Why do people....?

Question

Turn up their heating in winter and down in summer. Surely if you kept the same comfortable temp in your house all year long it would be fine.

Answer 1

I don't really do either one, I keep my thermostat set on say 72. In the summer, I turn on the air and in the winter, the heater. I don't change the temperature on the termostat and my house stays at the set temp all year long.

Answer 2

That's generally not possible because of humidity and convection. Because the air is drier and has lower pressure during winter, the same amount of heat doesn't go as far. During summer, the air is moister and retains a higher heat index, so air conditioning is necessary. That's how an air conditioner works- it dehumidifies the air. And then there's the ambient temperature of surfaces; an extremely cold surface takes longer to heat up by convection than a hot surface takes to cool down by evaporation or dissapation. So people have to have heat produced by kinetic energy sources to maintain heat during winter, because it takes more energy to produce heat than cool.

Answer 3

Your logic would be just fine if the weather and the way your house is built would be as consistent. Keeping the temperature at one level is nearly impossible in an old house where cold air literally sucks the warm air out of the house through every leak. During hot weather, the opposite is true, and a house can become an ice-box while the temperature outside is soaring. I know - we live in just such an old house. -- Bjo

Answer 4

Um, it could be to do with the fact that in summer the house gets very hot from the sun and retains the heat into the evenings and in winter it doesn't so you do need to turn the heating right up!!

Answer 5

i am so glad someone else is thinking the same thing i do! when i was growing up we had such high bills. my mother would turn the heater to 90 in the winter and the air to 60 in the summer. i hated it.

Answer 6

Unfortunately for us and the environment, houses here are not excellently built for the most part, therefore:
In winter we lose heat through walls, windows etc. so have to turn up heating to compensate.
In summer we gain heat through windows etc. & it gets too hot so must have heating off!
That's my view anyway! I say bring on proper wall insulation, triple glazing (like they have in Scandinavia) and quality builds.

Answer 7

You are a liberal aren't you! The heat from outside sneaks into your house in the summer, and cold sneaks in, in winter. If you lived in a cave, it would be different.

Answer 8

when its cold te tem in th house will get colder so you have to trn onthe heat to make it the normal temperature

Answer 9

Because our bodies and mind cycle. We are not sure what provides us with comfort.

Answer 10

if you had to pay a gas/elect bill every month then you'd realise what a dumb question you've just asked