Baby, It's Cold Inside

Crazy idea numero uno: turn the furnace off. And that's precisely what we did yesterday afternoon.

When Rory was still working in Coralville, a coworker of his was telling him that her parents don't run their furnace at all during the winter months. At first, Rory thought that was a crazy plan, but after talking with her, he learned that their big, old farmhouse never got below the mid-50 degree range, which sounds chilly, but at least tolerable.

As we talked more about it, we thought it would be fine. After all, Rory's coworker's parents lived in a big, old, leaky farmhouse and were able to live without heat. We are in a newer, EnergyStar compliant townhouse - we just needed to suck it up and switch off the heat.

So we took the plunge yesterday at approximately 2 p.m. Rory did the honors, flipping up the thermostat cover and sliding the little switch from the "heat" position to the "off" position.

By 7 p.m. we were still doing pretty well. It had only cooled down to 64 degrees and it was time to make supper, so we knew that would warm things up a degree or two.

We ate dinner on the couch, under a blanket while we watched a movie. We were coping well, but Moda (one of our dogs) felt that her winter coat was no longer cutting it, and insisted that she be let under the blanket as well.

By bed time we were still in good shape as temperatures still hadn't dipped below the 64 degree mark inside. We climbed into bed and managed to keep the dogs out, which was a success in my book.

All was good until about 6 a.m. this morning. Rory cracked. The dogs had been restless all night and he was getting cold too. He ran downstairs to find that we were at 58 degrees, and, without a bit of remorse, flipped the heat back on.

So, we're compromising. We won't go back to our old ways, keeping the house at a balmy 68 degrees, but we won't be extremists and go without heat, either. We're going to try keeping it at 64 degrees during our awake hours at home, and drop it down to the low-sixties at night. Hopefully that plan will keep the dogs out of bed and our energy consumption from being sky-high!

Comments

[Rory]

Ok, this morning I was not that cold. It was still 62 in the bedroom, but the downstairs had dipped to 58, I was ok with low 60s but I think we will have to ease ourselves into the 50s and more clothes if we decide to keep the temps be low 60. I am sure the dogs will adjust to the cooler temps as well, if we do a gradual drop. I have the thermostat set at 62 now and we will see if we can stand that for a while.

I am not sure how green we will be in the summer as both Andy and I really like air conditioning.

[Alan]

You should get a thermostat that is programable. It will adjust to diff. temps at diff. times of the day. so at say 6pm u can set it for a gradual cool down into the night. and then like an hour b4 u wake have it kick it up a few degrees cuz no one likes a cold morning....

[Kelly]

Kudos to you for giving it a go! Compromise is the key - no need to be a crazy hippie!