Setting the Thermostat for Optimum Comfort

During the winter months it can be difficult to find the "optimum" comfort level indoors. Houses and apartments can either be too cold or too warm - neither of which is comfortable.

But what's a homeowner to do?

It can be difficult to find the right temperature for your home. Ideally, the recommended setting during the winter is 68 degrees. However, everyone has their own levels of comfort. A word of caution though: it is better to be chilly and put on a sweater than to run your heater at 90 degrees. In fact, each degree you drop your furnace during the winter can save you one to three percent on energy costs. Some common misconceptions:

Turning the thermostat on as high as it will go as soon as you get home will warm up the house faster!

FALSE!

According to the article:

"Second, when you come home at the end of the day to a house that is colder than you'd like it, don't immediately turn the thermostat as high as it can go "to heat the house faster." It's just not going to happen. The furnace isn't going to put out any more heat if you set it for 90 than if you set it for 68. What it will do if you set it higher than you want it, though, is continue to put out heat until you remember to turn it back to is desired setting. As a result, you might be wasting an awful lot of heat when you don't need it or want it to get higher than your desired comfort level. Setting it higher than you want it won't make it heat any faster."

You should turn your heater off when you leave the house or go to sleep.

false-ish...

I know some people prefer to turn off/unplug appliances when they leave or go to sleep. For those of you that follow that M.O. - I understand that it is too much to ask to leave these large energy-users running. However, here are some things to take into consideration.

• It is easier (it takes less energy) to raise the temperature three degrees than twelve degrees.
• If the temperature in your home drops below a certain point, the walls may freeze and so also the pipes. If the pipes freeze, you can be in trouble. Regardless that this may not happen often in Southern California - It IS possible and with the weather we are having this year...I would suggest that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Mr. Sheinkopf also suggests:

" usually tell people that there are a couple of basic rules that you won't find in an instruction book for properly operating their thermostat or heater or air conditioner, but they're strategies that will keep their home more comfortable and help keep energy use to a minimum. Let's talk about the heating season right now, though the general ideas here work just as well in hot weather (with the appropriate adjustments in direction of the thermostat setting, of course). First of all, it is a good strategy to turn the setting down a few degrees when the house is empty, like when you're all at work or school during the day. Maybe you've had it set at 68 degrees, for example, so if it's going to be empty for several hours, turn it down to 62 or 63 while you're gone. I've seen research that shows that for every degree you can turn the thermostat down from its usual setting, you can save anywhere from 3 to 10 percent on the heating costs during that time (the variance is due to various factors including the overall energy efficiency of the home, including its insulation levels, quality of windows, etc.)."

He also suggests that it is unnecessary to be "locked" into a certain thermostat setting for all winter, but that depending on comfort, the temperature outside, how many people you have in the house and other factors should determine what the thermostat is set to. Good Luck, and happy thermostat-ing.