I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

What part of Uzbekistan do you live? 66 degrees is not an unreasonable
temperature to keep your house. It's probably better for the interior
surfaces and structure as well. That few degrees probably won't make that
much monetary difference and everyone will feel better.




"Joe" wrote in message
...
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

Joe wrote:
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

Small space heater is a good idea. Ones with fan are cheaper than oil
filled. Know what you are going through because my wife is like that.

"Joe" wrote in message
...
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

55 to 62 is reasonable if you are active. A bit chilly for most that are
not. We use 68 here and are comfy.

You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate. I tried
doing that by keeping our family room warm and the rest of the house cooler.
Oil bill went down, but the electric bill went up twice the oil savings.

Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture,
but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap
central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone
castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's. (Yes,
1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost it to
62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it to warm
up.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote

Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture,
but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap
central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone
castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's.
(Yes, 1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost
it to 62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it
to warm up.

You know what gets meare the people that have weekend homes around here and
the can't understand why
they go through so much oil during the winter.

"I keep the thermostat all the way down at 60 degrees!"

They can't understand that when it's in the lower 20s at night, it's going
to burn some oil to keep it at 60.

That was exactly the reason I didn't buy a castle




"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
...
"Joe" wrote in message
...
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

55 to 62 is reasonable if you are active. A bit chilly for most that are
not. We use 68 here and are comfy.

You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate. I tried
doing that by keeping our family room warm and the rest of the house
cooler. Oil bill went down, but the electric bill went up twice the oil
savings.

Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture,
but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap
central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone
castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's.
(Yes, 1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost
it to 62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it
to warm up.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

On Jan 15, 10:17 pm, "Dr. Hardcrab"
wrote:
You know what gets meare the people that have weekend homes around here and
the can't understand why
they go through so much oil during the winter.

"I keep the thermostat all the way down at 60 degrees!"

They can't understand that when it's in the lower 20s at night, it's going
to burn some oil to keep it at 60.

I dunno, it's pretty routinely around that temp where I live at night,
and I keep the thermostat on 64 after 11PM and the heat rarely comes
on overnight. (I'm kind of a night owl on weekends, so I know.)
Thing is, if you've got a house that's good at holding heat, it's
going to take it a while to really drop down into the lower 60's
assuming it's kept close to 70 during the day. (We keep ours at 70.)
In fact, my heat usually only comes on twice a day unless it's really
down at around zero degrees outside - then it starts to have a hard
time keeping up.

We do have plaster walls that are good at holding heat, and we've done
our best to weatherstrip the hell out of this place and replace any
leaking doors and windows. This house was not this efficient when we
bought it, that's for sure. But I'm sure plenty of houses are more
efficient than ours, even now.

Those old stone castles are actually also really good at holding in
heat. The problem is there's no good way to heat an entire castle, so
of course they're cold today if you go and stay in one now in a room
that was never used during winter when the castle was built. That's
not what they used to do back in the day; the family would live in a
couple of interior rooms during winter and they'd heat that with a
couple of massive fireplaces that were constantly running. I
guarantee you those castles were plenty warm - stone walls radiate
warmth and seal out any cold air pretty darn effectively.

Joe,

Buy her some thermal underwear, not sexy but hot in it's own way.

Dave M.

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

"Joe" wrote in message
...
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

55 to 62 is reasonable if you are active. A bit chilly for most that are
not. We use 68 here and are comfy.

You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate. I tried
doing that by keeping our family room warm and the rest of the house cooler.
Oil bill went down, but the electric bill went up twice the oil savings.

Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture,
but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap
central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone
castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's. (Yes,
1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost it to
62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it to warm
up.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

I've done some experimenting and found that 65 seems to be my hard
limit. At 65 I am comfortable, at 64 my fingers start to develop
permafrost.

On Jan 16, 12:13*am, buffalobill wrote:
On Jan 15, 7:36 pm, Joe wrote:

I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

buffalo ny: it's actually 71 degrees, so you may be wrong, but read
on: a wife is never wrong, and she may change her mind, but personal
comfort is unrelated to a democratic vote of your household
population. comfort is often related to a combination of many things
including temperature, humidity, barometer reading, and oxygen levels
as well as frequency of fresh air changes. boost your home's
insulation for immediate energy savings in dollars, and zone your
heat. adding silent warmth from a brooder lamp's 250 watt infrared
bulb will warm her frozen skin while you skiers thrive without
thinsulate outerwear fromwww.LLBEAN.COM
{get a warmer answer of what she wants, or you'll be on the receiving
end of more than her cold shoulder, mister! * -ann landers never said
this. }
the 71 degrees standard and more are at:http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/studen...tes/Thermal/th...
-b

I heat 99% with wood (oil this year $3.21/gal). I will be sittign
around in t-shirt and wife "I'm cold, put some wood on". I think she
would complain if the house was 85 degrees.

Harry K

On Jan 16, 10:14 am, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:
"Joe" wrote in message

...

I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

I assume when you say oil-filled, you are talking about an electric
heater. Chances are that electric is going to be far more expensive than
oil. It will be heating a smaller area so it may not be too bad and it will
make heating the rest of the a little less expensive, but overall you are
going to save money if you can heat that area without going to electric to
do it, even if it means heating the rest of the home a little more.

Do you have air or water distributing the heat from the central furnace?

I suspect a professional HVAC man could make some suggestions that would
allow you to get more heat in the basement without replacing the current
furnace.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit

It's hot water heat, I don't need the heat in the basement. It only
gets unbearable when the temp gets down to the 55 range at the end of
the winter and the ground is saturated with cold water. I'm just
looking for a way to keep my wife warm without having to warm the
entire house. It's her hands that are the problem.

On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:36:31 -0800 (PST), Joe
wrote:

I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

Just a suggestion. It actually works.

If appropriate re-locate the thermostat. Choose a location like the
drywall directly in front of the furnace flue pipe. The thermostat
will show a higher reading than the actual temperature of the house
because of the radiant heat behind the wall. You can set it at 72 and
no one will be the wiser. Who would ever turn a thermostat above 72?
They'll just thinks that there is something wrong with them.

On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:20:21 -0500, wrote:

Just a suggestion. It actually works.

If appropriate re-locate the thermostat. Choose a location like the
drywall directly in front of the furnace flue pipe. The thermostat
will show a higher reading than the actual temperature of the house
because of the radiant heat behind the wall. You can set it at 72 and
no one will be the wiser. Who would ever turn a thermostat above 72?
They'll just thinks that there is something wrong with them.


Another less radical option (and one less likely to raise suspicion)
is to relocate a floor or table lamp either directly below or in close
proximity to the wall thermostat -- the heat radiated from this lamp
will "fool" the thermostat into thinking the living space is warmer
than it really is.

To ensure good results, you may have to remove any lower wattage CFL
or energy saving lamp, if so equipped, and revert back to a
traditional 40, 60 or 100-watt incandescent (for really demanding
applications, substitute a 150 or 200-watt version and mumble
something about your failing eyesight). =

Experiment with this and, above all, be subtle about it so that the
powers that be don't catch on to what you're doing and, if they do,
feign ignorance, as in "oh, how silly of me, dear... I never would
have thought of that...".

Using trickery and deceit to save one marriage at a time...

Cheers,
Paul

In article ,
"David L. Martel" wrote:

Joe,

Buy her some thermal underwear, not sexy but hot in it's own way.

Dave M.

You want a wife to be practical ?

Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

"Joe" wrote in message
...
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece
pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by
cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature
lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the
heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only
one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow
her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash
cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this?

First of all, you are one tough guy. Secondly, I think letting your
wife have the house at 66F is reasonable. Life is short, and she's
not asking for 72F, which is what a lot of people want. We set our
themostat at 65F when we're home, 67F when the wind is bad or the
outside temps are really cold, and we live by Lake Ontario. We also
sit on the couch with blankets and various small and large animals
(does your wife have a lap dog or cat? Free heat!), and that helps,
too.

The oil-filled heater idea might work, too, for the times that 66F
isn't good enough. We have a housemate on the third floor who uses a
long electric radiant space heater to keep her main room comfortable,
but I've never tried to figure out what portion of our electric bill
that heater is costing us (we always seem to have someone living up
there so we never have the opportunity to shut off that appliance to
compare usage). It's ok; as long as she's comfortable, that's what
matters. Life is short, as I said (and as I try to remind myself
often), and it's only money.

I'm not as tough as you think, the thermostat hasn't moved from 66,
it's just when she's not in the house I noticed that no one complained
about 62 degrees so I got to thinking if using a space heater for the
rooms the wife occupies could save me the extra 4 degrees elsewhere in
the house. What I'm not sure about is if lowering the thermostat in
the rest of the house and using a space heater will save any money due
to the higher electric cost. I guess I'll have to buy one and run it
for a month to see what the damage ends up being. I was just wondering
if anyone else had tried this.

In article
,
Joe wrote:

I'm not as tough as you think, the thermostat hasn't moved from 66,
it's just when she's not in the house I noticed that no one complained
about 62 degrees so I got to thinking if using a space heater for the
rooms the wife occupies could save me the extra 4 degrees elsewhere in
the house. What I'm not sure about is if lowering the thermostat in
the rest of the house and using a space heater will save any money due
to the higher electric cost. I guess I'll have to buy one and run it
for a month to see what the damage ends up being. I was just wondering
if anyone else had tried this.

Unless she stays in one room for hours on end, chasing her around with
the space heater all day and letting her shiver until it heats whichever
rooms she's in at the moment, sounds like a monumental PITA that will
have little beneficial impact on her comfort, your sanity, or the total
power bill.

One thing some of you ought to keep in mind when you're scoffing about
other people being cold when you're warm is this: FAT is a good
insulator.

Truth About the cost of using a typical Electric Oil Filled space
heater. I keep a vigilant watch over my eating/cooling expenses. Last
Year I paid $351.40 for 4306 kWh. This works out to $0.08 per kWh
making a 1500 w (1.5 kW) oil heater cost $0.12 per hour to operate. I
have a Fuel Oil Furnace that has a 0.65 gallon/hour nozzle. That is, I
use .65 gallons of fuel oil every hour the furnace runs. At say ~$3.35
a gallon for fuel oil that makes my furnace cost $2.18 per hour to
operate and and my Oil Filled Electric Heaters are only $0.12 (each)
per hour to operate. Now you can think about what you should do and
not listen to people who can't do or don't understand simple math.

You might not understand that simple math yourself.
Your furnace may cost $2.18 per hour but that is actual burner run
time. Most furnaces dont run for an hour each hour. Way less actually.
Your single electric heater however probably will run a solid hour and
more. Your oil furnace is heating your entire home. Your electric
heater is heating a single spot in that home. Add up the amount of
electric heaters you need to put out the same amount of heat as your
oil furnace. Now add all of those $0.12 per hour electric heaters.
It all depends on how many heaters but the numbers will be a bit
closer now than in your example of "simple math".
Bubba

I used 228.10 gallons of fuel oil for last years heating season of ~5
months. This is on average 1.5 gallons of fuel oil per day. Understand
some days I don't run the furnace, but lets just say on average to
keep the math simple, thats approximately $5.00/day at today fuel oil
price. As a comment to a previous post

"You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate."

All I was trying to prove is that Oil Filled Electric Heaters cost
$0.12/hr to operate and this might prove more cost effective to the
original poster's problem. And yes it is rooted in simple math. I use
one in the family room and keep the rest of the house closed up and
much cooler. Mine does cycle and I don't leave it on 24/7. So in my
humble opinion, for some applications, oil filled electric heaters
offer a cost effective efficient alternative.