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Post by daylilydude on Jan 2, 2018 6:15:46 GMT -5
As most of us are in really cold conditions, and if you aren't consider yourself lucky! Now today's question is how warm do you keep your house/home in the winter, and how do you heat it?
We have 2 propane 4 brick heaters and we try and keep it at about the same temp as we try and keep it in summer... about 72F is good for us, but now with these really low temps we have had we have had to run 2 small electric heaters in our bathrooms so the pipes don't freeze... may not really need them but.... better safe than sorry I say! How about you?
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Post by brownrexx on Jan 2, 2018 7:35:13 GMT -5
We have central hot air heat and it uses propane which is pretty reasonable as a fuel source. We set the thermostat to 67 degrees at night and 68 degrees during the day.
We have a gas fireplace in the living room so we use that to make the living room toasty warm in the evenings.
We also have small electric heaters in the bathrooms for when we take showers. I like the bathroom to be about 75 degrees then!
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Post by tomike on Jan 2, 2018 8:25:40 GMT -5
Up here where it gets very cold at times, we need to be well equipped. The main heat source is a 75,000 BTU natural gas forced air furnace. Secondary source consists of electric baseboard heaters in the finished basement. We also have a radiant heat gas fireplace (20,000 BTU) in case of a power outage because the furnace needs electricity to power the ventilation system. The temperature is thermostat controlled at 68°F (daytime) and 63°F (night).
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Post by spike on Jan 2, 2018 9:44:47 GMT -5
We used to have an old oil furnace. Ding dangity was that expensive. It was so old and horrible that you went to bed at night praying it didn't kill you in your sleep. Had it pulled out and got baseboard heaters. Love them except each room has its own thermostat. So annoying. But we carry around an outside thermometer and keep the rooms set at 70° The baseboard heater in the bedroom is broken so we have an Eden Pure plugged in and set at 60° and have yet to see it turn on. lol and yes it works. LOL besides we have 3 furry space heaters that are more than happy to cuddle for warmth!
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Post by september on Jan 2, 2018 10:29:24 GMT -5
Our house was built in the early '70's (not by us) with forced air electric, separate heating elements for the upstairs and downstairs duct work. House was not well insulated at all, so heating costs for this cold part of the country were outrageous. We have gone through having wood stoves upstairs and down vented through inefficient fireplaces and a wood furnace in the garage/furnace room. We have about 16 acres of woods, so fuel is not a problem. However, we are normally down south for the month of January, so had to have reliable heat to keep the house from freezing up while we are away.
Currently we have an combo furnace where electric is our primary heat, but is rippled in cold weather (how many of you have rippled electric appliances?) so it switches to propane when the electric furnace ripples off. However, long ago, we went to an outdoor wood burning furnace that circulates hot water back into the existing furnace manifold for heat, so as long as we are home and can burn wood, we don't need to use the electric or propane. We do have a propane Ben Franklin type gas fireplace in the rec room in the basement for spot warmth if someone wants to be down there.
We usually have the wood heat set around 70F during the day, lower it a few degrees at night for sleeping. If we have to use the electric/propane, we keep it around 68F most of the time.
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Post by paulf on Jan 2, 2018 10:48:50 GMT -5
Propane forced air central heating with auxiliary small electric heaters in bedrooms for guests since the bedrooms are cooler than the rest of the house. Thermostat set at 68 day and 66 at night. Our house was built in 1874 so there are lots of places the air comes through. We work hard to fix all that but it is an ongoing endeavor. New windows and wall insulation next.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Jan 2, 2018 10:52:18 GMT -5
Just got the new boiler put in last week, to replace the 27 year old one, to power my radiator heat. The old one was 125,000 btu/hr, which the guy said seemed oversized, but I'm not sure if this one is smaller; I went down to look at it for the first time yesterday, but didn't look that closely - I was more concerned with getting food from down there!
I keep my house at 67°, lowered to 62° while at work and sleeping. I also have 8 pilot lights on my range, which keep my kitchen about 2° warmer than the rest of the house! lol I turn most of those off in the summer - no kids around here, so no safety issues.
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Post by ladymarmalade on Jan 2, 2018 11:00:03 GMT -5
We have a radiant baseboard system. Every room in the house has a chunk of baseboard radiator in it to provide heat. I didn't think I was going to be crazy about it when we moved in. I was used to forced air, though growing up we heated a large old house with two wood burning stoves. I was cold All The Time. When we would have periods of time with lots of sub-zeros (like these last ten days) we would literally shut up the upper level of the house. My siblings and I would camp out in one of the rooms that had a woodstove in it.
The radiant heat has been a surprise to me. My only experience with it had been in an apartment setting with a really inefficient system- that place was always cold and the radiators got SO hot you couldn't put furniture in front of them. Here we have a really good boiler and it does a good job keeping the house warm. The only thing I would love to change would be to add a line and run radiant heat IN the kitchen floor. Oh my gosh, that would be SO cozy and wonderful to walk on!
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Post by paquebot on Jan 2, 2018 12:27:34 GMT -5
House originally heated with coal. Then converted to oil. Now natural gas an thermostat set at 65º. Definitely do not miss the fuel oil smell!
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Ö®≡Gö∩RΣÐ
Junior Member
Posts: 23
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Post by Ö®≡Gö∩RΣÐ on Jan 2, 2018 12:57:41 GMT -5
I live entirely differently than all of you... in an apartment, 25 yrs new, bottom floor of a 3 story, 1200 sq. ft, the bldg. is 1/2 underground on the bottom floor, so the temp stays more steady.
the heater they provide is electric wall heater in ea room, and a gas fireplace - the air circulator feature doesn't work, so I stopped using it.
I choose to go conservative, and wear double and triple layers inside the house. The thermostat is super inaccurate, and will swing from cold to hot, not much of a thermostat. I keep a thermometer on the end table for accurate temp reading. I keep it at around 64 to 66. I close up all rooms except the living area, and don't heat those rooms (yes, the massage office gets heated with the wall heater in there at least an hour before appointment time). I use a cheap space heater at my feet, and hand knit lap blanket as needed. I don't heat the house at all at night. it got to 57 in here when the weather was in the high twenties overnight for a few days in a row.
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Post by Gianna on Jan 2, 2018 17:37:23 GMT -5
I'd say about half the winters I don't fire up the heater (natural gas, forced air). It can get cool inside the house, but three of the main rooms have ample, large south-facing windows which let the sun in, especially when the sun is low in the sky. Passive solar heating, and the rooms can get nice and warm. The rest of the house however can be quite cool. At night that is ok. I just add more bedding. Just recently I purchased an electric bed pad, which has great promise.
If just 'cool' in the house, I'll add more layers of clothing, and warm ugg-type boots.
When the heater is turned on, the thermostat is in a cold hallway, so the heater is manually turned on/off on a personal comfort basis. And about half the rooms have the vents closed so as to not be wasteful.
In my part of the world, there are times when it can be uncomfortably cool/cold, but unless one is homeless, no one is going to freeze to death.
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Post by spacecase0 on Jan 2, 2018 22:24:47 GMT -5
last winter I did not run heat at all 34F was the low in my kitchen for the winter this winter I have 200 gallons of LPG to use but I can't replace it for next year, it has to last me about 3 years so far I am using 20 gallons a month.. when used for only cooking, 5 gallons lasts me 4 to 5 months
I have no hope of affording electric heat the rates here is almost 40 cents a KWH
thinking about painting the top of my building black, not that it would help me deal with my very hot summers guess I just have to keep in mind that it never gets that hot here, the limit here is about 115F, and when visiting arazona, it was 3AM and 115F, and that sounds like heaven to me at the moment it is 63F inside at the moment (and I am cold, but it is warmer than the last fee weeks), I am happy if I wake up to 60F (never happens in the winter) and waking up to 40 something is way more common in the winter
so many people tell me that there is only so much clothing you can take off, so they prefer the cold. I can dress in s many layers as I can find, you just can't add enough clothing to stay warm, at least if you don't have to many extra calories try growing all your own calories AND your own heat it is a trade off at some point and I am loosing at the moment I chose where I live for a very good reason, look up your weather in an ice age... chose some place that is livable either way, I can't tell you how many people i talk to that assume things about an ice age, but never thought to look what tropical weather does... so my suggestion is to go look at the local weather you have with various solar output with no assumptions
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Post by mgulfcoastguy on Jan 3, 2018 11:37:56 GMT -5
I had a dinasaur of an electric central unit when I bought the house. 4 years ago the heater portion died so I used electric radiant space heaters for 3 winters. Then November of 2016 I had a Trade 17 seer two stage heat pump installed. It does a much better job at a much lower cost than the previous methods. I keep it on 68 in the winter and 74 in the summer. I still have the radiant heaters as backup .
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Jan 3, 2018 12:04:28 GMT -5
HOuse is from the 1930's. It had the bare minimum of insulation when we bought it. It wasn't long before we had new windows installed and beefed up the insulation. We have an 8 year old medium efficiency natural gas furnace that was installed just prior to us buying the place . Keep it at 65F at night. Since husband took sick 4 years ago, he doesn't tolerate cold at all, so now up to 69F during the day. This morning, he had it at 70F. I had to take off my sweater, I thought I would throw up I was too hot.
The temp today isn't too bad. It's 22F for a high and 7F tonight, but the wind is brutal and we can feel the effects. Only one more night of -25F coming up on Friday then it is to warm up in the foreseeable future.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Jan 3, 2018 21:35:44 GMT -5
We live in a motorhome. Winters can get interesting. Life in general is interesting when you live in an RV. When we downsized, we took our electric insert out of our fireplace and installed it in our RV. Our motorhome is 34' and as long as temps stay above 25 degrees it does a nice job of keeping us warm. As a back up and when temps drop below 25, we use the gas furnace as backup. This setup allows us to remain quite comfortable. The boyscout in me always try to have an alternative plan of action. I hate to have all of my eggs in one basket so to speak. I've been thinking of buying a Mr. Buddy heater with the small cylinders as an alternate backup in case we are out in the boonies and run out of propane in our rig or experience furnace failure. I believe they make the Buddy heaters that are safe for indoors these days. We have co2 monitors, but you can never be "too" safe as far as I'm concerned.
We try to keep night time temps around 67.
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Post by bestofour on Jan 3, 2018 21:45:51 GMT -5
Our house was built in 1929 and when we moved in we had oil heat which I loved because it warmed up quickly. The furnace finally broke and now we have 2 heat pumps that work well too. I am not good at conserving and turn the heat up and down all the time. We have a gas fire place but I get a headache every time we turn them on. We got new logs and have had them checked but I still get a headache every time we turn them on.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Jan 3, 2018 23:08:56 GMT -5
Does this thread remind anyone of the movie "Christmas Story?"
I can hear the Dad yelling "It's a clinker!"
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