What's your preference: 62 degrees inside vs wood heat

snowtime said:

So the idea of sitting on the throne in 62 seems extreme. Back in the early 70s when we first homesteaded we had an outhouse. Took 8 years to get indoor plumbing. Well to make a long story short when its -40 the seat can get a little nippy. Our solution was to get a wood toilet seat and hang it on the wall behind the stove. When someone went out to the can they just took it with them. Worked great as the wood holds the heat a long time.

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Seems there is a "clearance to combustibles" joke in there somewhere...

I run my oil burner 61-63 when I'm home and 57 nights and when I'm at work. I pay a lot to be this cold. My 9yo son doesn't seem to mind at all. Myself, I am looking forward to being warm and paying less to be so.

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:

I run my oil burner 61-63 when I'm home and 57 nights and when I'm at work. I pay a lot to be this cold. My 9yo son doesn't seem to mind at all. Myself, I am looking forward to being warm and paying less to be so.

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That is when the heat from a wood stove is really appreciated.

Knowing previous years I would have been in fleece jackets, thermal socks, thick sweat pants, and my hands would be ice cubes, I REALLY enjoy looking up at the thermostat above my computer and seeing that it is reading 80 degrees as I sit here in a short sleeve shirt with the stove skipping along at 425 degrees.

It is also really, really nice getting into bed with the bedroom at 62-65 instead of 50, since we would normal keep the upstairs closed off since we aren't up there much during the weekday.

Next year the entire upstairs will be 65-75 no matter what the outside temps will be. This will make me giggle like an idiot several times during next winter.

northwinds said:

I've got a friend who keeps his house at 60, and I'll bundle up in sweaters if we spend the weekend over there.
On the other side, he constantly complains that our house is too hot. Different strokes for different folks. I'll
take the warm wood heat, but can put up with a cold house for short periods if the beer is free. I will say his
wife loves to come stay at our house.

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Once you get a beer coat, you're good to go!

60 is great for sleeping, i have to keep my bedroom door shut so it doesnt get to hot in there rest of my house is 70 to 80 all day with stove going between 400 and 600. i have gas heat set at 60 hardly ever comes on.

We always kept it 65 with the gas funace. Freezing, always cold. The fireplace made things worse the
all of the draft. This year however, is the first with the new stove. Have been burning since October.
It is always 74 to 80 in here now. And still find the wife near the stove quite often. I always know
where to find her...hehe.
Would not go back now. Sure is nice to be as warm as you want. I have had it 82 before. But
had to open up the house door to cool it off a bit. OH, and if your unwanted guests stay a bit long,
Just open up the stove a bit... Works like a charm......Gone in 15 minutes...Been waiting for the power
to go out, but no luck yet.. It is nice to have heat no matter what. And there is rarely any smoke coming
out of the chimney. Thats kind of nice....
Have a good one!

62 or even 60 is great for sleeping or even if you're active around the house, cleaning or building something. Not so good for watching TV etc. We're night and weekend burners and most nights there's a fire going...stove room in the high 70's/low80's rest of the house low 70's.But, if we're coming home late and only want to watch TV for an hour before bed I won't bother with a fire. I'll say this much, watching TV at 68 feels damn primitive now that I'm spoiled with wood heat. The wife would never settle for 62 all the time.

We are in an old farmhouse on the very top of the hill. Back before this year when I installed a chimney in the central part of the house, put in an Oslo, and replaced most of the windows, it wasn't unusual for the back bedrooms to be 45 degrees on cold windy nights. You could see your breath.
Now it's a lot warmer up there. Funny thing is, my three daughters were never bothered by it. Now I'm afraid they are going to get soft. I'll have to get them out chopping wood to keep them tough.

We keep the Therm at 75-77. I know thats high but my wife is used to a tropical climate and shes still cold at 76.
Plus as long as were not burning oil or Nat gas to get to 76 i don,t mind.

80 + doesn't matter what kind of heat solar (sun) gas. wood. oil, :ahhh: Just like it warm.

here at my desk my thermometer currently reads 78.1 degrees and its comfy to my wife and I ... we like high 70's or the blankets get put on ...if it dips down into the mid 60's early i n the morning we would be freaking out and loading up the wood furnace,i could not imagine 62 on a regular basis.. thats nonsense to live like a frontiersman in an old cabin i n this day and age ,have the lad pony up and get some wood heat in that house !

the thermostat is set at 60 and if i get up early enough it only dips to 65. 70 is the most we get the house up to . i wear a warm sweater , thick sox and a hat. when the house gets down to 60 it takes a whyle to warm up. i am greatfull to have a good stove and plenty of wood. pete

62 is way too cold for us. When we used the oil furnace, pre wood stove, we had the heat at 69 during the dayand 67 at night. Unless, we were running out of oil and were broke, then we had it at 64 at night and 67 during the day. My wife is always home with at least one of our kids. Now a days 69 is cold. 74-77 is perfect. We are all spoiled.

lexybird said:

i could not imagine 62 on a regular basis.. thats nonsense to live like a frontiersman in an old cabin i n this day and age ,have the lad pony up and get some wood heat in that house !

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It's 62 around the thermostat. Most vents are shut, so kitchen, bedrooms are ~55. We are huddling around the thermostat :lol:

And yeah, I'm working on it!

snowtime said:

So the idea of sitting on the throne in 62 seems extreme. Back in the early 70s when we first homesteaded we had an outhouse. Took 8 years to get indoor plumbing. Well to make a long story short when its -40 the seat can get a little nippy. Our solution was to get a wood toilet seat and hang it on the wall behind the stove. When someone went out to the can they just took it with them. Worked great as the wood holds the heat a long time.

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We had an out house while living in a house in the middle of the woods while attending college. It was cold sitting on the wood seat so we we built a seat out of Styrofoam. As soon as you sat down it was / felt warm. As soon as we installed that we thought we were living high on the hog. A lesson learned though, do not shoot a gun while sitting in an outhouse. The noise is shocking.....

Herbster said:

do not shoot a gun while sitting in an outhouse. The noise is shocking.....

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yeha ill remember that one next time im in the backyard on the john lol

Actually I was trying to take care of a couple of pesky red squirrels that were teasing the dogs. They use to get in between the insulation and the roof in our house and run around, driving us nuts.

The only time we feel the cold is when we play in the snow! The boys love to do their reading in front of the fire every night! It's not 62 in there. Wet boots and coats go near the stove too. My 6 year old watches me re-light the fire every morning before I drive them to school.

Our house seems cozy enough for us, but by comparison it seems like we keep it a bit lower than the norm here on hearth.com. For the most part, our oil is now only back-up and hot water. It takes days or nights in the single digits for it to kick on at all. But if it's in the mid-teens and higher and not very windy, the homestead alone keeps the first floor in the mid-sixties, which is ideal for us. Pre-wood stove we had thermostats set at 62 during the day and 58 at night. In the early a.m. and late afternoon we'd bump the kitchen to 64, and that was livin' large. Sometimes I'd get busted skooching the kitchen temps to 66. Now with a wood stove, the same temps feel warmer, so we still keep things relatively low, but feel just fine. In fact, anything north of 65 and we're toasty.

These days our thermostats (there are 4) for the oil are set to:
1) off in the LR/office (where the Homestead is),
2) 62 am/ 58 day / 55 night in the kitchen/dining/family room, and this is just as a back up. Once the stove is going, 1st floor ranges from low 60s to 67,
3) off in the master bedroom above the LR (where the stove is). we like it 58-ish for sleeping, if it gets above 60 it's too hot and neither of us sleep well,
4) 58 day/60 after dinner/58 overnight in the kids' rooms. If it's a cold night and we've been out all day, it takes a while to heat from the stove downstairs to reach these rooms, so we'll bump this to 62 just to get the kids settled for bed, but once they're in bed, I knock it down to 58 again, and they don't mind at all.