Am I causing structural damage to my house by turning off the heater on cold winter nights?
Answers:
As noted - frozen pipes could be a problem if you are in a climate where it consistently gets below freezing at night. Also, it will take your heating system longer to heat up, and thus waste more energy, if you turn the heater off completely. You are better off turning it down to 55-60 degrees Farenheit overnight. We got a programmable thermostat in 2004 and it is set to 68 deg. F when we're awake, and to 64 deg. F when we're out or asleep - the difference in the energy bill was more than we expected!
Other answers:
Possibly, your biggest risk is pipes freezing, and bursting. Trust me, if this happens, it is a DISASTER! but it is rare. it can be avoided by letting water flow through those pipes, but if you have a bathroom, or sink, or whatever that you don't use, you are definately at risk.
Possibly, your biggest risk is pipes freezing, and bursting. Trust me, if this happens, it is a DISASTER! but it is rare. it can be avoided by letting water flow through those pipes, but if you have a bathroom, or sink, or whatever that you don't use, you are definately at risk.
well at my house my mom always turns it down to about 59 each night, then you can set the timer to make the heat go up when you wake up so its the right temperature in the morning.
personally i hate being hot when i sleep. i like the coldness at night.
if your house is decently insulated, probably not. your house can get down to about 45 without any real damage, which is why most thermostats have a low setting of 45.
on a tangent, i agree with another answerer that a programmable thermostat is money well-spent. i've saved hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in heating bills over the last few years. my house is not very well insulated, and i let the temperature fall at night and while i'm at work, and the thermostat has a "learning" mode where you can set a time you get up and get home from work, and it "figures out" when it needs to turn the furnace on to heat up the house by then. if you do this, you'll find out your furnace runs almost as much as before when it's in the single digits and teens outside, but when the weather is in the upper 30's to 50's you start racking up some pretty hefty savings by letting that little computer figure out the thermostat for you.