What temperature do you leave your home at

[RobWNY]

Today, I had my furnace guy come for the annual check-up, cleaning etc. I've known the guy for many years. I was telling him that next year we would be spending winter in the South and was planning on setting my furnace thermostat at 50 Degrees. He advised me not to do that. He said 60 Degrees minimum for my high efficiency furnace. He said moisture will accumulate in the heat exchanger if the furnace doesn't cycle enough and get hot enough. The life of the furnace will be reduced. I had never heard of that before. He said to think about it like a car exhaust. If all you do is drive it to the store and back, the exhaust never gets hot enough to evaporate the moisture and it rusts prematurely. He said the same thing happens with these high efficiency furnaces. So what do you think? What type of heating system do you have and what temperature do you leave your thermostat set to when away?

[pawatt]

I am surprised we have not heard from anyone who drains the water and just turns the heat totally off. This is what many in northern Minnesota do.

[joebedford]

jplante4 wrote:
If you have a forced hot water system and leave the system set at 50 or whatever and turn off the water (prudent), be sure you have a source of water for boiler makeup

One of the main reasons I switched from hot water / forced air to propane forced air: I had no way to turn off the water.

The other reason is because they're getting very sticky around here about oil heating and potential for ground pollution.

[Sam_Spade]

jplante4 wrote:
and turn off the water (prudent),

Another little know fact:

If you turn the water OFF, you also should leave all of your faucets cracked open.

Frozen pipes break not because of the frozen water but because of the EXTREME pressure that builds up as the ice plug grows and pushes against the water that is not frozen.

The common advice to let your faucets drip during extreme cold is NOT to bring in warmer water (mostly) but to prevent this pressure should a freeze happen.

And yes, I was told this by an actual expert after I had a pipe freeze and burst.

[jplante4]

A little advise from the "learned the hard way" guru...

If you have a forced hot water system and leave the system set at 50 or whatever and turn off the water (prudent), be sure you have a source of water for boiler makeup. Hot water systems will need to draw water from time to time. Most people have a separate line to the boiler so they can shut off the rest of the house. I did not and over six months the pressure got low enough to munch a circ. pump. I had someone come in to check on things and I mentioned the boiler pressure but he didn't understand so did nothing about it.

Now, if you do supply water to the boiler, make sure you route the P/T valve to a sump with a pump. I had an expansion tank go (while I was home) and the P/T valve lifted when the boiler kicked on and put an inch of water in my basement in just a few minutes.

The so called experts here will say that if a system has no leaks then you shouldn't need makeup water. I operated a nuclear power plant in a previous life (absolutely tight!) and it needed periodic makeup as well.

[Padlin]

I do 50 but it's different equipment then what you have. If my installer/maint folks told me 60, that's what I'd do. But then I've never asked.

[Thunder_Mountai]

We leave ours on 55 degrees. I use a program called TeamViewer running on an old XP computer on our home network and remotely monitor a Davis Weather Pro weather station that gives me inside and outside weather data. I also have a Logitec webcam looking out the window. I check them every morning and have a neighbor on call if there is a problem.

[joebedford]

I set our high-efficiency propane furnace thermostat to 8. Used to be 6 but our low-temperature alarm is set at 4 and one cold, windy night it set off the alarm. This did not amuse our neighbour who had to get out of bed to check it out.

One other time the alarm went off and he had to check it out - furnace was not working. The exhaust is so cold that the water vapour froze and formed an icicle that blocked the exhaust. The furnace detected the back-pressure and shut down.

[ScottG]

What others set thiers to with different kinds of heating equipment really has no bearing on what you should set your high efficiency furnace to.
I would not set it below 60. The difference in gas usage between that and 50 degrees will be minimal and your home will stay drier.

[Lantley]

Sam Spade wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
When we are gone, it's at 45. Never had an issue.

You must have an extremely well built house.
Or you have just been lucky.

Just because you have "gotten away with it" before does NOT necessarily mean that it is a good idea.

Among other things, having it set that low gives you almost ZERO margin incase the heating system fails.

I guess 60 gives more margin but your only talking a few hours difference should failure occur.
Honestly either the furnace is generating heat or it is not. The temperature it is set at really is all about interior comfort.
45, 60, 65, or 70 the furnace just runs longer to get the temperature higher. The longer it runs the more $$$ it cost.
Ambient temperature would be my deciding factor. In the Mid Atlantic 60 may not be a big deal. In New England, Michigan and some colder places 60 can be really costly.

[Sam_Spade]

SidecarFlip wrote:
When we are gone, it's at 45. Never had an issue.

You must have an extremely well built house.
Or you have just been lucky.

Just because you have "gotten away with it" before does NOT necessarily mean that it is a good idea.

Among other things, having it set that low gives you almost ZERO margin incase the heating system fails.

[pawatt]

ROBERTSUNRUS wrote:
🙂 Hi, the builder of our house said to set the thermostat to 62 degrees when ever we take a trip. Last few times that we went on a cruise, or took our trailer out, we just left the furnace at what ever we had it at while living in it. Usually 68 to 70 degrees. Why turn it down? To save a few pennies?

Many snowbirds are gone 6+ months, a 20 degree difference amounts to more than a few pennies. Also many snowbirds become residents of states with no state income tax so they have to stay away for 6 months and a day. At least that is the rule in MN.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

🙂 Hi, the builder of our house said to set the thermostat to 62 degrees when ever we take a trip. Last few times that we went on a cruise, or took our trailer out, we just left the furnace at what ever we had it at while living in it. Usually 68 to 70 degrees. Why turn it down? To save a few pennies?

[ReneeG]

He's your furnace guy that you've known for many years. Take his advice and set it to 60. You don't have the same furnace as us here on rv.net and he knows your furnace.

[ksbowman]

We had a 30 year old heat pump with electric back up. We always set it at 50 when going to Florida for 6 weeks in Jan and Feb and never had a problem. A year and a half ago we had a high eff. Lennox put in with electric back up. Worked fine and reasonable bills till we left last Jan.. Set it at 50 and got a bill for $900. I called the installer and he said we should not set the furnace below 60-65 as it caused the electric back up to work almost constantly. Wish we had the old unit back now, I realize it was way colder than normal last year but I was not expecting a crazy bill like this. We'll try the 60-65 this winter and see what happens.

[fitznj]

55 here in NJ; been doing it for 20? years; never a problem.
I'm on well water so we turn off the pump and drain the lines
before we leave.