Asklemmy

Not American. What's a thermostat?

I have been involved in many of these types of discussions, and I'm convinced that we are not experiencing the same temperatures when we set our thermostats to the same temperature. If I set mine any lower than 77°F, I would freeze to death. But many people here set theirs to below 70°F.

I have a few hypotheses.

1. Apparently AC units can really only make the temperature about 20-25°F degrees colder than the outside ambient temperature. It is over 100°F in my area almost every day from June to mid September, so any temperature below about 78°F just means your AC is on 100% of the time. This is removing moisture from the air, making it feel colder.

2. My thermostat is right next to my garage door, which is not insulated. This is probably where the majority of heat enters the house. So the thermostat thinks it is warmer than it is. Other people might be in similar or opposite situations and need to set their thermostats to account for that.

3. People's AC units are not actually cooling anywhere near those temperatures. The unit is just on 100% of the time at those temperatures, and they could realistically increase the temperature a great deal and get the same results.

4. Humidity.

5. Some people's AC units/thermometers just suck. 65°F on their unit actually gets the space to the same temperature as 75°F on my unit.

Europe.

Winter 20C/70F, but we only heat the bedrooms or rooms we mostly stay in. Kitchen, etc. can go as low as 10C/50F

Summer: no heating/AC at all. Open a window when cold air is coming inside. Close the windows when hot air is coming in. It's never gone above 35C/95F, and that's during a heat wave. Usually it's 25C/80F max.

Sometimes when it's too cold. You wear a sweater and thick socks. Sometimes it's hot. Fan or live with it. Adapt our schedules accordingly, perhaps do groceries when it's super hot or go on an errand that requires the car a drive so we can cool down in the supermarket/AC.

69° all year round. It's nice.

I have a brand new apartment. On recommendation of the constructor (new walls contain lots of moisture that needs to go out), it's set a little warmer than I'd usually go: 21C (70F). In my old place I'd put it at 18C (64F).

That said, currently it's 25C inside (77F). This place is insulated like crazy, and we don't have AC (that still isn't common over here, even for new builds). For reference, current temperatures outside are 14C (57F)

I live in the Netherlands.

18 in summer or off and 22 or off in winter

21C in the winter and 19C in the summer

My heating is set at 21°C (70F) for daytimes and 16°C (61F) for the night time, so it doesn't come on at all during summer, and a lot of spring (UK). During winter when it gets colder out (like below about 6°C/43F) I will usually need to whack it up by a couple of degrees, or give it a little extra blast in the morning to warm up. Its an old building (late 1800s) and my flat has external walls on three sides, and a cold empty basement below, so it can get quite cold when the outside temperature drops.

Edited to make it clear i mean my heating thermostat, because I realised most people here are talking about AC and that's very rare in homes here.

We set the AC for 18°C heating in winter, and 23° cooling in summer. I'm happy in 18-23 temperatures, doesn't need to be the same temp year around.

18 when it's 10ish outside feels nice and toasty, and be 23 when it's 35ish outside feels nice and cool.

I'm going out my damn mind trying to work out what I should set it at. I've been obsessively adding more and more temperature and humidity sensors around my living space to work out exactly what my idiot brain thinks is comfortable.

I don't understand why 23C/50% makes me feel like I'm in the fucking Amazon rainforest one day, but on another I feel like I've got ice forming on my damn face like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.

I'm this close to buying a ZigBee rectal thermometer. Core body temperature has to be the missing piece. (I suppose any ZigBee environment sensor can be a rectal one if I bite down on something first).

(Oh and lux, I wonder if lux levels tricked my brain but that doesn't seem to correlate either!)

Right now in summer: 67 overnight while we sleep (helps that we have tiered power pricing where late night power is almost half the price of it during the day), 72 when we're up, and 80 between 2 and 6pm when we have the most expensive power hours. Luckily we're in an apartment that's like three years old, so it's surprisingly well insulated and hasn't gotten above 73 during those hot hours.

Western suburbs of Chicago, IL. Summer it's 77-79f (25-26c). Winter it's 65-69f (18.3-20.5c).

In summer we open the windows at night and let the cooler air in and when the sun comes in I close the windows and run a dehumidifier to quickly bring down the relative temp upstairs especially. Helps a bunch.

When our new kid comes I will have to def adjust these numbers much closer to 72f (22c).

I was talking to friends who live nearby and essentially keep it at 72f (22c) year round and almost never open their windows they were using like 1040kwh-1600kwh per month last month where we were using 309kwh or about 50 bucks a month. This was for July. I think we may be the weirdos and we will have to get more on their level with a newborn.

Winter: 20°C when home/awake, 17°C when out or asleep. Before kids we used to drop it to 15°C at night. It was glorious

Summer: 22°C when home awake or asleep, 26°C when away for longer period, 24 for short periods

25°C at winter and 24°C at summer. It's a small house that's not too expensive to heat so I prefer slightly warmer than normal room temperature

24°C in the summer

20°C in the winter

Having an apartment with district heating, we don't have a thermostat per se - we can control the inflow of hot water to our radiators, on a scale of 0-7. However, I try to keep the indoor temperature at at least 18-19 C during the colder period, and I try to reduce the indoor by opening the windows and ventilating any time the indoor temperature goes past 22 C during the hotter parts of the year. Any higher than that and my sleep starts to get compromised.

Off.

23c (73.5f) all year round. We have two nearly hairless cats, they do not like cold weather.

In the winter, 68, 69 if I'm particularly cold, In the summer I don't turn on the AC unless I'm absolutely dying, and then it only goes to 77. I'm a lizard, I love the heat, but I also hate paying high gas bills.

Summer time - 75F during the day, 72F at night. Winter time - 68F during the day, 62F at night.

I live in the Midwest US

Only have heating, no AC. So 19C over the day and 16 at night for the winter

During AC season, 71 during the day, 68 at night. Geothermal FTW.

In Northern California my AC is off as much as I can help it. When it's on it's set at 82. Energy bill is still at least $250 for my one bedroom apartment...

wait you can control the weather in your house?

83F day 78F night. These temps are mainly chosen to not give my AC a heart attack.

During the winter I’m pretty hands off and will let it get down to 20-30F and just layer up next to a small space heater.

24.5°C

To save energy, I set my AC at 28℃ in the summer, for a couple of hours in the afternoon. In the winter if my room temperature wasn't below 8℃ I don't use heating. Otherwise I set it to 12℃.

Apparently I don't understand the very energy consuming 20℃ summers/winters.

We don’t have a thermostat. We have storage heaters and criminally insufficient insulation. I’d like to keep the flat about 21C (69F), a little lower at night. I can only afford to keep the flat above 17C (62F). Cost of living crisis sucks.

We typically keep our house at 68F in the summer, and in the winter it’s 63F during the day, 55F at night. We like it on the chilly side.

70F (21C) during the summer time, and usually its off during the winter (we just have the windows open, and might briefly use a space heater if its really really cold).

In fall and spring it just heavily depends on the day and how it feels.

Keep in mind thermostats are generally not tightly calibrated devices. I prefer 71°F at home, but recently visited relatives and thought their mini-split was FREEZING at 29°C (84 F)

Also humidity plays a huge role.

73 day, 70 night.

I prefer it a little cooler, but my apartment isn't insulated for shit so anything less and the ac basically never turns off.

Hasn't turned off a whole lot with heat waves lately.

76 in the summer and 68 in the winter

In the summer? I have no AC at my house but it doesn't usually go above 77 - 80 on it's own. It's in a unique part of the city where we're surrounded by the woods and trees which provide a lot of shade and cool the air. Also the house is built into the side of a mountain and surrounded by massive retaining walls, so the first floor is basically a story underground. Our bedroom is also on the first floor, so I don't really go upstairs except to do laundry.

In the winter, usually about 64 - 67. It goes down to 60 during the day on a schedule or whatever.

stays on 73F year round , AC and heat. Average bill runs around $80.

I don't! My windows are open all year here in Chicago.