Determining the best temperature for your home or office is challenging, especially when several people have different ideas of what is comfortable. You also need to consider how drafty your home or office is when selecting a thermostat setting. Cost is a factor as well. Most people desire to save as much money as they can without sacrificing comfort.
Ask for Feedback on Temperature Settings
If indoor temperature is an ongoing source of contention at home or work, it’s important to allow everyone to express his or her preference on the issue. While compromise will likely be necessary, everyone should feel that others heard and respect their indoor comfort needs. People who are always hot or cold no matter the thermostat setting should be willing to take extra measures to remain comfortable.
Once the discussion is done, choose an indoor temperature for seasonal comfort that pleases the majority of the people involved. If it’s impossible to reach a consensus, you may want to consider installing a zoned heating and cooling system that allows you to have different temperatures in different areas of your home or office.
Install a Programmable Thermostat
If you haven’t already, consider buying a thermostat for the home or office that allows you to pre-set the temperature. According to the Department of Energy, you can save between five and 15 percent annually on your heating and cooling bill by installing a programmable thermostat. The savings equates to approximately one percent for each degree you set the thermostat back during a typical eight-hour workday.
One of the major benefits of a programmable thermostat is that you can set it to automatically lower the indoor temperature while people are sleeping. Reducing the indoor temperature after everyone has left for the day is another money-saver. You can program the thermostat for the changes based on your family or employee’s typical daily schedule. Programmable thermostats come in a variety of different models, such as one with weekday and weekend settings and another type that allows you to change the settings for every day of the week. You can manually override the settings at any time.
What Are the Ideal Heating and Cooling Settings to Use?
Most people program their thermostat to make adjustments at the following times:
- One hour before getting up for work
- When leaving the house for the day
- One hour before returning home in the evening
- Upon going to bed for the night
For heating, 70 degrees is an average temperature before waking and before returning home from work. A drop of 10 degrees is appropriate when leaving the house and going to bed. Typical cooling temperatures might be 75 degrees before waking and leaving for work and 78 to 80 degrees when leaving for the day and going to sleep for the evening. Of course, these are only averages and your comfort level may lie outside of these ranges.
