Playing chicken with the fall weather/furnace!

I ran my fireplace a couple of times before I caved. It was 65 degrees F, but felt way colder.

My 16 y.o. grandson is still running around in just a pair of sweat pants. Brrr.

I'm in Minnesota.

I am in Minnesota. Last Monday it was 62 degrees in my house and I work from home. I had sweats on, wool socks and a wool hat along with my heated blanket. I decided Tuesday it was going on! It's probably the earliest I've ever had it on, but it had to be done!

It’s chilly right now but suppose to go back to high 60s, mid 70s by Friday and remain there through next week.  Looks like I may make it to November before I have to turn the heat on.  

We can often make it until mid-November. We are having unseasonably cool weather right now, with a morning low today of 39. In my house it was 67 in our room and 69 where the other 2 temp sensors are. A little chillier than we'd like, but not enough to put the heat on. We will see how it is on my wfh days this week- that is when I might cave

I honestly never understood why people hold off with the air or heat because of the date on the calendar. I turn on the a/c when it gets too stuffy and hot and I turn on the heat when it gets too cold. I don't really think it makes any difference in my bill because I pay a budgeted amount so it stays the same all year except one month where I either have a couple months of credits (heating) or have to pay to catch up for a/c. It's never that much and my thought is I would rather be comfortable than miserable in my own house. I have a neighbor who will not turn on the heat until at least Nov. 1. It was 58 degrees in their house. That is insane and just being cheap.

For my family, it started out of financial necessity. Now it is kind of a game we play. We do it early if we need to. 

We turn the heat on when it starts to get cold. This morning the temp outside was 26 degrees. Inside we keep the house at 68-70 degrees year-round.

I’ve played that game of how long can I go before I turn the heat on but no more. I can afford heat and I’m too old to be cold when I don’t have to be! I will say I believe today is the earliest I have had heat. It probably won’t be on for long because it will be warmer in a few days.

My system stays on all year and automatically kicks in when it's too hot or too cold ... unless I override or change something. It was in the mid-20s here over the weekend (Celsius, so that's pretty warm), but we've had a killing frost and it gets cold overnight, so when my a/c tries to come on in the afternoon, I override because the bedrooms upstairs are still chilly! Ds would love it if the house was set at 16 or 17 year round

We normally wait a little longer than this, but we turned ours on already because we have a neighbor from the lake staying with us for at least a month and she’s always cold. 

Whenever I'm cold. We've had days of cloudy cold rain in August and I've turned it on. Why suffer? I've heard people say after 3 days I finally caved in and turned on the heat. To which I reply I turned mine on three days ago. Just because you turn it on once doesn't mean it's on for the rest of the winter. Although sometimes it does here, haha! Many years we've had it on almost every day starting at the beginning of September. I'll often turn it up a bit in the morning then let the sun warm it up and if it doesn't turn it up again later.

I turned it ok yesterday. It was 62 in the house and that was just too cold for me when I was going to be home most of the day.

My last few electric bills in California were in the range of $700.  Yes, that was not a typo.  I had a pool that had to have the motor running for a certain number of hours.  Plus, with my house being worked on due to the water leak and mold in the walls, they has several enormous machines running both upstairs and downstairs for well over a week, 24-hours a day.  And we were in a heat spell so the air conditioner was always on because I never knew when my realtor was going to call to bring people over to see the house and I would turn it down even cooler that my personal preference because people looking in the master bedroom would notice that the ceiling in that room was vaulted, which looked awesome, but had zero insulation.  There was just the sheetrock, that black tar paper, and roof shingles.  That room was a furnace.  Same with the living room.  I would rather the house fell a little too cold than like a blast furnace.  So all that running of extra equipment increased the already high electric bill from the regular rate of $500 or so per month.

Which is why I have been so very delighted with this new house.  It has a crawl space to elevate the house above the ground and a fully insulated attic that you can access and stand in.  Those areas really insulate the main living area of the single-story house.  The windows are all double-paned glass.  All these features make this house amazingly cost effective in all weather.  In fact all of my utilities together don’t add up to $700 per month.  The house tends to stay around 66 to 70 in the winter and never gets warmer than the low 70s in the summer.  But, I like my comfort and will flip the air on if I am doing physical work inside the house in the summer and flip the heat on in the winter if I am not moving around much and just feel a bit chilled.  I like being comfortable and really hate being sweaty.  I don’t run anything at night though, only during the day when I am inside the house.

Well it was 64 in here today too (Georgia), and DH caved this AM. It's annoying to have to change it more than once a day bc the sun will come out, it will get up to 70-80 degrees outside, and the upstairs will be 80 degrees. So then he needs the AC on.

As for me, I don't like being cold but I'll wear a robe and suck it up until afternoon when it's warm again. I guess he didn't want to do that.