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Although we have a central heat system in our Texas South Plains farm house, it is run on propane at about $2.50/gallon so we only use propane for heating water. That has been costing about $300 a year. For home heating of the 1800 square foot house we use a free-standing pellet stove. The stove does not have thermostatic control so I don't have any temp settings I can routinely follow. Right now I have 2 pallets (2 tons) of wood fuel pellets in the barn that cost $572 and that should easily get us through the winter and into the spring.
We are just now getting a few nights in the 20s but most days have been in the 60s and 70s. Mild as it has been, I'm hoping Jack Frost will be lean and mean this year and kill some of our pests.
Note: I live by myself, with no pets, in a ground floor condo. I'm in the Midwest so I have to turn it on eventually, otherwise I'd have frozen pipes. I usually don't turn it on until sometime in December. I prefer cold.
I keep it at 70. I have no tolerance for cold. While 70 is low for me, I wear a jacket when its cooler and have a space heater I sit in front if I get too cold.
BTW, interesting observation. Added 3 booster fans in the far corner rooms of my house - it's a large turtle rambler - and now furnace kicks in noticeably less. Those rooms are now HOT.
58 to 60 for me in the winter and I don't like air conditioners in the summer. I hate being cold but I hate dry heated air and the fact that it's like burning money when the heater runs. We use blankets or wear coats if we're cold.
Mine stays at 69 degrees all day. My apartment is in the middle of the block, with an apartment on either side and an apartment on top. My natural gas bill is miniscule - always less than $40 a month. The heater runs maybe once every three or four hours for a few minutes at a time.
If I'm away from home for a couple days or more, I'll drop it to about 60 degrees - but I've actually come back several days later and found it to be in the 63 range - meaning the heater probably never did come on.
My house is about 1500 sq ft, story and a half, just me, the dog, and 3 kitties.
The main part of the house is heated with a HE gas furnace and cooled with a less efficient central A/C unit because A/C isn't real necessary in my area, especially since I have ceiling fans in all the downstairs rooms. The furnace is controlled by a programmable thermostat:
M-F: 5:45am-8am, 68; 8am-4:15pm, 65; 4:15pm-11pm, 70; 11pm-5:45am: 65
S-S: 6am-8am, 68; 8am-6:00pm, 65 unless I'm home and then I override the setting to 68-70; 6pm-12am:70; 12am-6am, 65.
Gas for heating runs between $30-150 a month for the heating season, October through May with the coldest months being January and February.
The sunroom addition is heated with electric baseboard heating units and "cooled" with a ceiling fan. I sometimes use a little electric heater when I'm working at my computer because I get cold. The electric for the heater and the sunroom runs about $30 a month.
I live in Massachusetts. So far I'm keeping it at 59 degrees at night. (I warm my bed up with a heated blanket, then turn it off..so I'm warm In the morning when I get up for work I turn the heat up to 70 to take the chill off the house while I shower/bathe get dressed, then I turn it down to 60 degrees when I leave the house. I live alone so no need to be on higher than that when I'm gone.
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