Last night, as I often do, I was chatting with some bloggy friends on Skype. The subject of thermostat settings came up (don’t ask me how). I happened to mention that we set ours at 77 during the summer.
Living in North Texas, air conditioning is a must, even at night. This was quite a change for me when we moved here, considering I lived right near the beach most of my life. In fact, we did not even have air conditioning in our home growing up in Southern California, and then Hawaii. We slept with the windows open, and used fans. I never knew what it was like to run the A/C all day long. Or what that would cost, ouch! But I digress.
My friends were rather surprised at our setting of 77. Their preferences ranged from 72-74. Most people I know also keep theirs around 76-77, which is quite comfortable when it is 102 outside. I must admit I would prefer it a few degrees cooler, but the savings in our electric bill is worth the difference.
Much to my dismay, we also keep our blinds closed most of the summer to keep the house cooler. Fans in all the bedrooms help as well. Our utility bills are reasonable, but I am constantly seeking ways to get them even lower. Not only for the sake of our budget, but to conserve energy.
So I wonder, what is your comfort zone?
Can you handle 77, or even higher? Or does your family prefer a cooler setting?
What other ways do you employ to keep your home cool in the hot summer months?
Please share your thoughts and experiences here in comments. I would love to hear your feedback!
I am the same way, Alyssa! We keep ours set on 80 or 81 during the day and evening hours, but lower it to 77 or 78 for sleeping. We FREEZE if it is lower than that, lol.
We also run ceiling fans, room fans, and close our blinds. Fortunately, none of our windows face the west (and that hot afternoon sun), so it does not get very warm at all!
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I live in Dallas and I just moved into a new apt. With this new apt I also have a new comfort zone. I can keep my air at 80 degrees!! I know, it’s crazy, but if I lower it, we freeze in here!!
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We keep ours at 78 here in SW Ohio; this summer has been cooler than normal, though, so I’ve had many days (in a row) where I didn’t need the AC at all.
My hubs and I are at opposite ends of the “cool” spectrum so our agreement is that I set it at 78 during the day (since I’m home) and he turns it down to 76 at night (so he can sleep easily). Works for us!
I also had our electric company intstall a Power Manager on our AC unit this year to cycle our AC on and off for a few minutes during peak times; details on this program are here. Your power company may offer a similar program.
Stay cool, girl!!
i live in lubbock texas and we just bought a new 7-day programmable thermostat as well as brand new windows for the whole house. we have the thermostat set to range from 75-77 degrees now, so far we have noticed a difference in bills and the comfort level in the house, but i think the biggest difference is from the windows.
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We keep ours at 72 all the time. I love to save $ but it isn’t worth sacrificing comfort!
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Austin, TX here!
We keep ours at 80 normally (though78 is DH’s preference.)
However, summer can be SO HOT that no matter the thermostat setting, the AC can’t cool the house below 84. Then we change it to 84 and drink lots of ice water 🙂
We generally make up the excess summer $$ difference by RARELY using the heater. I’m originally from MN, so I know how to dress the fam in lots of layers. ha ha!
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i live in north texas as well and we keep it at 82 during the day and 80 in the evenings when we are at home. our a/c guy told us that most units can’t cool less than 20 degrees of the outside temp so putting it below would just cause the a/c unit to constantly run to try to keep it cooler, even though it can’t efficiently do so, therefore driving up the electricity costs.
We live in an older home with no central air only air units in the windows. We’ve been opening all the windows in the house & sliding glass doors with the screen shut, so as to let in the cool morning breeze. Than by noon it’s usually gets warm enough to shut all the windows & turn on the a/c units. We also turn on fans in the living room where there is no air unit. My hubby & I are always at odds over the temp of the house, I run cold he runs much hotter.
I live south of Atlanta and we keep ours on 78-80. Mine isn’t digital so I’m guessing – it’s right below/around the 80 mark. I was very cold natured before I had my boys, but I will say even on 78-80 there are nights I have to cut it higher because I’m cold.
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77! I’m jealous! We have ours at 81 during the day and 75 when we’re asleep. I would love to have it lower, but our bill last month was over $250, so we raised it to 81 from 80. We have a large two-story house, though, so I’m sure that has something to do with it. 🙂
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I work at home outside of St Louis – I keep it around 79 or 80 during the day (I am always cold) – and at night it is turned down to 74 (my husband prefers the house cooler – but thankfully I sleep warmly).
We keep ours at 77. This is the temperature at which everyone starts complaining, so the air kicks on just as we notice that it’s hot.
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I live in Northern CA and we keep our thermostat at 77 degrees during the day and 78 at night. We use ceiling fans to keep us cooler. We are also blessed to live where we get ocean breezes most nights that bring our temperatures down to the low 60s on many summer nights. We have a whole house fan that we can turn on once it is cool outside and it sucks all of the outside air in. It cools the whole house down in about 15 minutes!
.-= Nicole-Being Frugal Is Fabulous´s last blog ..Safeway =-.
We keep ours at 76 here in sunny Florida, and also keep the blinds closed. Some days the ac unit just can’t keep up and it gets up to 80 (or beyond!) Those are the days of no cooking and little movement lol. We also have a window unit to help the central unit out on really bad days. We are part of the trend I see in the comments here, my dh loves to sleep with it cold (but we still have the unit set for 77…gotta save $ somewhere!)
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Well, I live in Phoenix where our summer temps are easily over 110! It is a financial necessity for us to keep our thermostat set at 80. We’ve gone as high as 82 but decided to cut the budget somewhere else for our comfort. We have ceiling fans in the kiving room and bedrooms, keep the blinds closed during the day, and have black out draperies in the bedrooms to help keep them cooler. I also try to do my oven cooking in the morning and then reheat for supper. It is amazing how comfortable an 80 degree house is when it is 115 outside! Last month our bill was over $350 with it set at 80 (our house is a one story about 1800 square feet)! However, because the horrible heat only lasts for 4 months we enjoy much smaller electricity bills the rest of the year.
Well since you know I’ve had some $500 a month electric bills lately I’ve learned a new setting of 76-78. Not my preference though, I’d like it set on 70-72. Some nights I just can’t sleep unless it’s at least 74 so I’m running fans more. I’ll try any suggestions with this high of a bill!
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We keep ours at 78-80, and we’re in Atlanta. Growing up in Florida during the energy crisis of the 70s, we always had the thermostat set at 78, so I’ve never really known any different. As it is, our last summer electricity bill was $270, and we’re in a fairly new, energy-efficient house. I can’t imagine what the bill would be like with a thermostat setting of 72!
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Wow, that is pretty high, a lot higher than I would expect for Texas.
Here in DC, we keep ours between 72 and 74 all summer long. Only if we need to cool it down quick does it go below, and if its cool enough, we just turn it off!
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I live in Georgia and I can’t stand the heat! We keep our thermostat around 76.
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I grew up in a home where we rarely ran the a/c. Hubby grew up in a home where is dad keeps it in the upper 60’s during the summer. I have always froze at their house. Over the years hubby has worn me down. In the winter he wants it at 66-68 and I am cold. In the summer he wants at at 72-74.
I must be getting acclimated though because after 15 years of marriage this is the first summer I haven’t argued over the lower temp.
Although if we are both gone all day we turn it up to about 80 until we come home.
Our electric/gas bill is about $225 through the summer and winter then down to $140/150 through spring and fall.
~Amber
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We keep ours around 75 during the day and usually at 73 at night. I can’t sleep when it’s too hot.
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Dallas TX here…I’d love to keep ours at 75 but being super frugal this summer we’ve had it set to 80. It’s hot.
I’m in Houston. We keep ours around 78. If I’m exercising in the house, which I have to in the summer, I bump it down to about 75 until I cool down. At night we keep it the same, but crank up the ceiling fans.
I live in Georgia. I currently live in an apartment and I keep it at 78-80. I used to live in a brand new house and I would pay about $150-200 a month in the summer but now I pay about $80-120 per month depending on my usage. I do get cold easy.
I live in MI, so we don’t have to run our air conditioning quite as much as in TX :-)…plus we’ve had a pretty mild summer. We keep our air conditioning set at 79 and use fans. Our electric bill is about $50/month during the summer.
However, we make up for it with the heating bill in the winter :-). I do keep our house pretty cold, though, in the winter (68) and we just layer up and use blankets.
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We live in Phoenix, and its HOT. DH and I have different temperature preferences. If he had his druthers, the AC would be set at 72-74 (we have a newer efficient AC unit, but only have a ceiling fan in one room). We compromise at 75-76 during the day, and 78 at night (our master bedroom is the coolest room in the house). Our electric bill for July was over $300 for a 1500 square foot house.
Since he’s gone for the week I’ve had the AC set to 85 when I’m gone during the day, and 79-83 in the evenings when I’m home.
We keep it at 82 upstairs during the day and 80 downstairs. At night we’re 78 upstairs (in the bedrooms) and 83 (off) downstairs. If my kids feel hot, I threaten to throw them outside (just kidding)!! This year we bought an extra free-standing unit for our hottest bedroom, west-facing, over the garage. Now we don’t feel like we are abusing our girls during nap time and at bedtime (it is not unusual to go to be at 100 degrees here in Las Vegas). We thought our power bill would be through the roof with that, but it is lower this summer because the central air isn’t overcompensate. You can’t complain about a $260 bill July in Vegas!!
We are in Flower Mound, TX, and for the first 3 years we were in this house, our thermostat was stuck at 78-80 because the house would never get any cooler than that anyway. It was due to our old and busted A/C, and in ’08, we finally got it replaced and the ducts repaired in our attic that were basically cooling the attic because of a large gap in them. This summer, we’ve finally been able to keep the house at 72-75 even on the super hot days, and surprisingly, our bills are a LOT lower than they were when we kept the house at 78-80, and I owe it all to the new A/C and ducts. No more $400-500 bills… so far $218 has been the most we’ve seen this summer.
We live in SW OH, we actually have not used our air conditioner yet. Last year we kept it set at 82, this year we have just dealt with the heat. I figure that 100 years ago or less it wasnt even an option. Last week our house got up in the 90s but most of the time it is in the lower to mid 80s.
Scott keeps ours at 80!
We keep ours at 76 and use ceiling fans.
I’m in central Ohio, and I keep our AC at 77 during the day, 74-75 at night, although there are only a handful of days each summer that it’s so hot that we need it on at night. Usually by bedtime, it’s cool enough outside that we can open windows and use the ceiling fans. I am so thankful that it has been an unusually cool summer. We haven’t had to use the AC near as much, and a couple days DD was begging me to turn the furnace on! (Uh, no, not using the furnace in July, dear, just snuggle under the afghan…..)
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Hi Alyssa,
We live in Spring, TX and keep ours set at 77 most of the day. We have a 2 story, 4700 square ft. home and the upstairs gets hot if we set it higher. We use programable thermostats on all three units. When the kids go back to school, I will adjust the upstairs to 78 since no one will be up there for 6 hours.
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Joe is control of our thermostat here in SW Oklahoma and it’s at 65 – year round!! I read him this post, plus several comments on the temp.
I am cold natured but he and the four kids are very, very hot natured (obviously). I sleep in fleece pj’s year round, sometimes also with a fleece robe and all the covers. My side of the family freezes when they come over – his feels right at home :).
When he’s at work and when the kids are in school, I have some control of the thermostat….unless he comes home at noon. Comfort zone is a big family joke on both sides of our family!
Interesting topic!
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I’m in Georgia south of Atlanta. We moved here 4 years ago from Florida. In Florida i was the same way.
At night my husbands sets the thermostat to 80, so he can sleep comfortably. Him and the kids are hot natured. I’m the only one that is cold natured. So i sleep with a blanket also. Tried for one night to sleep without the blanket with the thermostat at 80 and froze the whole night.
We have 2 ac units, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. During the day when the husband is at work and the kids at school the one downstairs i keep it off. The one upstairs i put it on 83.
If it were up to me i would not use the ac at night and just turn on the fans.
Estera,
I keep ours at 74 during the day here in Texas. At nights I sometimes turn it down to 72. We also use fans in each room. We like to keep cool. 🙂
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When we lived in military housing we kept our house at about 68 degrees. Now that we pay for it ourselves we keep ours set at 77 degrees. Sometimes in the evening we will kick it down to 75. The worst part for me is keeping the blinds closed during the day. I love natural light.
We are in the Florida gulf coast.
We live North of Dallas, so it is pretty warm! I keep it on 77 when my husband is here, 78/79 when he isn’t.
We live in NC where it stays pretty hot all summer, with lots of humidity. But we still manage to keep thermostat either set at 85 or off altogether. Is this our comfort zone? Um, not exactly! I’m pregnant and really hot all the time, so one month a bumped it down to 83. When our bill was $40 more that month, I decided I could live with being hot! We have heavy shades on the windows that keep a lot of the heat out, and I run fans and drink lots of cold water. It’s one of those things you can train your body to get used to. I think anyone can live with their AC turned up if they’re willing to get used to it.
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I live in sunny hot Southern California, and we keep it at 75 degrees. If our electric bill were of no concern, we would probably keep it at 70 degrees. We are warm blodded people!
I live in Alabama…it’s sticky hot here and I have no trees for shading the house. My thermostat is on 70 most of the day and around 80 at night. I tried to live without it…but alas I am weak….and really HOT! Ugh…turn on the A/C!!
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We’re just down the road from you…and roasting. I debated even putting makeup on this morning because I couldn’t cool off after my shower! Our AC broke last summer, so we closed all the blinds and turned on the fans, and I was surprised at how comfortable 78 degrees felt. (…however, when it crept up past 80, I had reached my limit!) So after the AC was fixed, I bumped up the programmable thermostat during the day to 78-79. We close the blinds when the afternoon sun comes in, and I keep the ceiling fans running, and we’re all comfortable. We have it set around 74-75 at night because I can’t sleep when it’s hot.
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I have lived in Texas for just over 6 years after growing up in chilly Seattle. The first summer I probably set our’s around 72 but slowly set it higher and higher to get acclimated to the temp around here. Now we keep it at 78 or 79 most of the summer. We keep ceiling fans going at night, and keep blinds closed on the sunny sides of the house. I dress for the warmth and am very comfortable with the temp, and our utility bills! I think that’s pretty good for a lover of the cool Seattle weather for 36 years!
We live in an old house (in central TX) w/ window units instead of central AC; they are set at 78-80 during the day. At night we bump the bedroom unit down to 74-76 so we can sleep comfortably. We use ceiling fans in all main rooms. I actually blogged about keeping cool a little while ago:
http://thewhirlygirl.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/keeping-your-cool/
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We have been in our house in Keller, TX since it was built 8 years ago. I try to keep the a/c at 78-79 during the day and my husband turns it down to 76 at night. When we 1st moved in it seemed to cool a little better than it does now. I think we need to update our insulation. I do have a ceiling fans on when we are in a room, but I have really been trying to turn them off whenever we are not there. It does no good if you are not in the room…it only uses electricity if you are not in the room to feel it.
We normally keep ours set at 78. We use the ceiling fan in our bedroom at night. It helps keep this *hot flash-y* lady a bit cooler. 😉
If the forecast calls for overnight temps around 60 or below, we open the windows to cool it down and then close them by 8:00/8:30 a.m., and we keep the blinds closed during the day as well. That makes a huge difference.
Austin TX
We keep ours in the day at 82.
And at night at 80.
And keep all the shades and dark blankets on the windows.
Still very comfortable.
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I live in a apartment in Philadelphia. It stays hot here even at night! My sister and I also keep the blinds down. We do not have an air conditioner. We spray the house with water and keep the air moist when it too dry. It helps the air quality, and helps us from getting headaches from the heat. Merci alex
As you know we just moved so I haven’t received our first electric bill yet. We have 2 zones, the upstairs and the downstairs/ basement. I keep the upstairs at 82 during the day (no on is up there) and the downstairs at 80, then at night the upstairs is at 78 and the downstairs at 82. Our house is hot! I am waiting until I get the first bill to decide if I want to kick it down a notch or so.
We live in the D.C. area. I cannot wait for fall!
Toni
.-= The Happy Housewife´s last blog ..Prolong the Life of Your Razor =-.
We are in Athens, GA. We like temp set at 76, but never can get it down below 80 so it will run all day trying to get temp down. I have found that if I use my dehumidifier then I can get temp down to 77. Guess we are too humid in our area for AC to run properly.
When we moved down here to the Tampa area, we learned to also run our air conditioning throughout the whole summer. But we keep ours between 83-85. If we have guests, we put it down to 82, and we also run our ceiling fans. We never put it below 80.
We live close to the Texas coast (halfway between Houston and Galveston) and, during the summer we kick up the a/c to 85 about as soon as we wake up (5a.m.). We close the blinds on the sunny side and open them on the shady side. Around 6p.m. we drop the temp to 80 and then to 75 by the time we start putting kids to bed at 8p.m. Our fans are on constantly. When it’s too hot for words we visit the library or some other place to use, as my grandmother used to say, “other people’s air conditioning”. We live in an older home (read: lacks insulation) with very little shade thanks to Ike. Two refrigerators, an all electric house, and kids don’t make for low bills so we do what we can to save. In the winter the process is reversed. We set the temp around 78 at night and 65 during the day.
I know that we aren’t as frugal with the thermometer as we could be. We keep the temp. set at 70 during the day in the winter. My elderly mom lives with us and we need to keep her comfortable.
Even at 70 I get cold and wear a sweatshirt, lol!
We live in WA and don’t have an a/c. Man, did I want one this summer when temps got up to 107. My makeup was actually melting off my face in my home!
It was about 100 inside with the fans on at 9:00 p.m. at night. So we spent alot of our time in the basement where it had cooled to the 80s.
But the heatwave is not usual weather for us. It usually will get up into the 80s and occasionally the 90s. We do without an a/c and just suffer. You get used to it after awhile but the triple digits was miserable, even with fans.
We are 76-77ers also. With ceiling fans in every room and an additional box fan in the bedroom, it’s comfortable. We also keep the blinds and curtains closed and use as little extra electricity as possible. Cooking involves way less oven and more sandwich/salad/no cook options. Several years ago we blew insulation into the attic which was a huge help.
Stay cool!
I’m in north central Texas, too, and my preference is 77-78. I’m okay with an inside temp up to 79 but once the house hits 80 I am MISERABLE. I be quite happy at 76, but I’m okay giving up a couple of degrees.
Incidentally, the mobile home we have lived in for the past 5 years is so old and leaky and the a/c system so old and inefficient, that we would run it at 80 and it would run nonstop, never kick off, and it would still get up to 90 in the house in the middle of the summer. Our electric bills were outrageous, upwards of $400 at the peak of the summer (for a 1000sqft house!). And the opposite was true in the winter. So last fall we completely turned it off. We enjoyed the comfortable weather when we could with open windows. We ran space heaters when it was cold. And our highest bill at the peak of winter never even reached HALF of what it was the previous year. And we actually felt warm. Now we’re heading into summer and we’re buying window a/c units and we’re hoping they don’t cost too much too run. BUT.. the most interesting part of this story: the electric bills in the fall and spring, when we never ran heat or air conditioner, were almost double when the a/c unit was on but not running, than they were the past fall and spring with no unit, no heaters, etc. The unit itself, just being ON, was using too much electricity. So the moral of the story? I guess it would be to get your systems serviced, keep them up, repair them as needed. (And I wonder if you could get in the habit of completely turning them off in spring and fall when you don’t need it?)
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