Frugal Tip: Put On A Sweater!
It’s winter in the northern hemisphere and it’s starting to get cold. Here in Maryland we got our first snow this week and it’s been a little chilly around the house. Typically we set the temperature to around 65-68 degrees when we’re at home and 60 when we’re not (programmable thermostats are awesome!), this has several benefits other than the obvious one of having the heating unit work less. For example, your refrigerator will need to work less to keep its contents cold if your house is a little colder! The amount you save varies from who you ask but you have to understand that not having the heating unit on will definitely save you on electricity or gas bills, whichever one you use to operate the heating unit.
One myth that I need to bust is the idea that your heating unit works “harder” if the temperature difference between the air and the target is large. The heating unit has one setting - on. It pumps out the same amount of heat regardless of the temperature in the air and the only thing the themostat does is say “stop” when the air temperature matches the setting. You don’t use “more energy” per minute heating up a cold room, you will use more energy to heat up the room but it’ll be at the same constant rate.
Lastly, you will want to keep your temperatures at a minimum of 55 to ensure your pipes don’t freeze. 
December 7th, 2007 11:28
First of all, the site looks interesting and I’m hoping for a long, frugal relationship!
Second, I wonder where you got that 55 degree number. Is it just a psycho-fact (ie. something that’s uttered in authoritative tones simply because it “seems like it oughta be true”) or is it actually authoritative? My pipes have frozen occasionally but I doubt there’s a one-size-fits-all setting that works in all situations. The problem in our case is that the exterior walls of our condo are poorly insulated and the geniuses who built it cleverly detoured the kitchen supply pipes through a section of an exterior wall, so in our case there is *no* setting that would prevent freeze-up and I had to re-route those pipes. The point here is that since water freezes around 32F (depending on factors like pressure and how pure it is) as long as you can keep them above 32 you’re OK. So, your blanket 55 recommendation might actually be quite un-frugal as it might lead somebody to needlessly keep their well-insulated dwelling heated to 55 when (say) 40 would suffice. I’m just saying…
December 8th, 2007 21:25
Here’s a programmable thermostat question. I went to Home Depot and they had several at different price points and some were for heat pumps and others were for central a/c. Others were for certain types of heat pumps. I’m not talking about brand. It was about the way they operate. Is there a way to tell that I getting the correct programmable thermostat and how much should I spend on one?