With such dry heat, I have to use a 2 gal garden sprayer to mist my plants and boost the humidity in the sun room and the house. Even at $4 a bag, the pellet stove has dropped my elec bill by several hundred bucks a season.

We use a wood stove only, and get free logs from the National Forest for our firewood. This past October we were able to get seasoned logs that had been stacked in big piles to be burnt when the weather allowed. So to those of you who might complain about burning wood and smoking up the air, they were going to be burnt by the Government anyway. This way, our forests are thinned out so that the healthy trees can survive and we can still stay warm.

You can buy "hot socks" from Wal-Mart, they are called "Bed Buddies." We have used them for years. The home made one sound great too. I have found, that they will reflect your body heat also, and they stay warm longer once the bed is warm. I couldn't survive without them.

We don't use the propane heater unless we leave the cabin for a day or so. We set the thermostat at 45-50° for the orchids and the cat, when she's up here. 8^)

The furnace is set at 75F or 76F. I can't bear it colder than that, even with two shirts on. Yes, I'm wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and socks and shoes. At the temperatures that most of you discuss, I would be chilled to the bone and almost nonfunctional. Yes, I've heard of a thing called metabolism, but I've never seen it. We turn off the furnace when we go to bed. With a blanket and two comforters, I'm fine.

In the summer, the air conditioner is set at 76F. Then I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt and I feel fine. Why is 76F in the winter colder than 76F in the summer? There's got to be something more to warmth than just the temperature. It must be the draft thing that Genna talks about. We have double-glazed windows and 6 or 8 inches of insulation in the attic, but I don't think the walls are insulated. I don't know how it could be done on the first floor of a two-storey house, either, without tearing the house apart.

I am in a 100 year old house with gas space heaters. I use a space heater where I am. I don't heat the house. This year the space heater I use sprung a leak, so I had the gas turned off. I am using a quartz electric space heater.
Not really the best solution especially when it gets down in the 20s. Next year Ill do more winterizing and get back on Natural Gas.

Kelli, it is the dampness that makes it seem worse.

Here in Illinois it can be 20 below and that feels warmer than 32 above.

The cold DAMP is the kicker.

If you get on the weather channel, they now have maps that tell you the pain index for people like me who suffer with arthris or other ails...

Many people are also very sensative to changes in the barometric pressures. It can be a beautiful day, but if the pressures change.. OUCH.. often peoples ears pop. Its the decompression of one system to another. For me, if it falls below a certain point, then I feel like I am getting cruched.. IN a sense. that is what it is...the pressure system onto something or someone. Thats the best I can explain it in laymens terms.

My gripe in my area is that people burn GARBAGE.. I recyle 95% I do not have garbage pickup. And what gets me, people that do could do a better job of recycling. To haul my waste away, usually costs nothing but the gas now to get to the dump or the phone call to my peoples who recycle and they pick it up for free.

I am glad soeome is able to get the free wood sources. About time the government allowed that.

Kelli - insulating walls. Here a retrofit for old houses with plaster walls is to have cellulose blown in. The company makes a small hole in the exterior siding and blows in the material, then replug the hole.

But . . . making your house too tight is not a good idea either. Especially if you have carpets that are emitting formaldehyde gas.

I hate feeling cold so turn up the thermostat to 72 degrees during the day when I am home. Set it at 70 at night, and 68 when I'm at work.

The people that do the insulating can test the house for tightness. When ours was done that is what they did. They test it for drafts and cold spots

If you do the insulating yourself, you should hire someone to do the test anyway.

Lil' bro tried that in his ca 1903 house. Wouldn't fill. Turns out the sides were open all the way to the attic!! They had to re-think that one...

Yeah. There is supposed to be cross bracing that stops the fill.

We found out later from deeds that the local builder built that house. Best built place in Guthrie, OK. had to gut it to insulate though...

The problem is not usually that they are open all the way - but instead it is usually that there are "fire blocks" or pieces of stud crossways across the stud walls ever so often - usually not a SET distance apart in the old houses...... It was used to stablize the house and supposedly have prevent the spread of fire - which I doubt it EVER did ......but that is why we could not blow the outside walls of our old house. What we did do however when we remodeled and removed some windows was to take the sheetrock down completely on the exterior wall. Ended up we only needed about 4 sheets of sheetrock to completely replace the interior wall and it gave us the opportunity to thoroughly insulate a westward facing wall that had NO SHADE. That move alone dropped my summer cooling bills by almost 100 a mo - and that was YEARS ago! The sheetrock at the time cost me less than 20.00 and the insulation around 25 - 30. It was small in comparison to trying to do all the outside walls - but the savings outweighed the cost by hundreds of dollars. Prior to do that - those 2 rooms were so hot in the afternoon during the summers that you could barely go in there - after that - they were comfortable and the bills were MUCH less!!

I agree that it is not a good idea to try to make your home completely airtight unless you do not have any Carbon Monoxide being created in the home or formaldehyde from the carpets. We are all electric with no wood stove or fireplace and with no natural gas or propane................so no carbon monoxide. Also, no carpets..... so our goal was to make it 100% airtight - which of course is not possible, but we sure tried! At the price of my heating bills last winter, I was thankful that we had insulated as much as we had. This winter has not been as bad thank goodness.

There are a lot of small things you can do to help on airflow such as weather stripping on windows and doors, caulking around electrical sockets, etc. You can use a lighted candle and go around the windows, doors, light sockets, switches, etc and see where the airflow is coming from. There is a gentleman here in Arkansas who has a national radio program on saving energy and cutting utility costs named Doug Rye ( i think his website is DougRye.com) but he says the average home across the country has enough air leakage to equate to leaving a door standing open !! That is a LOT of cold air when the temp drops outside......

Most people (my parents included when they were living) couldn't afford to do all the improvements to their home at one time so we did them in stages over the years until we finally got it relatively energy efficient for an older home. With the new stimulus package there is supposed to be some money or tax incentives or something for increased insulation, etc.... maybe that will be a way that some people can help improve their homes........haven't read the specifics on it just read there was supposed to be some money available for that.

Genna

All electric is what I am here and I do not like that ...... but no choice in the matter at the present. I mean, the heat itself is kerosene but the heater does not function without electricity, so.

I used to know a gal who grew up in post WWII Germany, where the land had been stripped of fuel during the war and afterward...... so the people had to get real creative. She taught us how to cook beans in the bed! Heat them to boiling and then turn off the fire and run put the pot in the bed, covered of course, and pile every blanket you have on top to hold the heat in. By dinner time, beans are done.

I actually tried this one day and it worked great! But she also told about a family she knew of who managed to seal their house up so well t hey actually suffocated in there, having forgotten they would be using up all the breathable oxygen, or not knowing......

I read recently that in I believe it is Switzerland a ventilation system has been operational recently in some new dwellings that is actually air tight in a way -- somehow the air that comes in is channeled in such a way it warms -- there is no heating system and triple glazed special windows etc. I will see if I can find the link. The requisite systems are only avail in Switzerland tho due to some kind of international trade or patent system -- would be too expensive elsewhere, but they do hope to overcome that eventually.

In any case, the invention, the idea, is out there, possible, working in many new dwellings in that country, something that can be applied eventually for more and more people. It can be done. That's good news.

Kyla

The passively heated house you are describing is being used for many new houses in Germany. The house is well sealed and heated by the activities of the occupants. There is a ventilation system that warms the air and a backup heater that rarely seems to be needed. There was a discussion thread on that in the Sustainable Alternatives forum.

I was remembering that one too, but couldn't place it!!

gen2026. yes. that was what I was referring to the "fire blocks" to stop the air blown insulation.

We keep the thermostat at 68 degrees and it is programmed to go down to 65 degrees at night. I wear several layers of clothing and believe it or not, I wear thermal long underwear under my jeans all winter.

I even got a pair for Valentine's Day a year ago. Hey - They are blue and have flowers on them so I did get flowers for Valentine's Day - LOL

My DH wears a t-shirt and is never cold. Mind you, he mas much more padding on him than I do. The only time I decrease the layers of clothing is when I have my grandbaby here and he stays for a few days. I am perpetual motion with him since his is only 18 months old now. Busy, busy, busy. That is the only time I decrease my four layers down to two.

Pathetic aren't I?

I know that I shouldn't think that God makes mistakes but I truly believe that I should have been born in a warmer climate with a much longer growing season. I think I have, "The Grass is Always Greener" syndrome :(

Elaine and Otis