what temp do you set your thermostat when away from home?

 

This past weekend I set it at 60F, which I know is a bit too high when noone is home. Just some of the paranoia of the cold temps.

In my single days I was unafraid to do 50F. Nothing ever happened.

I measured the temp in the basement and it was 55F when the house was 65F.

At times, I wonder what the relationship truly is between home temps, and the actual places the pipes are.

Aren't they deliberately inside of the exterior walls by 1"+?

p.s. the hatch on my wife's SUV simply didn't work at all Sat. morning to afternoon. Then, Sat. evening it worked. I don't mean motor struggled etc., I mean it didn't even activate at all, then it did. Never happened before and it was about 12F.

60 degrees

When we are away I will set the temperature at 60. You can always go lower because if the heat goes out, it doesn’t matter what temperature you have set. I just do it that way so that the furnace doesn’t have to work as hard to get the temperature back up when we return home.

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With God, all things are possible. ——State motto of the Great State of Ohio

58

its set to 58 over night. That's where i hold it also when we go away in the winter. My problem more over was last year my water line froze. I quickly figured out it was the air vents for my gas hot water tank. One is 7' high and one is 4" off the ground. We get 25 mph winds often. That cold air at -10 or what ever it was last year blew right at the side of the hot water tank and down onto the cold water pipe. Plugged the vent and all has been good. We has -20 this year and no issues.

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2 DriveSmart 65's - We do not live in Igloo's and do not all ride to work on snow mobiles.

Don't Change Mine,

cause the cat would have a fit.

--
"As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend." - James Russell Lowell Garmin StreetPilot C330, Garmin NUVI 765T, Garmin DriveSmart 60LMT

For some reason we have a

For some reason we have a set of pipes that run along an exterior wall. Some years back we experienced a frozen and burst pipe. Not fun at all!!

Now, vents stay open in the winter in the basement. Nightly tstat temp under normal circumstances (outdoor temps ~@20F or so) is 65F. During this recent cold snap where it got down to -9F, night time tstat was 66F.

Actual tstat temp is set 1 degree higher, with a delta of -1F. So 66F and 67F respectively. During the day time it's set to 68F (kicks on at 67F). There's a senior citizen that rarely leaves the house so away temp doesn't really get used much.

If no one is home for more than 2 hours, tstat will automatically reduce setpoint by 1F.

Also, sharing actual numeric values is a bit pointless. Each tstat/thermometer is calibrated differently. My 68F might by your 70F.

Do you feel lucky?

johnnatash4 wrote:

At times, I wonder what the relationship truly is between home temps, and the actual places the pipes are.

Aren't they deliberately inside of the exterior walls by 1"+?

I generally set them to hold at 60F. It is unpleasant to enter the house when it is a lot colder than that, and the furnaces take a while to get up to temp.

As to frozen pipes, local codes and practices vary, but all you really know is that most of the houses are built so nothing pops for the usual cold temperature extremes at that location. When it gets a lot colder, you find out whether you were lucky with the measures taken by the people who built your house.

I have a friend who lives in a pretty upscale neighborhood of The Woodlands, near Houston TX. When Texas had the big cold spell which took so many power production facilities offline, about 10% of his neighbors had pipes which froze and burst. That would have been a bad few days to set the thermostat extra low, but it mostly did not matter, as without power the thermostats were exerting no control.

--
personal GPS user since 1992

Setbacks

I had this same discussion, how low do you set your thermostat, with neighbors going away for the holidays with unusually cold temperatures (for us) in the forecast. One wanted it at 60. Another wanted it at 50. At 50 in particular, it's recommended to keep your sink cabinet doors open and faucets with supply pipes running inside exterior walls (common here) dripping slowly to prevent freeze-up. It's also important to remember to disconnect hoses etc. from outside taps, even freeze-resistant ones, because they're not guaranteed to stay unbroken by ice if something's connected to them; they can't drain out all water when connected.

Here in coastal NC, people generally have heat pumps, not furnaces/CAC, and houses have no basements. Heat pumps can be slower to recover temperature changes on the thermostat than furnaces/CAC. So setback thermostats (that automatically reduce heating or cooling at night and whatever other hours you're away regularly) are not recommended for heat pumps. In terms of energy use, it's cheaper to keep a steady temperature than bounce up and down during the day and night, because of the slower recovery of heat pumps.

Our heat pumps have an emergency heat mode which kicks in automatically in our house when the set temp for heat mode is 2+ degrees above current temp, and you don't really want to use emergency heat mode unless it's really an emergency, because the electric meter spins like crazy when it runs. We do reduce heat set temperatures when we go away for 5+ days, but only to 60, and then when we return home, we manually raise the set temp a degree at a time.

--
"141 could draw faster than he, but Irving was looking for 143..."

What about shutting the water off?

I think if I was leaving for an extended period, shutting of the water might be a good idea.

That is, shut off the main valve and water heater then open both hot/cold taps to drain the pipes entirely. Nothing to freeze if they're empty.

If doing the above, I'd be ok with setting a low temp of 60ish for the tstat.

On our new furnace (3 week bryant 915sb series), the manual says it's designed to run ok with 60F return temp, and occasional 55F, but no lower. Lower temps may damage the heat exchanger.

Interesting read - https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/threads/1675591-Setting-thermostat...

Off, Even in Winter

That may not last, given the weather extremes that seem to be occurring with Climate Change, but so far it has not been needed here in Southern California.

I grew up in "real weather", so I have appreciated the convenience of not worrying about freezing pipes for the last 60 years. Plus, living about a mile from the ocean has allowed us to live comfortably without air conditioning until 5 years ago.

Ironically, weather was of zero concern when I moved here, as the decision was based entirely on a job offer from Douglas Aircraft.

- Tom -

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XXL540, GO LIVE 1535, GO 620

Are the pipes really empty?

zx1100e1 wrote:

What About Shutting The Water Off?

That is, shut off the main valve and water heater then open both hot/cold taps to drain the pipes entirely. Nothing to freeze if they're empty.

It may not be true for all homes, but at least for some, there will be water left in some areas of the supply pipes even with all taps open.

Turning off the main valve will prevent flooding when you're away should the pipes freeze, break, then thaw, but I'd worry about what could happen when the main valve is turned back on if any pipe had broken.

For folks with built-in lawn sprinklers, the water supply is turned off, then compressed air run through the system to remove all water.

Depends

Every home is unique and we all have different temperature tolerances. Lowering the thermostat is all well and good to save money on fuel but all it takes is one burst frozen pipe to wipe out many years of savings.

The temperature you choose at night or when you're away will likely depend on your comfort level and how quickly your heat source can raise it to a comfortable level again.

In our case, we heat with coal and I found through experimentation that turning down the thermostat at night actually uses more fuel than maintaining a steady temperature. The coal stove is far less efficient when burned at lower temperatures.

For the best efficiency, we keep the temp at constant 69 degrees in the living areas. The bedrooms stay cooler at around 63 since they are farther away from the stove.

When we're away, we extinguish the coal stove and use the mini split heat pump set to 62 degrees. We also use the heat pump to make temporary temperature adjustments.

The savings you get from turning down the thermostat depend on the heat source, fuel costs, your lifestyle and your home itself. The only way to know for sure is to experiment but if you do, use caution to avoid the misery of frozen pipes.

Humidity etc

I think 60F/15C is sufficiently low. Too low and you could have issues with humidity, in the attic, the walls, and dripping off the windows and patio doors.

Your insurance probably requires that you have someone checking the house on a regular basis. Otherwise, they might say " Sorry, for your luck!!". Be sure to have the person check your fridge & freezer. You can have that same person take your thermostat off of Vacation Hold a day or two before you return, to make the house warm & toasty for you.

If you have a Nest thermostat, or something similar I'm sure you can have it notify you if the temperature drops too low, because of a power or furnace problem. Just be sure you use a secure password. Same for electronic locks. Personally, I've seen reports that show how easily they can be hacked and played with.

I'm sure you can get some sort of simple security device that could also notify you.

Also be sure to have your driveway cleared of snow and your mail picked up or stopped. My first reaction when I see snow in a driveway for more than a day or tow is that they're either away and prime for a B&E, or they're just lazy idiots.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

temperature

I set it at 60 degrees when I am not home. However, the battery on the thermostat died and failed to hold the temperature when I wasnt home and I just had a pipe break on the second floor.

Did you have a power outage?

I ask because a usually a thermostat is powered by either 12 or 24 from the furnace. The battery is just a back up.

bsp131 wrote:

I set it at 60 degrees when I am not home. However, the battery on the thermostat died and failed to hold the temperature when I wasnt home and I just had a pipe break on the second floor.

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Nuvi 2460LMT.

this

weekend was particularly worrisome due to the single digit temps.

While away from home, a few times the Trane showed disconnected from the internet. Who cares, right? No different than if you went to look at security cams and they were all offline. What are you truly missing, and what can you do anyway?

I ran a speedtest from the FiOS app and the internet was not down.

I posted on another forum and there someone said they set it at 60F when not home for no other reason than to be able to come up to the right temp when home, in a reasonable timeframe. One point they made was that if your heating were to fail, it really doesn't matter what temp you set it at, especially given you are not home. In other words the temp setting didn't bring on a disaster...

I was fearless with the old 78% system and mercury thermometer, going barely above 50F. Seems like the smart thermostat and new system has made a man baby 60F'er out of me lol

I'd be too paranoid not to

I'd be too paranoid not to be home during such extreme weather. Or at the least have someone check the house daily.

Battery being a backup isn't necessarily true

pwohlrab wrote:

I ask because a usually a thermostat is powered by either 12 or 24 from the furnace. The battery is just a back up.

bsp131 wrote:

I set it at 60 degrees when I am not home. However, the battery on the thermostat died and failed to hold the temperature when I wasnt home and I just had a pipe break on the second floor.

The battery being a backup isn't necessarily true. I have a Honeywell that only uses batteries. (4) AA's keep it going for about 2 years. When I make the change from heat >> cold >> heat I check for the battery symbol on the display.

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John from PA

found out late last night

that an aunt's pipes burst in SC, and she cannot get a flight back from NJ to SC.

I'm going to ask but not right now, what was the house set to, or, was it off?

Again, I'm trying to understand that if heating the house while away even matters.

When I measured house at 65F, the area around the pipes was 55F. And the outside was about 10F.

How would this change if house were 50F? Or the outside 25F? I guess we'll never know unless we try, and that's impractical and unscientific. If I were to conduct my own experiment, it would be neither reliable nor valid...

A common thing that bursts is the piping to the outside hose bib

A common thing that bursts in semi cold climate is the piping to the outside faucets. People are not used to turning off the inside stop valve and draining the line. Newer homes have an anti-freeze type valve where the valve is well within the home, and turning the outside hand wheel, which is on a long rod, actually closes the valve well within the basement.

Our neighbor, formerly from Florida, when he first moved here was unaware of the basement mounted stop valve and its importance. Unfortunately, on a return trip to Florida, he became aware the hard way when a neighbor called him to advise water was running down his driveway.

Unfortunately, common sense has become very uncommon.

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John from PA

growing

John from PA wrote:

A common thing that bursts in semi cold climate is the piping to the outside faucets. People are not used to turning off the inside stop valve and draining the line. Newer homes have an anti-freeze type valve where the valve is well within the home, and turning the outside hand wheel, which is on a long rod, actually closes the valve well within the basement.

Our neighbor, formerly from Florida, when he first moved here was unaware of the basement mounted stop valve and its importance. Unfortunately, on a return trip to Florida, he became aware the hard way when a neighbor called him to advise water was running down his driveway.

Unfortunately, common sense has become very uncommon.

up in CT, that was something my dad always did, before winter. So when I bought my own home in 2002, it's the first thing I looked for, front and back. But, being a 1952 house? It didn't have any shutoffs.

So until the pandemic, there was no shut off for the front. For the rear, basically, there was a valve that shut off 2 rear hose bibs, and I had cranked it down so hard, I never opened it again, until 2020, when I took a chance because closed I cannot have any water to the rear. One time when a plumber was over, he said, he was not willing to work on it based on what I said (one could see the handle piece was broken off). He said he would have to remove it altogether and based on what seems to be the previous owner playing bob vila, he'd have to redo everything to the tune of $250. I ended up doing without water to the rear, which is very inconvenient as that's where the garden is.

Come the pandemic and working from home, I put in shark bites front and rear, and now they are shutoff during the winter, and easily opened for the spring. The other valve remains open and left alone, as the shark bite is forward of it. I actually don't even use the front.

So interestingly enough, in SE PA, from 2002 to 2019, the front was never shut off during the winters, and there was never a problem. That's why I wish I could find any correlation between having to leave the heat on, and protecting the pipes....maybe there is none....

Our house is rarely truly empty

So heat stays between 64-66 depending on how frugal I’m feeling…at $5.50/gal affording heating oil is an issue this winter

--
"You can't get there from here"

My Temps Settings

Winter 60 Summer 78 so far its been working for me.

Remote from the Road.........

We have 2 heat pumps with electric back up and each has a Lyric Wi-Fi thermostat, so when we travel, I switch to the electric mode and set the temp about 55˚, but monitor the weather and make occasional adjustments from wherever we are.

The only problem would be if the electric went out for an extended period in freezing weather, so we just do not travel during December, January, and Febuary.

We have another house on our property with basic electric heat and thermostat. No resident. It stays about 55˚. Never had a problem in over 20 years, but it has a low point drain a friend, with key, could open if necessary. Same for our main house.

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rvOutrider

Same here...

LMChu wrote:

Winter 60 Summer 78 so far its been working for me.

Same here when not at home... Winter: 60 Summer: 78. When home, 72 year-round.

same here

Set temperature at 64 in winter and 78 in summer.
I also lower water heater temperature when we will
be away for extended period.

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nuvi 2460LMT

In the wet PNW

In the Pacific Northwest, where it's pretty wet in the winter, I keep it always at least 60F to reduce the chances of growing mildew.

Very low

I was just away for almost a week (live in Connecticut) and set the temperature at 43º F. I do not have any piping along the walls, all piping is well inside, away from external walls. So for me, no worries about low temperatures. I do turn off the electric water heater while away.

I do have SensorPush sensors all around the house to monitor temperatures and humidity in many rooms and the basement. Also have the SensorPush gateway to see what's happening when I'm away. Works great. It was cold when I was away and the indoor temperatures got down to the mid 40º F while outside temperatures were in the single digits.

I also use Eve Energy smart outlets to control outlets and monitor energy consumption. Interesting to see how much less the refrigerator runs when the kitchen temperatures get low, and the small bumps in kitchen temperature when the refrigerator does run.

We do not have a remote control thermostat, so I used a small room heater and turned it on about 2 hours before we got home to warm up the living room a bit.

--
When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

Diesel, good use of relatively simple technology

I do something similar, just not quite as low as you except on extended trips.

With respect to the water heater, I shut it off, as well as the house water supply. When I return I use that opportunity to drain the hot water heaters, something most manufacturers recommend about 2 to 3 times a year to extend the life. I actually do this under pressure instead of a gravity drain and quite a bit of crud comes out.

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John from PA

refrigerators in cold environment

About 25 years ago we bought a new refrigerator, and moved the old one into an attached, unheated garage. We learned the hard way not to keep any frozen food in the freezer compartment during the winter. We just kept seldom-used, excess stuff out there, and upon opening the freezer sometime in late winter, found a thawed mess. What I suspect happened was, since the ambient temperature in the garage was probably in the 30s and low 40s, the compressor barely had to run at all to keep the fridge compartment at the set temperature. I'm guessing that the control logic, and/or duct design, in that fridge favored the refrigerator temperature, and if it was at the proper temperature, the freezer compartment temperature wouldn't trigger the compressor to run.

This was a 40+ year old fridge, and maybe a more modern one wouldn't do this. Don't know, since I haven't had a fridge in the garage in years. If I had to do it again, I would just buy a cheap chest freezer to keep in the garage to avoid this issue.

You should check before

You should check before buying, single purpose freezers don't fare very well in low temp environments either.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

Make Sure..

rocket_scientist wrote:

About 25 years ago we bought a new refrigerator, and moved the old one into an attached, unheated garage. We learned the hard way not to keep any frozen food in the freezer compartment during the winter. We just kept seldom-used, excess stuff out there, and upon opening the freezer sometime in late winter, found a thawed mess. What I suspect happened was, since the ambient temperature in the garage was probably in the 30s and low 40s, the compressor barely had to run at all to keep the fridge compartment at the set temperature. I'm guessing that the control logic, and/or duct design, in that fridge favored the refrigerator temperature, and if it was at the proper temperature, the freezer compartment temperature wouldn't trigger the compressor to run.

This was a 40+ year old fridge, and maybe a more modern one wouldn't do this. Don't know, since I haven't had a fridge in the garage in years. If I had to do it again, I would just buy a cheap chest freezer to keep in the garage to avoid this issue.

The model you get is labeled "garage Ready". These units compensate for low ambient temps.

We turned water heater off

mariner wrote:

Set temperature at 64 in winter and 78 in summer.
I also lower water heater temperature when we will
be away for extended period.

We had a gas water heater, with electronic ignition and our gas provider just told us to turn it off, when we were away. It took no more than about 15-20 minutes and we had water that was at least warm enough to wash with.

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

Peace of Mind

For those that are unnerved and concerned with the unknown, get yourself several SensorPush wireless smart sensors that can monitor temperature, humidity and optionally, barometric pressure, and you will then know. There is also an optional gateway so you can monitor when away from home. If the gateway is not used, monitoring is limited to Bluetooth. The gateway uses wi-fi.

Folks, water freezes at 32º F (0º C).

You can put these sensors where ever you want. There are weather resistant models. If you do have a remote control thermostat, you can use the temperature info from these sensors if you have an area that gets colder than you thought, and bump up the temperature.

I regularly set the night time temp to 58º F, and I'm not concerned about the furnace working in the morning, it is designed to do just that.

These sensors will provide the peace of mind you all are seeking, and after using these for several years, it is worth every penny.

I also use these sensors for humidity control, to turn on and regulate the dehumidifier in the basement.

This sensor is also good for water leaks. Most water leaks are usually small and innocuous, and you probably wouldn't see them until the leak got really bad. This applies to me since I rarely go down the basement, most often for doing laundry once a week, or less. I have used one of these for humidity monitoring. If there is a leak, the humidity will respond and I can see it on the sensor app. These sensors also have alarms to alert you if a temperature or humidity level exceeds what you set as a limit. So when a water heater starts leaking ever so little, the humidity sensor can be a big help and warning of what's to come. Nothing can protect against a burst water heater.

The app for these sensors also plots the data, so you can see trends, max, and mins.

--
When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

^^SensorPush appears to

^^SensorPush appears to integrate into homeassistant too. So long as there's no power outage, home assistant & internet will continue working.

LOL

diesel wrote:

Folks, water freezes at 32º F (0º C).

I have to laugh at this because our neighborhood of 24 homes once was occupied (built 1973) by people who were in their young to mid 30's. But that was 1973 and we have had turnover, so some people in the mid-30's have bought homes on the market. The problem is the education system has failed them! On Christmas Eve we hit 7 deg F but a home up the street had their outside hose bibs burst. The "man of the house", probably 40 years old and knowing I was an engineer called me and asked how could this happen since water freezes at 0 deg. He had been taught in the metric system in high school chemistry, probably around 2000. Truly a sad state of education!

The damage was not too great so he did laugh when I said "we are going metric, just doing it inch by inch>'

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John from PA

55-60

Been back and forth between Pennsylvania & Florida for many years.
Usually set the thermostats in Pennsylvania to 55 degrees and never had a problem.

60 degrees

I set the thermostat at 60 degrees when I am at work and at night when I sleep, and for my upstairs, which is now unoccupied and on a separate line. I have not had a problem except for when we had the last freeze before Christmas, when the battery on thermostat died and the pipe broke. Christmas day, when the weater warmed up, I hade a huge leak from my kitchen ceiling.