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When do you turn your heat on?


Square Wheels

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Generally, Nov-Dec it will kick on from the temp inside upstairs @ the thermostat dropping below 68o or whatever I set it at.  Usually 68 upstairs is closer to 65 downstairs, but the house faces south, so I get a ton of winter sunlight during the day.

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When the temp in my house goes below 65 or so.  Sometimes, I will use a space heater to warm up a room I am in or the bathroom when showering.  It saves if I can avoid heating the whole house until absolutely necessary.

Also, sweats and hoodies become my standard in-house apparel, which helps to keep the heat turned off.   :)

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The apartment has radiator heat, it came on about an hour ago.  Today will be chilly here with a high of 57 degrees, but I think the rest of the week will be mid 60's and low 70's until the weekend.

If I had heat that I was able to control, it would be on the minute I felt cold, because that is why you have a furnace in the first place.

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Maybe for a couple of nights a year.  We thought the heater died a few years back and didn’t even bother to replace it as we seldom use it.  There were a couple of nights we wished we had heat over that 2-3 year period.

We had all of our electrical plugs replaced earlier this year and viola heater works again! 

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When the house is below the typical thermostat setting (67) and is likely to stay there a couple days. We haven't used it yet but it's looking like we might turn it on tonight. Last year IIRC it was still September when we caved, so we're doing better this year. 

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We turned it on last week for a day. I like the house to be 73 during summer and 70 during winter. 
The person who installed our hvac said to not set the thermostat lower at night and during the day. We had been setting it to 60 from 9am to 3pm and from 10pm to 5am to save energy. He said the furnace works harder to bring the temperature back than if we’d just leave it the same all day. 
What do you think? Do you vary your thermostat or leave it continually the same? 

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I think I have had it on 3 times so far.  Only to warm it up to about 68 in the morning.  This morning was one of those times.  I woke up and the house was 61.  I turned it on and took Rudy for a walk.  When we got I turned it off for the rest of the day.  I don't know the forecast but I assume it's going to continue to cool off.

Yesterday was the first frost I've seen.  It was on the neighbor's house.  It ground was too warn for frost.

 

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4 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

What do you think? Do you vary your thermostat or leave it continually the same? 

I agree with your installer.  Making it run hard to raise the temp back up every day isn't good for anything.  If it was me and I wanted to save some energy, I would just lower the temp a degree at a time and see just how cool is too cool.  70 seems too warm to me.  That's what clothes are for.  :)

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40 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

We thought the heater died a few years back and didn’t even bother to replace it as we seldom use it.  There were a couple of nights we wished we had heat over that 2-3 year period.

You and all the other antifurnacites are what is wrong with southern CA, this makes no sense. 

When I was in San Diego, I lived in three places, and the heat didn't work in any of them.  For those that don't know, it can get below 40 degrees at night in the winter at times, so it is butt cold.  Anything below 50 is cold to me, heat is necessary.  I was cold more there than even San Francisco when I lived there.  The high temperature while I lived in SF was 73 degrees, I was cold there a lot, too.  

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4 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I was cold more there than even San Francisco when I lived there.  The high temperature while I lived in SF was 73 degrees, I was cold there a lot, too.  

"The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I lived in San Francisco."  I don't know who I'm quoting.

 

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5 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

You and all the other antifurnacites are what is wrong with southern CA, this makes no sense. 

When I was in San Diego, I lived in three places, and the heat didn't work in any of them.  For those that don't know, it can get below 40 degrees at night in the winter at times, so it is butt cold.  Anything below 50 is cold to me, heat is necessary.  I was cold more there than even San Francisco when I lived there.  The high temperature while I lived in SF was 73 degrees, I was cold there a lot, too.  

Not sure where in SD you lived but coastal areas are damp and feel colder than the temp might suggest.  San Fran is notorious for that cold damp air. 

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4 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

When I was in San Diego, I lived in three places, and the heat didn't work in any of them. 

I used to work for the Navy and on one job, I was required to spend 4 nights in the officer's quarters (BOQ) in San Diego.  I wasn't prepared.  Just underwear to sleep in.  I called to ask for some heat, but they wouldn't turn it on before a certain date, so I was screwed.  Showering in a really cold room sucks.  After that experience, I stayed at hotels during all my subsequent San Diego trips.  :D  

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45 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

We turned it on last week for a day. I like the house to be 73 during summer and 70 during winter. 
The person who installed our hvac said to not set the thermostat lower at night and during the day. We had been setting it to 60 from 9am to 3pm and from 10pm to 5am to save energy. He said the furnace works harder to bring the temperature back than if we’d just leave it the same all day. 
What do you think? Do you vary your thermostat or leave it continually the same? 

We leave it set to a given temperature, but it is the old dial style.

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18 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

I used to work for the Navy and on one job, I was required to spend 4 nights in the officer's quarters (BOQ) in San Diego.  I wasn't prepared.  Just underwear to sleep in.  I called to ask for some heat, but they wouldn't turn it on before a certain date, so I was screwed.  Showering in a really cold room sucks.  After that experience, I stayed at hotels during all my subsequent San Diego trips.  :D  

Some years back I had a client who had hubs in LAX, OC and San Diego’s Lindbergh Field.  Lindbergh had more fog delays than the other two airports combined.  

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26 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

Not sure where in SD you lived but coastal areas are damp and feel colder than the temp might suggest.  San Fran is notorious for that cold damp air. 

Mira Mesa the first year, so not on the coast at all.  Cardiff the second, and about 3 1/2 miles inland in Carlsbad for the last two years there.  Cold in the winter in all three locations, because cold is cold.

People who think SC is somehow Hawaii-like and warm all the time are screwed in the head, definitely not my idea of ideal or even "California weather" unless you are at least 10 miles or more inland and then definitely not in the winter.   Sure, it is great 4 months of the year, but so is Phoenix.  I would be better prepared if I had to live there again, so I wouldn't have exaggerated expectations.  I would expect to be cold and covered in clouds much of the day, except for the middle 5 hours of the day.

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BTW, your heater doesn't run hard to bring the temp back up, it runs the same as it always runs.  Setback thermostats really do save a tin of fuel, and actually extend the life of your furnace as it runes fewer hours per day.

I don't get the whole "when do you turn on your heat" thing.  If 68 degrees is comfortable in February, why not in October?  My thermostat is set year round, it comes on when it hits it's set points.

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2 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Mira Mesa the first year, so not on the coast at all.  Cardiff the second, and about 3 1/2 miles inland in Carlsbad for the last two years there.  Cold in the winter in all three locations, because cold is cold.

People who think SC is somehow Hawaii-like and warm all the time are screwed in the head, definitely not my idea of ideal or even "California weather" unless you are at least 10 miles or more inland and then definitely not in the winter.   Sure, it is great 4 months of the year, but so is Phoenix

Hmm yeah your take on our weather is a bit different from most including my own.  I live about 5 miles from the ocean and our temps are generally really mild.  It rarely dips below 50’s and rarely is above 90 degrees. But we do get a cool damp air that feels colder especially in the early summer. 

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1 minute ago, ChrisL said:

Hmm yeah your take on our weather is a bit different from most including my own.  I live about 5 miles from the ocean and our temps are generally really mild.  It rarely dips below 50’s and rarely is above 90 degrees. But we do get a cool damp air that feels colder especially in the early summer. 

I don't know, I don't like the cold, so I feel it.  Some people just don't notice the cold. 

Where are you again?  I know the weather pattern is different in LA, and in southern San Diego (south and a little west of the city) it is way warmer.  

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My thermostat will usually be set to "Heat" somewhere in the first half of November, to "Off" in April or early May, "Cool" by late May or early June, "Off" by mid-September.

There may be brief parts of a day when I use the furnace or central air to adjust the temperature when an unusually hot or cold night/day occurs. For five days in late September-October, I've turned the furnace on for brief periods in the mornings to take the chill off, although the first two of them were just to test the new furnace.

I feel comfortable with the house living-room thermostat set around 78° in the summer (when air conditioning is used) and, as I get acclimated, around 73° in the Winter.

Turning on the furnace or central air depend on when I can't come close to the desired house temperatures without them by opening/closing windows, maximizing/minimizing sun through the windows and storm doors, turning on ceiling fans or throwing a light blanket over me while watching TV.

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30 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I don't know, I don't like the cold, so I feel it.  Some people just don't notice the cold. 

Where are you again?  I know the weather pattern is different in LA, and in southern San Diego (south and a little west of the city) it is way warmer.  

Right smack in the middle. I’m in central coastal Orange County. 

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49 minutes ago, 12string said:

My thermostat is set year round, it comes on when it hits it's set points.

My thermostat has “heat”, “cold” and “off” settings. I let it get colder in the fall/winter than I air condition the house to, our bedroom is always the warmest.

We have an alcohol fireplace in the basement when we watch TV there in the winter, and a gas fireplace on the main level in the family room.

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My thermostat is set at a temp so it just comes on when it gets below that temperature. It's an old fashioned dial thermostat with no "smart" features.   Where I have my desk tends to be the "cold" part of the house, so I'll often have a small extra heater going there before the heat kicks on everywhere.

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I just switched it on today because the missus was complaining it was cold in here. 

Our old clunker of a furnace is about due for replacement. Numerous times last winter, it would not start on its own, and I had to coax it to go by holding a bbq lighter to the thermocouple. I had to do that today to get it to go the first time, but it has cycled on a few times on its own since.

Last year, I had a service guy come to hopefully fix the problem, but it still would not self start reliably.

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5 hours ago, MoseySusan said:

What do you think? Do you vary your thermostat or leave it continually the same? 

I just leave it at 63 all the time in the winter.

So far the furnaces are off.  Last night it got down to 61 inside on the second floor.  When it gets down to 59 then the heat gets turned on.

Today, I covered the outside A/C units and opened the breakers for the A/C.  I also changed the furnace filters. 

Right now the windows are open, it's 66 outside and that will warm the house a bit. 

I'll guess in several days the heat may get turned on.  

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