Electric heating Q?

[jack's mum]

Up until last year we always lived in apartments where the heating was controlled for us. When we bought our townhouse in August we went on the equal monthly payment system, but found out at the end of the year we owed $300+ and our monthly payment went up $20/month to $105!!

So, obviously, this winter I'm trying to keep a closer eye on our heating in particular because I think that's where we burned up all our hydro last year. I'm just wondering what I should be setting our temps at during the day and at night. I'm not sure if I'm too high or fairly average or what. I'm trying to find out what's reasonable and what's not. What do you set your thermostat at:
1) during the day (when you're home)
2) during the day (when you're out)
3) in the evening (in your downstairs or main living area)
4) in the evening (upstairs or in your bedroom wing)
5) while you're sleeping

Last year I don't think I usually touched the thermostats upstairs in the bedrooms (except to maybe warm the rooms up a bit before bed sometimes), but it's seemed so much colder this year that we've actually had them turned up a touch at night (which concerns me a little--I'll be interested in seeing what our usage for November is like).

We don't have digital thermostats--only the old school dial-type ones--so it's not exact, but I've been putting it around 20(ish) during the day when we're home, 15 when we're out, between 20 and 25 (so around 23 maybe?) in the evening downstairs and between 15 and 20 upstairs a couple of hours before we go to bed and sometimes while we're sleeping.

Just curious to see what others do!

[tiptoetulip]

I honestly think it depends on a lot of factors.

- where are you situated in your townhouse complex (are you end unit? middle?)
- are you multi-level?
- are you on slab or crawlspace?
- what's your comfort level?

We have always always always been super careful with our energy consumption since our whole home is electric (no gas, oil, etc.). We are NOT on equalized payments but averaged out over the year our bills are about $95 per month. We would only have the electric baseboard heat on in the room we were currently in, and it would be about 18-20 C. We'd only ever have one room's heat on. We'd wear slippers and sweaters and make use of blankets.

This year, we're saying SCREW IT because it's FLIPPING COLD! Our heat has been on since the beginning of October! We're also directly on slab with no sub-floor so the cold just seeeeeeeeeps in. Now we usually have 3 or 4 heaters on and they're around 20C. I'm really dreading this next bill

We did have digital thermostats at our old house and liked it well enough but found out it was throwing heat and therefore wasn't calibrating properly. I'd love to install digital thermostats here (a different brand than what we had before, though) because it's REALLY nice to get up to a warm living room or kitchen and it's a bit more energy efficient too.

[Olives]

We have baseboard heaters. Unless the temperature is below zero (like now) we turn them off or down to 10 or 12 degrees during the day and at night, except in my BF's office where he works from home during the day. In the evening I would turn on the kitchen/diningroom/livingroom area - but only to a max of 17 or 18 degrees. If I am chilly I put on a sweater.

I find other peoples' homes and my office way too hot

[Amethyst]

We have baseboard heat and yup it is expensive. We keep it at 10 except in the bathroom for showers/baths then we crank it up to 15 or 20 to warm the room and put it back to 10 when we are done. We all have slippers and sweaters and use blankets when watching tv. We just have the dial thermostats too. We do have a wood stove to cuddle around on really cold nights though. Good luck. Heat is expensive oil or electric.

[Guest]

Yes heat will have a drastic effect on your hydro.

I recommend purchasing programmable thermostats. You could get the 5 pack at Costco for $150 last year but they regularly go on sale at Canadian Tire.

In my 2 floor 1200sqft townhome (25 years old) I had one in the living room and then one in each kids bedroom.

Here in my (new green rated) 1900sqft duplex with 5 levels I have one in the basement, one in the living room and one in each of the 3 bedrooms.

My hydro bill for both places averaged $75 a month over the year although we pay for use not the plan.

The dial thermostats, even the new ones are really 5 degrees higher than reality. Therefore if they say 15 that is usually 20 degrees on the programmable/digital one and on a thermometer. I found that out when I swapped out my 25 year old dials for new Honeywell dials and then was not impressed that they didn't fix the temp discrepency.

For the bedrooms we keep it at 57 (14) degrees during the time they are not in them and 61 (16) degrees at night when they are sleeping.

For the living room it is programmed to 57 degrees (14) when we are not home and 64 (18) when we are home. Then if it is still a bit cold we will turn on the electric fireplace to cut the chill.

All bathrooms and other areas are off.

[jessie1072]

We found our Hydro was being eaten up by the hot water expense more than anything else. We have our heat set at 20 during the day and 18 at night but now do as many loads of laundry as possible with cold water and limit the time of our showers to a more reasonable length (we have teenagers) and found a big difference in the subsequent Hydro bills.

[jack's mum]

Okay, so I turned our heat down to just below the 20 mark and now we're all bundled up in blankets freezing....we're such wimps! I think I'm going to invest in some of those "Snuggie" blankets with arms that you see on TV.

[Deb M]

We do 17 when we are not home, 18 for sleeping and 20 when we r home. We pay $100 for hydro per month.

The biggest money saver for hydro for us, besides our programmable thermostat is hanging laundry outside all summer. We used to always owe money at the end of our year but now it always comes out even.

Also cold water washes and no heat drying for the dishwasher.

[LAMO]

I envy you, I wish I had electric baseboards! I have electric forced air and it sucks. So hard to regulate the whole house and mega dry. I did have baseboards for years before this though and I kept it at 18 during the day when at home, 16 when we were out, 18-20 in the evening and 16-18 overnight. 20 is the max for us, after that it is too hard to breathe the hot air. I find anything lower and we start to get mold. I do agree with the pp about cold water and showers though. When my kids moved out of the basement, the change in my hydro bill was staggering. They used a lot of hot water between showers and laundry.

[tiptoetulip]

We found our Hydro was being eaten up by the hot water expense more than anything else. We have our heat set at 20 during the day and 18 at night but now do as many loads of laundry as possible with cold water and limit the time of our showers to a more reasonable length (we have teenagers) and found a big difference in the subsequent Hydro bills.

You can turn down your hot water heater but there is a minimum temp it needs to be in order to prevent bacteria growth.
We've also insulated our tank because it's in our (COLD) garage and that really has helped.

[jessie1072]

We have it set a little higher than minimum because I want to feel it's really cleaning when I do use the hot wash cycle but I don't know if my tank is wrapped. I'll have to check. Thanks, mar!

[curious1]

Here is my 2 cents....

First Electric heat does not work as fast as gas/oil, so don't turn down the heat to 15 when you go out. Thats too far down and it will take too long to heat the room back up. You have to heat the air and then the walls to feel warm. With a 5+ degree change, you will not get the walls heated in a few hours and it will still feel cold.

I have bedrooms at 15 day/night. Before bed on cold nights, heat a bean bag for about 90 seconds and take that with you. Add more blankets if you are cold by morning.
See here if you are handy and want to make your own bag, or just buy one.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4913673_make-mi ... -bags.html

Livng room when out 20 when home up to 22/23 if feeling cold.

If you feel cold at 23, check for and try to limit drafts. Be sure to close fireplace damper when not using it. If open, it will suck the heat out and increase drafts elsewhere. Close curtains at night, because like a wall, if the windows are much colder than the air, the room will still feel cold even if the air is 23.

As other have said, you will save more by looking at hot water (shorter showers or cold water washing ). Dont use heat dry on dishwasher.

[Guest]

Here is my 2 cents....

First Electric heat does not work as fast as gas/oil, so don't turn down the heat to 15 when you go out. Thats too far down and it will take too long to heat the room back up. You have to heat the air and then the walls to feel warm. With a 5+ degree change, you will not get the walls heated in a few hours and it will still feel cold.

If you want to pay for heat on constantly when you are out then you don't turn it down. However, it will cost significantly. I had BC Hydro do a walk through in my last house and they recommended turning the hydro down to 15 real degrees instead of 17 and we noticed a big savings in the bill.

In our new house it took us awhile to get the digital thermostats installed and so we left the house at 17 during the day when we weren't home and in our green-rated house we were clocking 45-55 kwh per DAY and our bill was outrageous . Once I figured it out it went down to 38 kwh per day.

I have an small electric fan in front of the baseboards and the electric fireplace and that helps to circulate the air heating the room up a lot faster. Also Canadian Tire has electric fan heaters that are 1000w (same as a baseboard) but do fan air so it is more efficient. We were going to buy one for our last house and still may for this one.

[myboy]

Do you have thermostats you can program to change throughout the day and night? If not they are not that expensive to purchase. I keep my kids rooms warm through the night between 17 and 20 depending on the outside temp, and ours go down to 67 during the day and then at night we just turn it on to 70 for a while and then it goes back down to 67. We just put extra blankets on the bed. Our bathrooms we keep at 0. The onsuite bathroom gets turned up to 10 degrees and the spare bedroom is off as we don't use it. We close all our closet doors and any bedroom doors that do not need heat.
We have a gas fireplace to heat our livingroom/kitchen and dining area. That we are in during the day but I have the heat at 68-70. At night it goes down to 65 as it heats up the room fast in the morning.
I figure you can wear a sweater, slippers, ect. so no need to have the whole house toasty.
Another way to save on heat is to buy the kits to put plastic up around your windows. Also check around the base of window frames for any air that is coming through from outside. You can seal it up again. You can also buy the kits to wrap your hotwater tank to insulate. All of this pays off in the end.
Oh, and keep the lights off! It makes a huge difference. If you don't need it, don't use it.

[myboy]

Oh, I was going to add that if you still feel cold when the heat is turned way up, you may have cold air venting from outside, so check the doors and windows. Remember that if your home is small rooms all over too with walls up the heat from one area may not be getting to other areas. I notice a big difference with our open consept space. The heat gets everywhere, where as before in our other townhouses, certain rooms were warm, while one just beside it would be quite cool.