What should you set house thermostat at in the winter when you are out all day and it's about 40 degrees out?

Question

What is most cost effective and safe in terms of pipes freezing?

How about if it is 20 degrees out?

Answer 1

I set my digital thermostat to between 62 and 64 degrees, depending how long I will be gone.

If I'm only gone a few hours (less than a day), then 64 is the answer.
Keep in mind, for this to work in your favor, you have to be gone at least 8 hours.
The reason for this is that when you return, it will consume a considerable amount of energy to raise the temperature back to your own level of comfort, thus lower settings are only cost effective over lengthy periods of time.

You may further need to manually raise the thermostat when you return, mine kicks on the Em Heat if I raise it by 3 degrees or more, so be careful and raise it back slowly and do NOT let the Em(Aux) Heat kick in or you will pay dearly.

If I'm to be gone for more than a day, 62 is better.
If gone for more than 2-3 days, 60 would not hurt.
More than a week?
Set it as low as you can, mine goes all the way down to 40, but I think 50 is the lowest you'd want... Keep in mind the house's temperature will feel a bit hostile when you first come back, and for several hours, so 56-58 may be a better cost-saving option if only in terms of comfort, you have to weigh the pros and the cons here.

As for freezing, there is nothing to worry about so long the outside temps are above 32, but you should always shut off and drain all pipes leading outside (such as water spigots you hook garden hoses up to), and shut these off from inside, usually up underneath the house, there should be some place along the steel, pvc, brass or copper water line.

Answer 2

I bet you get a lot of answers (and different) to this question. If you are coming home, I recommend a setting around 65. Some people like it colder and some warmer. Some will tell you to keep your house at a constant temp. because it's more than the house that is being heated. Furniture will lose and retain heat and eventually almost everything will be at the same temperature. That's one school of thought.

I can tell you that from personal experience we keep our house at 64 from 10pm until 5pm. At 5pm the heat goes up to 68. This seems to be working well. Also, don't close any of the heat vents in any of the rooms. Remember, the furnace is circulating air and was built to have a certain number of return vents as well as outlet vents.

As for pipes freezing, I have a duplex that has been vacant and I keep the temp at 50. Some suggest 55. If you are worried, open the cabinet doors to the pipes so that air can circulate better.

We just had a nice cold spell here in WI where the temps were below zero and we didn't have any issues (knock on wood). Heck, we had a Hi of -4 one day!

Answer 3

I have heard of setting the thermostat as low as 50, especially if you are going to be gone for an extended period of time. If you don't have one you may want to consider a programmable thermostat. You can set it to go higher or lower at different times of the day. If you set it at 60 during the day while you are gone, you can set it to go to 68 or whatever before you come home and when you get home you won't have to wait for the temp to go up. You can also set it to go down after you go to bed and then go up again shortly before you get up. Then it can be set to go down after you leave. The same is true in summer when you use the AC. These do help save energy and are cost effective.

Answer 4

Wellright now it is about 40 degrees outside here in Acushnet, Massachusetts. And I have my heat OFF. Might NOT work for everyone, BUT it sure works for me. If it were like 35 or colder outside I'd have it set for about 60 - 65 degrees inside. OH, just so you'll know I have been heating with a pellet stove for about a month and a half now. So my heater is off completely.

Answer 5

We keep our house at 61 degrees from 10pm until 4pm and 67 degrees from 4pm until 10pm (the hours we're home and up).

Doesn't matter what the temp is outside, that's what we keep it at and we've never had any trouble with pipes freezing, even on the outside walls.