The thermostat is often the first thing we reach for when trying to solve those home cooling and heating issues. But that can hit our wallets pretty hard as the energy bills begin to increase exponentially. You don’t want to sacrifice comfort for savings but sometimes you have little choice but to show at least some concern for the cost of keeping your home properly climate-controlled.
Here’s a good rule of thumb to keep in mind, the greater the disparity between the temperature inside the home and outside, the more you can expect to shell out in order to pay the electric bill. However, you certainly don’t want to freeze in the winter and sweat profusely in the summer, so you need to find a happy medium that exists within that disparity.
To help you do that, we’ve done some research into the ideal temperatures that you should keep in mind for keeping you and your family comfortable without breaking the bank as a result. So, let’s examine which temperatures are best for doing just that:
Choose Your Energy Consumption Carefully
When you run your system less, you’re conserving more energy and causing less wear and tear. This saves you money in utility costs and keeps you from calling an hvac repair service crawfordsville sooner than you expected. So, before you switch on that thermostat, think carefully as to whether or not you really need it to run.
You can keep it turned off when you’re not home and when you’re sleep. When this occurs, the indoor temperature can rise about 8 to 10 degrees which will save you almost 10% in the summer. As for when you sleep, the body is at rest more soundly when a thermal balance is reached between an individual and the surrounding environment. With that said, a temperature of 86 degrees in the summer and around 65 degrees in the winter with light clothing and covers should do the trick.
Adjust Your Programmable Thermostat
Sometimes you may forget to turn the system off or you simply don’t relish the idea of having to remember when to turn it on and when to turn it off at all. For those of you who feel this way, you might want to try installing a programmable thermostat to do all of that work for you.
You can set it and forget it. Adjust the thermostat so that it switches on when it reaches above or below a certain temperature and you won’t have to worry about coming home to a freezing cold or oppressively warm home, depending on the season.
As for the temperatures to where it should be set, for the summertime you should set it to 78 degrees. This keeps things comfortable in the home while staying at that 8 to 10-degree differential from the outdoor temperature we mentioned earlier. For the winter, go with 68 degrees while you’re in the house and then you can reduce it once you leave. One thing to keep in mind, however, make sure you don’t allow the temperature to drop beneath 55 degrees or you run the risk of your pipes freezing over.
