Latest / Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast / What Is A Normal Temperature Setting For My Thermostat?

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What Is A Normal Temperature Setting For My Thermostat? · Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast

• 0:01
  Questions come into the radio show all the time here at check a pro and this question is actually,
• 0:10
  something that my wife and i argue about all the time so i'm sure nathan shafer
• 0:14
  from shafer heating and cooling will get a chuckle out of this and that is
• 0:18
  where should we have the thermostat in the winter and or the summer my wife
• 0:23
  and i nathan have totally different systems inside like our blood's different. Right. Yeah.
• 0:29
  And, and so in the winter time, she's like, can we turn the heat up?
• 0:34
  And I'm like, what do you mean? It's 62 degrees in here. What's wrong with that?
• 0:37
  She's like, I want it to be like 72. I'm like, okay.
• 0:41
  Um, just put a sweater on. Nope. She, she wants to turn the heat up.
• 0:46
  And then in the summer we have similar issues with the air conditioning.
• 0:49
  So the question has come in is what is a normal temperature range for my thermostat?
• 0:54
  I'm going to say before you answer this question, it's not an easy question
• 0:58
  to answer, but there's a lot of things that come from it.
• 1:02
  You can save money by lowering your thermostat in the winter,
• 1:07
  for instance, because it will fire on less to heat.
• 1:11
  Opposite is true in the summertime.
• 1:14
  And humidity plays a role. So let's get into this. What is the normal temperature? What should it be?
• 1:22
  That's a good question. I don't know. I think we might get into like a counseling
• 1:25
  session here or something. I don't know if I want to go to you and your wife,
• 1:28
  but no, that's common, right?
• 1:30
  And it's the same for my wife and I, you know, at night, I mean,
• 1:33
  I've got a sheet on and she's got three blankets on, you know,
• 1:35
  we're trying to meet that in the happy meeting, right?
• 1:37
  Because same type of deal. So really coming down, obviously,
• 1:41
  between the two and finding that the middle point and or just go with the temperature
• 1:44
  that she likes, you know, but at the same time, is Is there a set temperature
• 1:48
  that's perfect as far as operational standpoint?
• 1:52
  Not necessarily. I'd say most commonly, if you used to pick a year-round temperature
• 1:56
  that we find most common would be around 70.
• 1:58
  But you'll see that differ some from summer to winter and obviously age,
• 2:04
  men, women, different things.
• 2:06
  Like you mentioned a second ago, the humidity. As you start playing with that
• 2:10
  temperature, trying to figure out, and you might find throughout the year,
• 2:13
  you're like, man, it's weird.
• 2:14
  In the summertime, maybe 70 just feels really kind of sticky and hot.
• 2:22
  I find myself turning it down to 69, 68, 67 to feel comfortable.
• 2:26
  But man, the wintertime at that same 70, I feel like I'm freezing cold and I'm
• 2:31
  turning it up to 72, 73, 74.
• 2:34
  And a lot of that is not the temperature. The temperature 70 is 70,
• 2:38
  right? You're using the same thermostat, the same system. It's got the same sensor.
• 2:41
  It's 70 both times of the year. But the reason it feels so much different is
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  because of the humidity level in the home, the RH level.
• 2:46
  And so for every 5% in humidity feels like a degree difference in temperature.
• 2:52
  And so for us here in our area in Southern Ohio, we get very humid in the summertime.
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  And we have a heating season.
• 2:59
  There's furnaces, the heat pumps, whatever system you have that's heating,
• 3:02
  a forced air system, it's running a lot in the wintertime.
• 3:05
  It's drying out the heat. And so 70, as you can imagine, at let's say 30% relative
• 3:11
  humidity compared to 70 at 60% relative humidity,
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  that's a 30% difference in humidity level, which is going to feel like five
• 3:19
  degrees difference in temperature. I'm sorry, six degrees difference in temperature.
• 3:23
  Every 5% in RH is one degree in temperature feel to us.
• 3:28
  So there's where you're getting your big swing, six degree difference,
• 3:31
  but it's still set at 70, but the way it feels to you. So humidity is going
• 3:35
  to play a huge, huge factor into the way that it feels, which is going to help
• 3:39
  you find that perfect temperature in your home.
• 3:41
  And obviously there's ways to control that humidity levels in the home to keep
• 3:44
  it as an ideal, healthy, comfortable, relative humidity level in the home year round.
• 3:52
  So there's a lot there. There is a lot there. It's easier to live alone.
• 3:58
  That's the moral. I'm kidding.
• 4:00
  Ever go back into the castle like the therapy center?
• 4:04
  And it gets even more complicated when you have multiple people living in the home.
• 4:10
  You know, kids, you know, one thing because you can dictate and mandate.
• 4:13
  And you're like, this is the way it is. And if you're cold, put a sweater on.
• 4:16
  That's what my parents always told me. They're like, put a sweater on.
• 4:20
  Put on more socks. or even better yet, go out and play. You'll be fine.
• 4:25
  Um, but with adults living in the house, the problem is, is everybody wants
• 4:31
  to have what they want. Right.
• 4:33
  And it, it can be tricky. So the humidity thing is a big deal and people don't
• 4:39
  understand that, but I think you made it quite clear.
• 4:42
  Um, generally in the summertime, the humidity is going to feel higher, um, for a few reasons.
• 4:49
  But one reason is, is in the winter, when you're burning something to make heat,
• 4:55
  that heat's really going to eat up that humidity and it's going to give us dry skin and so forth.
• 5:02
  Some people will put a humidifier in to humidify the air, which is great.
• 5:09
  And then in the summertime, they may have dehumidifiers, especially in a basement
• 5:13
  or maybe even in the house. But of course, the AC system, if it's running properly,
• 5:19
  will draw out that humidity. But you're right.
• 5:23
  70 degrees in January is not 70 degrees in July.
• 5:28
  That's a lot. That's really hard for people to understand. Yeah.
• 5:32
  It is still 70 degrees, but it feels different. Yeah. With the humidity. Yeah.
• 5:36
  Okay. So it feels like way different. Yeah.
• 5:39
  You know, so it's like someone's reality of something. Right.
• 5:42
  Exactly. their perception is reality
• 5:46
  so the perception is it's not
• 5:49
  it's not 70 in the winter like it is in the summer yes numerically scientifically
• 5:55
  70 is 70 but when you throw in humidity and dew points and so forth it changes
• 6:02
  everything um that's why sometimes when it's.
• 6:09
  30 degrees, you may get freezing rain. Like, how's that? Why isn't that snowing?
• 6:14
  Or you may get snow at 34 degrees. How is that? It depends on what's going on in the atmosphere.
• 6:21
  The home is kind of similar, just, you know, kind of depends.
• 6:25
  And it's important to understand that you're going to have to set your thermostat
• 6:31
  to what is comfortable and comfort has to do with Not just the temperature,
• 6:35
  but the humidity level. So let me throw this out at you.
• 6:38
  Let's say in the wintertime, you wanted to add some humidity.
• 6:45
  That then makes a difference, too, in that feel temperature.
• 6:49
  So you set it to 70, but that 70 feels a little different than it does in the summertime.
• 6:56
  But when you add humidity, if you wanted to do that, which you can,
• 6:59
  you know, a few different ways. some people do it room by room,
• 7:03
  it all of a sudden changes your comfort level. Absolutely.
• 7:07
  Yeah. Yeah. I just, yeah. Imagine, I mean, most houses, you know,
• 7:12
  in our area here, when they're heating it in, let's say January,
• 7:18
  for example, right? The system is running a lot.
• 7:21
  It's not uncommon to see houses down 20 to 30% humidity level in the house.
• 7:26
  That's super dry. They got dry skin.
• 7:28
  They got static. They got bloody noses, sore throats, coughs. They get sicker.
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  There's a whole bunch of stuff that ties into our health.
• 7:34
  The woodwork starts shrinking, all these different things.
• 7:38
  If you install a whole home humidifier and you change that humidity level up
• 7:42
  to, let's say, we'll just say 40%, that's a 10% increase from 30 to 40.
• 7:48
  Now it's going to go from feeling like 70 to 72.
• 7:51
  Huge difference. You picture going out here in the summertime and it's 80 degrees
• 7:55
  and it's humid, you're sweating like crazy compared to going to Arizona and
• 8:00
  it's 80 degrees and you're like, man, I could almost wear a long sleeve shirt
• 8:03
  with that slight breeze.
• 8:04
  Like it's, it's all because of the humidity levels and the difference that it
• 8:08
  feels from the dryness, uh, and or the wetness of the air from that humidity.
• 8:14
  Yeah, absolutely. It really makes a huge difference.
• 8:18
  Nathan, as always, thank you so much for shedding light on a topic that most
• 8:22
  people don't understand. I'm still trying to get my head around it.
• 8:24
  Um, and, and I've, I've been dealing with this for a long time and I've just
• 8:29
  learned whatever the wife wants, we're good, right? You have to say,
• 8:32
  well, good luck with that tonight. Yeah.
• 8:33
  Hope tonight you win and you get to set that temperature where you want. Yeah, I do as well.
• 8:37
  Thank you so much. I appreciate it, buddy. Hey, my pleasure. Thank you.