my heating system is not particularly good at recovering if the heat gets low.
it's 4 zones.
each zone is forced hot air but uses hot water to feed the exchanger.
a hot water boiler heats up when the thermostat calls for it.
the problem is the fans don't kick on till the water is very warm.
if the temperature difference gets to large ~8 degrees, I have to manually override the fans to get the system back to temperature.
that and I work from home so there really isn't a time to set back.

and trust me I'd love to save some oil.

 

I tried setting my thermostat to 65 during the time I'm awake and off while I'm sleeping. My first bill after a few weeks of doing that convinced me that it was stupid of me to pay to heat the whole house while I was using just one room for most of the day.

Since then the heat stays off, and I use a small space heater to keep my office warm during the day. I have it on a timer so it can start warming the office about an hour before my alarm goes off.

 

I just throw another log on the fire too.

 

same here, are you talking full cords or face cords?

 

full cords - in mass we don't use the terms face cords or ricks.

 

I set ours to 68* when home and 60* for when we're at work or asleep.

I set it to come up to 67* just as we're getting up to keep us warm as we're getting ready to go.

If it's a sunny day, we get sun on the back of the house all day, and that makes a huge difference. It can actually get uncomfortably hot in the kitchen even with the heat set to 60*.

 

We had a new energy efficient natural gas heating system installed a couple/years ago (and got a nice tax credit for it ). It has an automatic feature that keeps the heat consistently at 69 degrees and if the temp falls as much as 2 degrees, it automatically heats. If the temperature reaches 72 degrees, it automatically turns on the a/c. We love it and noticed immediately that our gas bills dropped TREMENDOUSLY. Even with the rise in gas prices, at the coldest times of the year, our gas bill has never exceeded $275 in a given month. We use a woodburning old fashioned fireplace downstairs since it is generally cooler there (3 walls are underground), but I get a cord of seasoned fireplace wood (stacked) for $65.00. I've been a customer of the same little older man for YEARS and he saves back wood every year for me since I'm one of his few fireplace customers. Most folks use woodstoves and want smaller cuts and some of them like the green wood that simmers overnight.

FYI, when we had the new system installed I asked specifically if reducing the heat at some given time (evening or whatever) would make a difference since Jim's opinion was that it is more expensive to have to heat up a space that has chilled than it is to keep a moderate temperature all the time. He was correct. The heating/ac people told me that it costs far more to re-heat a house than to keep it at a setting constantly. When a house chills down, all the furniture, etc. chills as well. It costs a lot to have to heat all those things back up. Since I like it cooler at night, I bought a small $15.00 fan that I keep in the bedroom to circulate the air while I'm sleeping. The "white noise" also helps me sleep better.

 

Lately, I have kept the temp consistently at 70 in the condo. I go along with the "not fiddling with the temp" opinion. When I leave town for a few days, I'll turn it down to maybe 65. During the years I had houses, they were heated with oil or gas. And I had fireplaces. I found oil to be very expensive. I prefer natural gas, but the condo is all electric with heat pump. A "colder" heat. I just got what I think is the highest bill so far this winter, which was $71. Not sure how much of that is the heating bill - maybe $60?

 

Heat pumps do use a more moderate heat (more like warm air) rather than a blast of heat like you get from a furnace. My electric bill runs around $75 to $100 a month on average. In the summer, my gas bills drops to $25 or $30 since I then only use it for hot water. There are typically only 2 or 3 months a year that my gas bill even reaches $100. I'm pretty happy with the gas because even if the electricity goes out we still have hot water.

 

a fireplace will suck warm air out of your house