Turning Up the Temperature

Since we moved to Maine, we’ve typically kept our house at a fairly cold temperature in the winter. We have a wood stove and oil heat, and we’ve tried to generally focus on the woodstove as the main heat with the oil heat as backup. So the thermostat has generally stayed at about 55: enough to kick in at night if it gets too cold, but never do more than that.

During the day, we usually have the house in the mid 60s, give or take. That’s a fine temperature if you’re in the kitchen or living room, but the home office is farther away from the woodstove, and so it can get pretty nippy in there. This wasn’t a big problem in the summer, but the times when I’m in there in the winter are trickier.

For the last while, I’ve just been putting up with it. Heading into the kitchen for breaks to warm up when I need them. Then again, it’s also been tricky with our bathroom now that we have Ferris. We’ve tended to keep the bathroom door shut, since we don’t want the dog to drink toilet water. But with the door shut, the bathroom gets no heat. You’d be amazed what a difference a closed door can be in terms of temperature, when all your heat is coming from a single source.

And today, it finally dawned on me. I’ve been still treating the thermostat like I was treating it when we first moved here. Not that I want to throw caution to the wind or anything, but I think we can safely turn it up a bit more now.

“Turn it up a bit” means more like 68 in the house than 64. That might not seem like a huge difference, but it means that we run the oil heat some during the day. Our basement is insulated, so all that heat stays right in the house, which means the floors get much warmer, which means the rooms in the entire house are toastier. Win win.

I don’t think I’ll ever go much higher than that (at least for the next few decades), because I dislike being hot, but there’s definitely something to be said for not being cold, either . . .

What do you keep your indoor temperature set to during the day when you’re home?

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