How well do you control your energy usage

[Psinter]

How could I have missed this:

I believe I had seen it before elsewhere in the forum. This is very right .

 

[OCR]

Winter Outside Temp: 20F

Yeah, as of right now !
It hasn't been very nice around here the last couple of days, about 4 inches of snow, also...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

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[russ_watters]

Hehe - where I live, 20-30F is a common daytime high in the middle of winter.

Another issue that can get complicated is how to heat your home when you have multiple methods available. I generally recommend using a space heater for a bit of spot heating in the room you are in, but if you overdo that, it may end up costing you, especially if you have natural gas fired central heat. If the electric space heater is really blasting, it might cost more to heat that room than it would to heat your whole house with gas.

 

[Mark44]

Yeah, as of right now !
It hasn't been very nice around here the last couple of days, about 4 inches of snow, also....

View attachment 107322
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And much colder to come... My ex-inlaws lived in Lolo, MT. I remember visiting there around Christmas one year, and seeing -39° (F) one evening on the temperature gauge at a local bank. The next day it warmed all the way up to -20° (F) during the day. For those who are familiar only with the Celsius scale, -40° (F) = -40° (C), so -39° (F) is about -38° (C).
Lolo and Missoula are laughingly called the "banana belt" of Montana, but only in comparison to areas in the northern part of the state (the Highline) where it can be considerably colder, such as Havre and Cutbank. While Lolo was enjoying the relatively "balmy" temp of -39°, it was -50° F in Havre. And it can get colder there!
Record minimum for Havre in January -- -57° (1916) http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USMT0159

 

[wolram]

So far the out side temperature has been 15c at the lowest, we have cavity wall insulation, 1ft of glass fiber in the loft, and double glazing and we have not had to heat the house so far, if we feel a bit chilly we put on sweaters and we are quite comfortable.

 

[Mark44]

Like is your house insulated to updated code, double glazed widows, cavity wall insulation, Do you control you energy usage

The house my wife and I live in is fairly new (built in '98), so it adheres to all the building codes in place then. All the windows and sliders are double pane, and the walls, ceiling, and floors are well insulated. I replaced the outside lights with LED bulbs a few months ago, and I replaced the switch for them with a timer.

The thermostat is digital, and is set to accommodate my wife's preferences for heating. The thermostat comes on when she gets up (she's still working -- I'm retired), and go off at 9AM. She gets home about 3PM, so the thermostat kicks in again at that time, and goes off at 10:30PM, with a setting of 60 deg (F). When it's on, it's set for 69 deg (F). If it were just me, I would set it a bit cooler, but she isn't as well adapted to cooler temps as I am. The house is well enough insulated that it almost never cools down to 60 during the night, which would cause the theirmostat to start the furnace.

Our house is in W. Washington, where the temps are pretty moderate. During the winter, it might get down into the low teens (F) for a few days, but this is pretty rare. In summer, the high temps can get to the mid-90s (F), but the usual temps are mid-70s to mid-80s (F) (say 20 to 25 deg. C). As a consequence, very few houses are air conditioned. In the almost 50 years I've lived in this state, I've only ever seen it get above 100 deg. (F) twice.

 

[wolram]

Hehe - where I live, 20-30F is a common daytime high in the middle of winter.

Another issue that can get complicated is how to heat your home when you have multiple methods available. I generally recommend using a space heater for a bit of spot heating in the room you are in, but if you overdo that, it may end up costing you, especially if you have natural gas fired central heat. If the electric space heater is really blasting, it might cost more to heat that room than it would to heat your whole house with gas.

We have a coal fire which heats the house and the water, people think a coal fire is inefficient but we only stoke it up three times a day.