What you set your thermostat at is one of the biggest contributors to how much you will pay for heat this winter. You can save about 1% on your heating bill for every 1 degree you set your thermostat back for an 8 hour period.At our house we have gotten accustomed to 68 degrees. Try setting your thermostat back 1 degree for 1 week at a time. Eventually maybe you will be able to work your way down 2 or 3 degrees saving you a chunk of money.
If you can't adjust during the day, maybe you can just turn it down at night. You can add more blankets and you will be asleep anyway. Just turn it back up in the morning. It won't cost anymore to run your heater a little longer to warm the house back up when you wake. Or better yet, invest in a programmable thermostat (read on).
Another suggestion is turning the thermostat down when you are gone for the day. Programmable thermostats are great. You can program them to adjust the temperature down during the day if your gone, then to heat the house back up before you get home. You can also do the same at night. Set your thermostat 5 degrees lower 1 hour after you go to bed and then have it programmed to resume your normal temp 1 hour before starting your day. There are many different options out there for programmable thermostats. It is well worth the investment if you haven't already got one.
One last thought. Remember to turn your heater down if your going to be gone for an extended period of time. If we are away for the weekend I usually turn our thermostat down to about 64. We have a cat so I hate for him to get too cold. If you don't have any pets to worry about you should be able to safely turn your thermostat down to 55 degrees without fear of freezing any pipes.
For more works for me tips visit We are That Family.
Great tips! We are accustomed to 66 degrees now and it has cut our bill way down from last year! Unless we have company over, we just wear long sleeved shirts and pajama pants along with house slippers around the house at night and put an extra blanket on the bed.
ReplyDeleteI would love this post on my Thrifty Thursday linky!
ReplyDeleteI keep our house as cold as I can get away with - my family are such wimps sometimes! lol.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have a % to tell my dh we are saving.
We started this last winter, and we were able to get the thermostat down to 65 during the day and 60 at night (beginning at 8pm). Very rarely do we - usually meaning me - feel the need to have it a little warmer in here, and if we do, we don't seem to ever turn it higher than 67 or else it just feels too warm!! And these steps have resulted in about a $400 savings...we are on propane, and last year we were able to avoid one whole fill in comparison to the year before. So it was very worth it for us!!
ReplyDelete