66 Degrees is My Threshhold, What is Yours?

KatWill said:

littlesmokey said:

WHAT????? I'm not trying to bake potatoes in my place. If it's 65 inside I have to open the windows :-S I'm on a maximum conservation campaign this year. Wouldn't think about walking around without a sweater or two on. Besides, there's no cold shock going outside, and I save on the heater in the van, and I don't have to empty the ashes in the stoves or haul wood or pellets or ..... well, you get the idea, I'm cold lazy... %-P

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I was born and raised in the Caribbean Islands so Im less resistant to cold. The wife is the same.

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Gotta ask . . .

Which island/nation?

As much as I love winter in Maine I have discovered just how nice it is to escape down to the Caribbean for a week in middle of the winter.

Oil boiler thermostats are set at 60 degrees . . . other than this past weekend when we went to CT to visit Edthedawg . . . well, actually I was visiting (and freezing) my brother-in-law. . . the oil boilers have not come on.

Normally we keep the house around 68-74 degrees . . . in the shoulder seasons when the fire is not going 24/7 we will tend to start the fire up when interior temps dip down to 62-66.

My oil burner keeps the house at 70, once the stove starts the furnace never comes on again. When it is above 40 outside the stove warms the house to 78 or above and I usually have a few windows open. When the temp drops in the winter the house is a cozy 74.

I go by feel, but 66F is pretty warm!

Heating a rather large house with two floors it's somewhat hard to give a single temperature that is comparable to what everyone else is reporting. The difference in temps in the house is rather wide from one end of the house to the other, at least when we are in this "one fire a day or less" time period. It seems that when we are burning it evens out after a bit, or when we are not burning at all, but during the heat up and cool down period there is a swing in temps as the convection loops build and collapse..

However, the general temp for us is around 62-65 to light up depending on the direction the temperature is headed. I have been lighting up in the mornings for the most part - generally have a pretty good idea the night before whether or not I will burn but make final call when I get up. If the house is 62 then we burn, 65 and the forecast needs to be for a cold day to get a fire going.

Tough one for me right now is deciding whether or not to burn at night. We've done a few overnight burns. Seems that with the temps outside above 40 we lose at most 3-4 degrees overnight which isn't bad if we start out at 68-70 range. However get into the 30's and we lose a lot more pretty quickly - not sure of the math involved there yet. I know there will come a point pretty quick here when we'll be burning every night and get into 24/7 mode. I am of course rather looking forward to it (although not the wood burn carry/burn rate). It will be nice when I don't have to kindle a fire in the mornings - a quick 10-15 minutes from coals will be a welcome change.

60f is what we let the house sink to when in shoulder season. We have 0f now [daytime high] and I am starting to have partial overnight burns [1/2 load]. Our home holds the heat better than most that I have read about but then we are insulation fanatics who can never over do it. The main reason for insulation madness is humidity if you run your stove for 1/2 the time your home will not dry out near as much. Wood is our only source of heat.
Everyone is different we think its shirtsleeve weather out side when the temp is -20f or above. Skiing in the buff stops at 25f though.

Since my wife is away at school, and I worked in Antarctica for 12 years, I set the thermostat for 65F. That temp, only to keep the plants in the house happy.

Once the old VC Resolute is up and running at 500F, and the sterling engine fan is rolling, the back of the house is 70F.

Reading all these posts about pets and stoves left me misty eyed. We had two old chocolate labs, Abbey and Breton. They would get so close to the stove their wet fur would steam. I have photos of them dead asleep, heads under the stove.

18 years on, Abbey is gone, but Breton is still with us. Lj, my bride, is coming home tonight. I have the Resolute fired up, with Breton's bed not far away.

They are 2 hours overdue, and her phone goes straight to voice mail. I will keep stoking the stove until they get home.

pen said:

My threshold depends on the time of day and ambient temp.

If it's 66+ in the AM when I wake up, and daytime temps will be in the 40's, the fire is going out.

If it's 70 or lower in the evening, and temps are 35 or lower, the fire is getting lit.

Last night it was 73 in the house and low of about 40. Let the fire go out in the evening and it was 69 this morning.

It's all relative.

But in general, I don't like the house much less than 69-70. I am spoiled But, the way I see it, since the heat is the result of my own hard work I don't bat an eye at bringing the whole damn house up to 80 if I am so inclined.

pen

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Well said!

I'm not burning overnight yet, only when the house gets down to the low 60ºF's in the morning I fire it up for awhile. I like a house that's cool, anyway, so it's no problem, but when it's going during the day I get to cook on it some. Save a little electricity by not cooking on the electric stove, and keep the furnace off (it's set at 58º or so) at the same time. Won't be too long before it's 24/7, though. Can't believe how mild this fall has been, though. Makes it easy on the woodpile!