Think about running the heat tonight

[Saltheart]

Might be a good idea to run the heat a little warmer than usual tonight. I usually let most of the house coast at 50 but I'm warming the whole place tonight. With the bitter cold expected , just a spot that leaks air in a corner or through an outlet could cause a pipe to freeze if in the unlucky wrong spot. Might be worth spending an extra $10 tonight just as insurance.

Long ago when I lived in the slums in worcester , we used to keep things really cold in the apartment. One morning there was ice in the toilet bowl no lie.

We often let the water run a trickle in the sinks to prevent freezing on the predicted cold nights (it gets seriously cold in Worcester sometimes). The nights when it did freeze were very cold but not the predicted worst. it was when maybe 0 degrees was coupled with high winds. kind of like tonight. The wind drives that cold into a weak link in the house structure and all it takes is one place to burst to cause a real mess and sometimes a lot of expense.

Anyway , worth thinking about tonight!

[BigFish]

Good advice SH!

[piemma]

-12 in the driveway right now (7:00 AM).
2 wood stoves cranked. 70 in the house. That's an 82 degree difference. I have burned 5 cords of oak so far this winter. I have about 2 cords left. Hope I don't run out. I have another cord down in the woods but the snow is just too deep to get to it.

I have a Yanmar 4WD tractor with logging chains on the rear wheels and a bucket loader on the front and got stuck yesterday afternoon. Snow is 4 feet deep in places and I was trying to bull my way through.

Will try again today but I will dig my way to the wood instead.

[macojoe]

Thank God I have no issues here!! I set at 68 and never touch! Best thing I ever bought is a Digital thermostat .

[MrHunters]

this is very good advice! I just had some pipes freeze.

The oil guy said I kept it too low (at 60 degrees) I told him he was wrong.

Got everything up to 65 with space heaters and such and then called them back in after a full night of torching the pipes.

Same story - your pipes are frozen.

Long story short. Yes they were frozen but only because a check valve seized up. What a pain the a$$ to convince them that you as the home owner think something else is going on with the furnace.

They wanted me to get a plumber which would have been BIG bucks!

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

Might be a good idea to run the heat a little warmer than usual tonight. I usually let most of the house coast at 50 but I'm warming the whole place tonight. With the bitter cold expected , just a spot that leaks air in a corner or through an outlet could cause a pipe to freeze if in the unlucky wrong spot. Might be worth spending an extra $10 tonight just as insurance.

Long ago when I lived in the slums in worcester , we used to keep things really cold in the apartment. One morning there was ice in the toilet bowl no lie.

We often let the water run a trickle in the sinks to prevent freezing on the predicted cold nights (it gets seriously cold in Worcester sometimes). The nights when it did freeze were very cold but not the predicted worst. it was when maybe 0 degrees was coupled with high winds. kind of like tonight. The wind drives that cold into a weak link in the house structure and all it takes is one place to burst to cause a real mess and sometimes a lot of expense.

Anyway , worth thinking about tonight!

50!!!!!

We have a digital thermometer

70 during the day and 66 at night set from 11:30PM to 5:30AM

[MarkB]

I keep my thermostat at 50, and bump it up just enough to turn over the furnace when I'm up and about the house. I don't heat the basement - I closed up the forced air vents - but the heat from the furnace running keeps it above freezing.

I live alone. All I really need is warmth a half-inch around my body at all times. Heating the rest of the air in the house is a waste. So I just bundle up or throw a blanket over me. So that's 18 degree days (68 - 50)worth of oil I save every day of the winter. At $3 per gallon, that's a lot of money. And I dont' feel like I'm suffering. I'm warm right now - my hands are just cool.

[Piscator]

I have young kids and a wife who always fees cold, 50 (even 60) in not an option for me

[pmueller]

I've gone through more wood now than I did all last winter. Man I need a thaw.

[Pete F.]

I don't know what you guys are whining about, this weather station is about 5 miles from my house.
Weather Station History : Weather Underground

[stripermaineiac]

Went down past -20 last night the old Yukon didn't want to start but finally got her going. high was 3 today till after dark then started back down again.

[5/0]

Some interesting temps you Guys keep at you homes,If you are using a programmable t stats keep in mind that you shouldn't set back more than 4* you will not save a dime as an example.

Hey I leave for work at 0700 and get home at 1700 lets spin the t stat down to 50 & then when I get home just turn it up!
Bad Idea,your boiler or furnace will run strait for hours trying to catch up.All of those inanimate objects ,couch bureaus,beds,table hutch etc. in your house are current ambient temps and there wicking cold air and it's migrating toward your base boards or hot air supply registers and it just eating all of that heat dead in it's tracks!
Trust me.

On my up stairs programmable t stat's I have them set from 0500 to 0700 for 68* then fall back to 64* then at 1830 back up to 68* then at 2130 back to 64* main floor and basement are set for 67*.
I understand everybody has a different threshold for comfort so obviously temp ranges will vary.

Depending on your house/windows and how well it's insulated & using a programmable t stat you can save up to 15-20% of fuel

[MarkB]

you shouldn't set back more than 4* you will not save a dime as an example.

Where in the world did you get that idea? Sorry dude, but you're makin' it up and giving very bad advice. The physics of this question is very simple - turn down more, save more fuel. There's no magic 'wicking' to take account of. This is a very simple formula:

1. The more degrees you keep your house above outside temps...

2. for the longer time

the more energy you use.

If you either set your thermostat lower, or keep it lower longer, you will save fuel.

And running the furnace to raise the temperature more than five degrees doesn't hurt the furnace. A furnace is not like a car engine - it's not like you're pulling a load up hill. The furnace always runs at the same rate. To raise the temperature of your house more, it just runs longer. If anything will hurt your furnace, it's cycling on and off, not running for a long time. That's true of any machinery - it's always the cycling that does the damage not the standard running.

[5/0]

[QUOTE=MarkB;830649]Where in the world did you get that idea? Sorry dude, but you're makin' it up and giving very bad advice. /QUOTE]

Ahh really?This is what I do for a living,I fix/repair and sevice on a commercial,idustrial and high end resendtial level,Dude!

I would not pass bad advice to anyone on this site,since I've been here a long time and know most.


Bob

[striperman36]

[QUOTE=5/0;830658]

Originally Posted by MarkB

Where in the world did you get that idea? Sorry dude, but you're makin' it up and giving very bad advice. /QUOTE]

Ahh really?This is what I do for a living,I fix/repair and sevice on a commercial,idustrial and high end resendtial level,Dude!

I would not pass bad advice to anyone on this site,since I've been here a long time and know most.


Bob

bob knows...heat

[zimmy]

This is just what I found on the internet from a website promoting electronic thermostats. Not sure if it is legit or not... As an aside, we have a payment plan with our oil co. We pay a set amount each month. Every year we end up +$500 or so over what they estimate our cost to be. We keep it at 65 now with kids and 60-62 at night. 58 when away. Here is what they say...
Try turning down the thermostat 5 to 10 degrees at night, and then turn it up again in the morning when the coffee is brewing. If you can get used to that, you’ll save 5 to 10 percent of your heating bill.

Once common myth is that when you reduce the thermostat for only a few hours it will take more heat to bring your home back up to the desired temperature. This is not so. You will save money and fuel because your heating system will not have to keep your home so warm. You will use less energy overall even when you warm up your house from a cooler temperature

Read more: 10 Tips for the Thermostat: Your Key to Savings | Care2 Healthy & Green Living

[zimmy]

This is from ca.gov website on energy...

For winter operation, consider setting the thermostat to 55 degrees at night when you sleep and at 68 degrees when you're home. (In colder parts of California, it's not recommended to set the temperature below 50 degrees, because indoor water pipes may freeze.)

[Saltheart]

My house is 1700 sq. ft. I only use about 650 of it. The rest is closed off and kept at 50 all winter long. Back in about 1990 I installed a new heating system. I installed it with 3 zones , one of which is the area I live in , the other two zones is the areas I close off. I remember the gas company guy telling me what a waste to have 3 zones back when I did it.. Guess he wasn't very good at looking ahead at fuel costs. The 3 zones vs 1 zone as originally built has saved me about 4 times the cost of the entire heating system , including the whole furnace , registers and all controls, over the 20 years since I did it. Doing the whole thing myself also saved about half the total cost in the first place. The other good thing is that the fuel just keeps going up and so the annual savings actually increase every year.

[Saltheart]

I'm not taking sides in the setback thermostat debate. What I will say is that in almost all cases , you should do the calculations to really be sure about whats going on. Its just like preparing a budget or estimating the cost of a project. If you do it on the cuff you can often be way off. Best bet is to sit down and write it all out. Now we have the luxury of spread sheets so very accurate calculations can be done on very complicated systems fairly easily.My guess is that the savings with a setback thermostat and how much drop in temp is good will be very sensitive to how long the time interval is between the low temp and high temp swings.

I am not looking forward to doing the heating system again when this one is obsolete. I have not looked into the details myself yet but they tell me the cost of new furnaces , etc has gone way up.

[5/0]

Originally Posted by MarkB

Where in the world did you get that idea? Sorry dude, but you're makin' it up and giving very bad advice. The physics of this question is very simple - turn down more, save more fuel. There's no magic 'wicking' to take account of. This is a very simple formula:

1. The more degrees you keep your house above outside temps...

2. for the longer time

the more energy you use.

If you either set your thermostat lower, or keep it lower longer, you will save fuel.

And running the furnace to raise the temperature more than five degrees doesn't hurt the furnace. A furnace is not like a car engine - it's not like you're pulling a load up hill. The furnace always runs at the same rate. To raise the temperature of your house more, it just runs longer. If anything will hurt your furnace, it's cycling on and off, not running for a long time. That's true of any machinery - it's always the cycling that does the damage not the standard running.

First off I stated nothing more than 4 degrees, if you go grater than that it will take longer to "recover" which would mean what ever you set your temp at your system will run longer than It would have while you were gone(based on 10 hrs.)So this law will apply to any temp.As I stated we all have a different thresholds for comfort,yours just happens to be a balmy 50.

Secondly I didn't say boo about putting stress on the unit,cycling is and can be regulated by stetting dead bands in t stats or you can increase the differential in the heating stages(if your furnace supports more than one stage)or you can also select the amount of cycles per hour on initial start up on a digital t stat or if you have an older merc t stat change the anticipater for amount of degrees so the cycling won't be to close.

Don't go throwing my name out there as giving bad advice Mark,it's not cool, I don't like it.Sso think twice before you go typing away thinking the other guy behind the screen is some young puke just shooting there mouth off.

You copy.

5/0

[joe the plumber]

To MarkB and 5/0.
First and foremost.NO ONE saves money on energy when its 0 or below.Setback tstat or not.These cold days are called "design days" by those of us in the industry.Every boiler or furnace runs at its max rated output.
The best way to save money on your energy dollar is to invest in an outdoor reset control for your boiler.The boilers output is regulated by outdoor temperature.It is a known fact that for every 3degrees F that you can lower a boilers setpoint and still maintain a 68 degree F indoor temp the occupants of the dwelling will see a 1% AFUE.Shoulder days account for about 40-60% of a boiler total annual run time.Do the math....That come out to about 15 to 40% annual fuel savings.
Properly designed or sized systems like the one I describe don't even require a Tstat.Its just stays steady all heat season long.In Europe these controls are LAW! They must be on all heating systems.I have this kind of system in my own home and installed many when I was in buisness.
Just my 2 cents.....

[Saltheart]

Originally Posted by joe the plumber

To MarkB and 5/0.
The best way to save money on your energy dollar is to invest in an outdoor reset control for your boiler.The boilers output is regulated by outdoor temperature....

How does this "outdoor reset control" dohickey work? I never heard of one but it sounds very logical. How would it work on a hot water heating system like I use to heat my house?

Oh yeah , how much does it cost to add to an existing system?

[joe the plumber]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

How does this "outdoor reset control" dohickey work? I never heard of one but it sounds very logical. How would it work on a hot water heating system like I use to heat my house?

Saltheart,
An outdoor reset contol is a mini computer that wires to your boiler's high limit.It uses sensors (usually about 10,000 ohm) that monitor outdoor temp(located on the cold side of the dwelling)and 2 others that are on the boiler supply and return.They wire to the control with ordinary tsat wire.The control measures the resistance of each sensor and is equipt with computor logic that can now modulate the boiler's high limit in accordance to a heating curve within the contol.This heating curve can be adjusted to work on any hydronic heating system.
The heating curve is a "reset ratio".Simply put....If your house requires 180Degree water to keep your home 68 on a 0 degree day,then when the temp outside is 10,the boiler's high limit is now 170.A 40degree outside temp would "reset" your boiler's high limit to 140.Your circ runs 24/7 untill the contol scenses something called "warm weather shutdown"usually 65Degrees outside.The circ now shuts down.
If your boiler makes domestic hot water the reset contol scenses the call and the boiler goes out of modulation and fires up to its normal 180 degree high limit to satisfie the demand.
The return sensor monitors your return water temps and maintains a minimum temp on the boiler to prevent dangerous condensation which can lead to internal corrosion of the boiler.
These controls are made by TACO,TEKMAR,and many others.I also want to add that starting 2012 ALL new heating equiptment MUST be equipt with some kind of "weather responsive control"In the meantime,the control I describe will cost between 350 and 500 dollars.They pay for themselves quickly.
Please contact me with a PM if I can further help you.
Joe

[Slipknot]

Originally Posted by MarkB

Where in the world did you get that idea? Sorry dude, but you're makin' it up and giving very bad advice. The physics of this question is very simple - turn down more, save more fuel. There's no magic 'wicking' to take account of. This is a very simple formula:

1. The more degrees you keep your house above outside temps...

2. for the longer time

the more energy you use.

If you either set your thermostat lower, or keep it lower longer, you will save fuel.

And running the furnace to raise the temperature more than five degrees doesn't hurt the furnace. A furnace is not like a car engine - it's not like you're pulling a load up hill. The furnace always runs at the same rate. To raise the temperature of your house more, it just runs longer. If anything will hurt your furnace, it's cycling on and off, not running for a long time. That's true of any machinery - it's always the cycling that does the damage not the standard running.

You obviously don't know Bob, but many of us do.
Bob does NOT make things up and give bad advice.

I agree with him on the 4 degrees thing for the few hours of setback time.

On the other hand, say you are going away for the week, sure turn it down 15 degrees and save money. I do that to my workshop when I know I am not going to be out there for days, I keep it warm enough so the glue doesn't coagulate when it gets cold. It does take a long time for all the objects to get back up to temp( I have a lot of cast iron), but it's worth it in saving gas.

Also outdoor temps have a lot to do with saving by setting back the t-stat.
4 degrees is a good rule.

your mileage may vary

[Dave Dennison]

I worked 20 years in the heating trade and installed everything from viesmann boilers to Buderus and weil Mclain. I laid over 100,000 feet or more of radiant tubing. Believe me when I tell you I have been there and done it. Even been down to Springfield, Missouri to Watts Radiant for schools and seminars.
Joe the plumber talks about Tekmar and outdoor reset and they do save money and are awesome for people who know how to use them..
The main problem with these controls is most techs do not know how to install them correctly, and forget it when your oil burner guy trys to work on it or troubleshoot it. I know as I spent many years following guys around who did not have a clue and all it took was a simple seminar to learn about them. Usually when installed the outside sensors are put on the wrong side of the house 1/2 the time or they do not program them correctly. My main reason for saying this is that it usually cost the home owner in the end. So I will say that if you do have one of these systems you should learn about it.

It is True that in Germany they actually have efficency police that will shut your system off if it is not up to spec.

In all my years of no heat calls and frozen pipes and this is an understatement when I say in the winter 80-90 hours a week of it, the biggest problem I saw over the years in temps like this was people turning the T-stat back way to far which resulted in frozen pipes.
It is very true that when you turn your T-stat back to far it does make the system work longer to get it back up to temp. And yes it has to heat everything back up again, floors, furniture and everything else in your house..
When you have forced hot water systems and it is this cold you should never turn your t-stat back. Because once you do it stops circulating the water in the system for a longer period of time.
Still water and a cold draft means frozen pipes. You have to remember most forced hot water baseboard is mounted on outside walls.
I leave my T-stat on 68 all winter and never turn it down. I only heat with oil. I have a forced hot air system in this home. I filled my tank back in August and checked yesterday and its between 1/4 and 1/2 so I do not use much oil at all.

To the guy who had a tech tell him his pipes were frozen and they were not and it was a simple check valve, Thats just crazy, Checking for frozen pipes is as easy as closing the purge valve on the zone and opening up the valve to see if water comes out.. If he did not do this than its cut and dry dont pay the bill..
The problem in cold weather like this is that the techs run from house to house for no heat calls and if they have 3 frozen zones in a row than when they get to yours they assume it must be frozen before even checking or troubleshooting it. They fall into zombie mode so to speak.
Boy am I glad I did my time so I can sit in my lazy boy and be warm rather than in a 0 degree crawl space thawing pipes because the homeowner turned down the heat 10 degrees before they went to bed in weather like this.
Nope don't miss it at all....

[BigFish]

Love our forced hot air! Lucky if we burn 275 gallons in a typical season! Forced hot water is expensive for so many reasons!

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by BigFish

Love our forced hot air! Lucky if we burn 275 gallons in a typical season! Forced hot water is expensive for so many reasons!

I have gas forced hot air but I always thought forced hot water was the most efficient?

[Saltheart]

Thanks for the explanation Joe. It makes sense. I'm going to have to look into that thing , even if its just for down the road when I do need to replace what I have. Mine still looks like new. No corosion anywhere.

very informative too Dave. Like a lot of things out there , people just learn a little then get in trouble. I find very few really get in depth info to really master a lot of this stuff.

Most know I'm an Engineer/Scientist (depending on what I was doing at any particular time in my career). I traveled extensively to China, Mexico , and Korea to teach certain engineering topics. It amazes me how some people catch right on while others can repeat what you said verbatim but cannot apply it at all to a real life situation.

I'm learning a lot on this thread!

[Saltheart]

Oh yeah , forgot the hot air hat water thing. When I switched to hot water , the single driver was not economics , it was in resonse to allergy issues both me and my mother had. Some can argue about filters, and vacuuming the ducts etc but both our big allergy issues disappeared immediately when I put the new heating system in. I believe even with a brand new system , we both would have had issues. I think has a lot to do with pet hair and pet dander. We had dogs or cats or both and really loved them so no pets was not an option. Anyway , I don't know about exact numbers but I also though the most efficient water systems now (2011 vintage) were the most efficient. I could be wrong thoufgh as I am just going by what friends have told me who recently updated their own systems and chose hot water.

Maybe 5/0 or Joe or Dave can explain all that to us too. What's more efficient? I also like to know why?

I also had oil heat when I was in CT. I had a huge 14 room house and it had an old steam boiler. very confortable heat. i did however have to redo the system somewhat. I changed the burner nozzle way down from what it was when I bout it. I think the poor old lady was getting ripped off by the oil company. She had her system maintained by the same people who sold here the oil. She had the system fired at 2.25 GPH when I bought the place. Here oil bill was $1600 in 1983. I replaced the nozzle to 0.8 GPH and also ran a hot water heater in series with the boiler. The nozzle change dropped my annual oil cost to about $650 a year and the hot water change resulted in free hot water in the winter and about $20 a month in the summer. Overall I was happy with it once I adjusted everything. The idea of the smaller nozzle was to do as Joe and dave suggested. I wanted the burner to burn just enough to heat the house on the coldest day.

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

Might be a good idea to run the heat a little warmer than usual tonight. I usually let most of the house coast at 50 but I'm warming the whole place tonight. With the bitter cold expected , just a spot that leaks air in a corner or through an outlet could cause a pipe to freeze if in the unlucky wrong spot. Might be worth spending an extra $10 tonight just as insurance.

Long ago when I lived in the slums in worcester , we used to keep things really cold in the apartment. One morning there was ice in the toilet bowl no lie.

We often let the water run a trickle in the sinks to prevent freezing on the predicted cold nights (it gets seriously cold in Worcester sometimes). The nights when it did freeze were very cold but not the predicted worst. it was when maybe 0 degrees was coupled with high winds. kind of like tonight. The wind drives that cold into a weak link in the house structure and all it takes is one place to burst to cause a real mess and sometimes a lot of expense.

Anyway , worth thinking about tonight!

You and my wife must be related