Coziness
What temperature do you keep your home? We keep ours around 70 in the winter. I was promised that once we fixed the windows, I would feel an immediate change; that the 70 degrees on the thermostat would really be 70 degrees as opposed to beforehand with our cruddy windows. I have not felt said change. The house feels exactly as it did before.
I like the house very warm. I once lived in an apartment in Wisconsin where we couldn’t control the heat. We had these old metal radiators. Regardless of whether we wanted them on or not, they clanged alive, filling the apartment with hot air. We wore t-shirts in the middle of winter. I hated that apartment when I lived in it — the floor was so bowed and uneven that you could put a marble down and it would roll around the room — but I miss the heat that I didn’t pay for, that came out strong and hot, as if it were mimicking the sun.
The problem also is that my home is my office, which means that I’m always cold. I could put another sweater on, and I usually do, but that doesn’t change the fact that my fingers are cold. The tips of my fingers are freezing right now. I decided I would poll all of you to see where our house temperature falls with the general public. Are we keeping it too cold? Are we (I highly doubt this) on the high end of the house temperature spectrum? Or are we somewhere in the middle; in which I have to ask: do you think your home is cold too?
What temperature do you keep your home?
71 comments
Before having kids, we lived in a small apartment with wall-to-wall carpet, and kept the temperature at around 68. Now, we live in a big house with tile and wood floors, and have 2.5-year-old twins, and I keep the thermostat around 71. It’s not the same heater or thermostat, obviously, so I don’t know if they’re calibrated exactly the same, but I suspect the flooring makes a big difference. I also like to be warm, so 68 just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore.
70! That is freezing cold to me. It is 75 in our house, and I still wear a Snuggie and fingerless mitts at my desk. My feet and hands are generally ice cubes. I do have arthritis, and tried a “Freeze Your Buns Off Challenge” last winter and it was a fail. Too painful.
I like it when it’s about 77-78.
68 degrees. I live in cold upstate NY, but my house is 2,500 sq feet and expensive to heat, so I would rather be cold than poor. 🙂
I think we keep ours on the low end of the spectrum. Ours is set at 63 during the day and 65 at night. I do tend to bundle us all up during the day, though, and we always sleep under down comforters. It’s an old farmhouse, and it would be prohibitively expensive to keep the heat up in the 70s! We’re all used to it, and rather like sleeping in a cold room. We have a woodstove in the library that we like to cuddle up with at night when we’re reading. Much warmer in there when the stove’s burning.
But my sister-in-law still won’t visit in the wintertime…
We like the cold! We keep our apartment around 65-68. We prefer the bedroom to be around 65–the cold helps us sleep better. I don’t like to be too warm, and more than that, I hate a stuffy house, so even in the winter, we have at least one window open for part of the day, every day.
68 in the day, 66 at night (used to be 58 – which in practice was the easiest way to keep the heat from coming on – but now we have an infant…)
We live in Northern California.
Personally I am happiest when it’s exactly 71 in the winter. In the summer I like it at 70. And I work from home too so I understand. 🙂
70 most of the time. I’ll lower it a degree or two if we’re going to be out of the house for awhile. I’d like it a bit warmer but its too expensive so we bundle up. It is cold when I’m working, something about typing makes me fingers freeze up
I keep mine at 71 or 72… but I swear it feels more like 68 or 69 throughout the house…
We live in Minnesota and keep our house at 62- except from 3pm to 10pm when we heat it to 66. My husband always says, “Blankets are paid for, heat is not.”
On most winter days, we keep the thermostat set at 68. On days when I’m tired or cold, I’ll bump it up to 70.
If it were up to me? A nice 66. My husband? Cranks it to 70. I feel like I’m melting in that heat. It’s a constant battle, he turns it up, I turn it down. To be honest, ever since I had my children I’m always hot. It’s like my core temperature is now set to hot.
At night, I turn that beast down to 63. I like to snuggle up in my covers.
I love Liddy’s comment above!
Our house is a giant, antique, oil sucking beast. We have a digital thermostat in the kitchen and the central hallway that are set at 64 during the day and 62 at night. But, we have steam radiators which actually make for a nice quiet and fairly steady heat. We also have fireplaces and woodstoves, so if we want to feel cozier we start a fire. On very cold days I can almost hear the oil being sucked into the furnace/boiler. I always wear slippers and sweaters and our living room has three cozy throws for snuggling in. I have the computer on a desk right over one of the radiators, so my fingers stay toasty.
We bought a programmable thermostat a few years ago… that we’ve never learned to program. :p ; ) We keep the temperature at a steady 70F in the winter, around 73F in the summer. It sometimes feels a bit cold, depending on the weather outside, but it’s liveable.
I would melt at 70! 62 at night, 58 when we are not home, and 67 during awake at home hours.
What you need is a space heater for those times when it’s cold where you’re working – no need to heat the whole house, just the space you’re in. A nice safe ceramic/electric one…
We keep our house at arctic (64 – 65). It’s funny because when I lived in my condo and left the heat at 65 (60 at night), my (not yet) husband complained that it was too cold. Now that he’s in charge of paying the bill (not really), we have to have it cold during the winter. I am always cold, but I hate having hot air blowing on me. It dries out my contacts and my nose. If we had radiators, I would probably crank it up a little more. Or sit on the radiators – I used to love to do that growing up. On the plus side, we keep the a/c at about 77 during the summer, so that’s nice and comfortable for me – I don’t get too cold. You can usually find me wearing a giant fleece shirt and warm slippers in winter – and my mouse hand will likely be icy cold.
At work, however, we have a heat pump system that sometimes doesn’t work at all, a building from the 1800s with no insulation, and leaky windows. So, when it’s breezy outside, we can sort of feel it inside too. In our office (on the corner of the building with lots of windows), we all have space heaters so our feet don’t freeze off. That was good last year (or the year before – can’t remember, they all run together), because we didn’t have any heat at all for several days. I think it was down in the 50s in most of the building.
Our house is old and drafty and heated by unicorn tears, so we keep it at 63. But if I’m working from home and it’s windy or damp. I crank it up until I’m comfortable – 67 or 68.
we are 62 at night and during the work day (when we are all out). when home and awake, 67. our kitchen is the only room without a radiator, and it is often between 62 and 65, which is not ideal. our floors are hardwood with some rugs, tile in the bathrooms, and our doors (but only a few windows) are drafty.
21 degrees Celsius, which converts to 69.8 Fahrenheit, so yeah, about the same as you. I also work from home and am wearing an extra thick sweater as I type! However my feet are colder than my fingers, but that’s mainly due to the cold tiled floor (we’re living in a ground floor apartment so the garages are underneath… I hate the cold tiles in winter, love them in summer). Bedroom is colder and as good Dutchies we sleep with the window open (and the thermostat set at 62 degrees, so basically no heating at night), although are kids are raised as real Frenchies and sleep with the window closed (but that’s mainly because our eldest is afraid of all kinds of noises).
We have a heat pump (electric heat) and I hate it! The air that blows out always feels cold to me! That said, we keep the thermostat at 70 during the day, and 65-66 at night, or when we are gone. We also keep the vent in our bedroom closed in the winter, so it stays nice and cold in there. We have an electric heater we use in the living room on really cold days, or to take the chill off.
I work from home and we have gas heat. We used to keep the house at a constant 72 nearly year-round, but in the last year, we’ve decided to adjust it to where we are comfortable and see what it does to the bill. Amazingly, our bill hasn’t gone up that much so we now keep the house around 74 (turn it down to 72 at night). I’m much more comfortable and since I can claim the utilities on my home office taxes, it makes sense to be happy than to freeze.
68 in the winter 78 in the summer…. We live in the desert so we have some extremes! Most people think our numbers should be switched, but we just can’t afford that!
We have a digital thermostat. In the winter, when we are home its set at 71/72. At night it goes to 70. We have an addition room that is poorly heated so we keep a ceramic heater in there, again only on when we are home. It does a pretty good job of warming the space – you can set the desired temp and it cycles just like a normal heater – just more direct and cozy. You could do that in your office area……
In the summer its still at about 72/73 – due to my allergies, the air runs from spring to late fall.
When we are not home, my husband sets the thermostat to not run much during the day so in the winter it can get to 58 and in the summer 82 before it kicks in. By the time we get home from work its usually close to the desired temp.
During the winter, it’s at 68 during the day and 64 at night (used to be lower, but then baby started waking up because she was cold). During the summer, it’s about 10 degrees warmer (78 during the day, 74 at night). If we’re going to be out of the house, the temperature gets turned more towards lower in the winter and higher in the summer. I’m always cold in the winter, but at least that can be fixed with extra layers. My husband gets really warm during the summer, which is harder to fix.
I would love to keep my house between 68 and 70, that is the optimal temperature for me. But my husband thinks that is COLD. So we usually go a little warmer, and I sweat a lot.
55 during the night (we use electric blankets) and 63 during the day. Since I’m paying the bill, I frequently turn it up to 66. If I have to wear more than one jacket in the house, the heat gets turned up.
We don’t have AC so it’s usually 10 degrees cooler than the outside in the summer. Hubs does a good job of opening and closing windows at critical times.
We keep ours around 66-68—I’d prefer it cooler at night but the boys’ room is really drafty and cold. We only have 1 HVAC for 3 stories, and as heat rises, it is ALWAYS boiling hot in our bedroom such that we needed a window AC unit in addition to the central AC to keep us (OK, me) comfortable in July/August while not freezing my kids. Similarly in the winter, for it to be comfortable on the 1st & 2nd floor, it is hot enough to sleep in a T-shirt & thin sheet at night upstairs.
I had that problem with the uncontrolled heat in my college dorm and I HATED IT. I HATE being hot, I’d much rather be cold. I even had a roommate in an apt once that liked hanging out in her underwear (or similar skimpy-ass clothes) and would crank the heat up to the 80s. She was paying half the electricity but STILL.
Generally 68 during the day, 66 at night. The downstairs of our house, where the thermostat is, probably is actually 68. Upstairs is warmer.
Oh man 70 is definitely too hot. The dogs would be panting up a storm in that heat!! We have old drafty windows in our house which will hopefully be replaced this year…..until then the house is a 66 during the day (when we are home) and 58 at night. In CT when we insulated and had better windows we used to keep the house at 62 or 64…..
70 during the day and 65 at night — both of which I find to be a little colder than I’d prefer. I would be happy and comfortable at 75, but our house is expensive to heat, so I sacrifice and am ALWAYS in a sweatshirt (or two!) when at home.
Between 73/74 in winter.
We live outside of Chicago…and my thermostat is set at a constant 69 degrees in winter. However, I have a portable thermostat upstairs and it’s reading 72 in my office right now, which baffles me because it’s 20 degrees outside.
Summer time it’s set to 78.
We keep it around 69 and this is only for two reasons:
1. The gas bill (the husband is nearing crotchety old man status on this)
2. However, I think my husband might actually be a hot-flashing menopausal older woman instead. He likes it colder.
Otherwise, I enjoy living in a sauna. 75 would be excellent for me. I always wear a sweatshirt during the winter with fur-lined slippers inside while the kid and husband are nearly naked. We belong in different climates. Looking forward to summer.
We keep ours at 68 during wake times and 67 for sleep.
We have an oil heater in the baby’s room so that it is warm when we go in for diaper changes, etc. Can’t recommend an oil space heater enough for areas you’d like to keep warmer than the rest of the house. Ours is by DeLonghi.
I’m in Ohio, and our house is over 100 years old with original windows… it’s drafty and freezing all the time! I turn the heat down to 68 at night, and up to 72-74 during the day. It feels a lot colder than that though because of how the house is built though… a lot colder. I still walk around in pants, socks, and a thick sweater most of the time. We have an oil heater in the bed rooms we run at night because they don’t have heating vents (I did mention this house is over 100 years old? So. outdated.)
I’m in Canada so I did some nifty calculations from celsius to fahrenheit…I keep my house at 72 degrees & 68 overnight…here at work we are at a whopping 74 degrees!! But I am always cold so I can’t even imagine living in your 70 degrees! My fingertips are cold now here at work in 74 degrees!
Our downstairs is supposed to be between 68-70, but I still find it chilly. Upstairs is warmer and I like that!
This is our first winter in this new place, so we are slowly figuring out how and what we need to do to keep it warm. Next winter we’ll have more wood, so we’ll have more fires in the stove. 🙂
I like being warm, especially since my toes and fingers are generally cold. I’m miserable if I can’t get my extremities warm. Especially if I need to go to sleep. I can NOT fall asleep if my toes are cold!
In the winter, around 71 degrees during the daytime — I work from home — and 68 at night, which DH thinks is too cold. I’d rather be cold than hot at night. In the summertime, around the same. Old brick house with noninsulated walls, old hardwood floors, drafty windows that are hard to open, and two small girls with an aversion to wearing shoes or sometimes any clothes at all. I’ve yet to read a personal finance article that explained how to tell a toddler to throw on another sweater and suck it up.
We use space heaters in some rooms, I wear scarves, and we close doors, blinds, and curtains at night.
18.5 daytime, so 65F. Which is COLD. Unfortunately, we have windows that are ancient and not insulated. Try to keep it any warmer and the expense would be unbearable. It’s a nice apartment otherwise, though, so I try not to complain. I do wear a fleece hat when I am really chilly and fingerless gloves. I will say, it’s a lovely, cool place in the summer 🙂
I also have really cold fingers. I wrap myself in several blankets when I’m at home and not required to be moving much … one of my college friends nicknamed me ObiWan Burrito when they saw me do this one day.
I hate summer, but at least I’m not shivering all the time, even when the heat is set at 68.
And that bullshit about hats making you warmer? Yeah. Bullshit.
In the winter, we keep ours at 65 for the day, and 63 for the night. However, we have a south facing house so the room I spend the most time in actually warms up more than that on sunny days. In the summer we keep it set at 75 or so.
I live in the Bay Area, in California, so I’m used to it being warmer now. I grew up in New England and my parents turn off the heat at night and don’t go about 60 during the day. They are hardcore.
As for me, in the winter we go up to 65, sometimes 70 if the wet-cold is too pervasive.
We keep the house at 67 in the winter. However, my office (above the garage) and the family room (cathedral ceiling) stay cold and I routinely use a space heater and the fireplace when I use these rooms, respectively. Even with keeping the house at 67, R and I sleep with the ceiling fan on in our room!
Haha, this is fascinating. Our thermostat is set to 64 during the day, drops to 52 at night when we are sleeping (it rarely really gets that low). Obviously (?) we sleep in warmly blanketed beds. The spring DS was born I cranked it up to 68 (day/night ’round, what with diaper changes and nursing), but after that we went back to the above.
We have, and use, a woodstove that keeps the area proximate to it much warmer when it’s operational, but we’ve just burned the last of the firewood and are debating the merits of getting more with spring not far off.
68 degrees. Because my cheapness exceeds my desire for comfort.
I live in northeast Florida, so it doesn’t get that cold, or cold for very long, but it can be chilly. Yesterday the low was 28 and the high was 60. And today it’s a hot 78 degrees. We live in an 1950s block house – like a small (1100 sqft) ranch-style house. My husband and I have very different ideas of acceptable home temperatures. During the winter, I turn it to 64 when we’re not at home, and then 68 when we are at home. My husband would prefer 70, and I would prefer 65, so this is our compromise. (I’d rather bundle up than turn on the heat, but he’s a native Floridian and likes to be hot.) Both of us used to fiddle with the thermostat when the other wasn’t looking, but it’s harder to do that now, because we have a new dog, who has a bizarre, neurotic fear of the heat coming out of the vents, and he freaks out every time the heat clicks on. We can’t figure out why he’s afraid of “the heater monster” but its the saddest thing ever – he shakes in fear and sometimes hides in the closet. It does work out well for me though, because it keeps my husband from inching the temp up and unleashing the heater monster. (My discomfort couldn’t keep him away from the thermostat, but the dog’s fear can! The dog is pretty adorable though.)
During the rest of the year, the thermostat is 78 when we’re not home, and 72 if we are, or sometimes 70 at night. I don’t sleep well when I’m hot. (The dog doesn’t seem to mind the AC as much, but he is suspicious of it. If anyone has advice on how to deal with this nuerotic dog, I’m all ears.)
We keep ours at 19 C which is about 66F. Maybe this is because in the UK heating a house is expensive plus we mostly have old draughty houses that leak out the expensive heat. Also we are told that babies should have rooms no hotter than 18c and the habit sticks. There has also been a pretty big campaign for everyone to turn down the thermostat a notch for environmental reasons as well.
I’m in Canada, so I’ve used Google to do the calculations. We have a programmable thermostat with a remote sensor. We keep the remote upstairs, and during the day it heats to 18/18.5 (so 64-65). That means the downstairs is probably another full degree warmer. At night we drop it to just under 60 (15 Celcius), but we have a heater in E.’s room that keeps it at 62.5, as any colder and he starts waking up. Our house is 90+ years old, and leaks air like there is no tomorrow, so I am too cheap to put it up. We are used to it, although Q. feels his study in the basement is too cold to really use in the winter, and I do like a blanket in the evenings when reading. (Before E. was born we had a thermostat in the kitchen that wasn’t programmable, and I thought we were keeping the same heat settings, but it turns out it was wildly inaccurate and we were putting the house down to 53.6 at night!) In the summer we set the daytime temp for 82.5 (28 Celcius) and drop it to 79.7 (26.5) at night to make sure we can all sleep.
We keep it at 68 when we’re awake, 66 at night (during the winter). During the summer, we’re more like 75 while awake, and 72 at night. I’m so cheap and don’t want to pay the eletric bill when we vary it from those temps!
I don’t keep it a set temperature. Its impossible. I try and heat the rooms we are using in winter (usually just the living room and the bedroom) using a heatpump (18-20 degrees) and portable oil heater (timer for mornings and evening, heater on full blast). The flat is L shaped and the portion we spend most of the time in is not insulated (yay! NZ housing! Pommiewhinge alert), but the other half of the flat has other flats above it – insulated by proxy. So, hard to control temperature when heat is disappearing through the roof and walls only marginally slower than the rate it takes to heat! If and when this baby comes, it will be winter, so I may reconfigure our heating set up, and possibly even move bedrooms if our current is too cold.
Bathroom is INSANELY cold, but encourages us not to spend much time in there. Kitchen can be warmed with cooking. Woolly tops/fleeces and scarves/gloves/hat are a norm for me in winter, to the point where I feel undressed without them on!
Right now, its like an oven in here, of course. I much prefer this. Windows and doors open, air circulating, and ambient warmth. yeahhh!