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> Maybe go a step further and wear long underwear and maybe even a hat; why not?

Some reasons why not:

you may live with other people who have different basal temperatures from yours, aren't comfortable at 16 degrees or whatever you settle on, and didn't consent to participating in your wacky experiment;

other people may come over to visit your house without realizing in advance that they need to wear long underwear;

and low indoor temperatures promote mold growth.

> Some reasons why not:

> you may live with other people who have different basal temperatures from yours, aren't comfortable at 16 degrees or whatever you settle on, and didn't consent to participating in your wacky experiment;

> other people may come over to visit your house without realizing in advance that they need to wear long underwear;

C'mon. We can't figure out the solutions to these problems, in a moment? :) If you can't, I'm not hiring you to wash dishes. (I.e., I believe you can.)

Edit: I think there's an assumption that this is some dogmatic straw-argument. It's not; it's practical. The argument is: Be practical.

No thank you. I grew up in a house with a dad who fully bought into the "wear a sweater" philosophy. He'd make us go around all winter wearing two sweaters, a hat, and shoes indoors, and I still froze. My nose ran constantly and my hands got so cold I couldn't use my computer.

Now I'm an adult and I've learned that the extra cost to heat my condo to 23 degrees all winter is basically the same as my Netflix subscription, I recognize that philosophy for the idiocy that it is. If it's too expensive to heat your house correctly, then you have a problem with your insulation and you need to fix it.

My parents finally insulated their attic and bought a heat pump this year, and for the first time in a decade I can visit them in the winter and be comfortable the whole time.

I bought an older house built in the era of coal heating. Popped open an exterior wall to fix some water damage and discover it was completely un-insulated.

Better than finding the walls stuffed full of asbestos, I guess, but man, how was I the first person in a century to think of insulating?

You didn't think of it, just like the previous residents didn't think of it. You discovered it, when maybe the previous residents didn't. Before you discovered it, you were assuming it was insulated right? Perhaps the previous people also assumed that.

> you have a problem with your insulation and you need to fix it.

Amen! But imagine the savings if you have good insulation and keep the heat down! <trollface>

You wear long underwear, the 'hot' person can wear a t-shirt

I think his argument was that the person that controls the temperature is the "hot" person. In that case... you just let the others freeze? :-p

> other people may come over to visit your house without realizing in advance that they need to wear long underwear;

Not a problem in Covid times. But it's possible to turn the heat up when you have guests, no? Or run a space heater in the living room when they're around?

> and low indoor temperatures promote mold growth.

I'm mystified by this. I thought moisture promoted mold growth. The solution to that is good ventilation. If anything low temp should inhibit growth, as it does for most microorganisms.

> Not a problem in Covid times. But it's possible to turn the heat up when you have guests, no? Or run a space heater in the living room when they're around?

Sure, if you're considerate enough to do that! My dad wasn't!

> Not a problem in Covid times.

Covid times are just† ~2 years, not the lifetime of a person or a house.

†Knock on wood.

Low temp leads to higher relative humidity and slower drying of surfaces, that's why it's increasing the risk for mold.

There is a related problem when insulating your house more. If it's badly insulated, walls are cold and any dampness happens on the inside surface of the wall. You turn up your heater and ventilation and it evaporates.

Now you add more insulation. Your walls on the inside are warmer. But the absolute humidity in the air is still the same, so it goes into the wall too. There is a temperature gradient inside the wall. When it's cold outside, there is a point in the wall where the relative humidity hits saturation, so the wall gets moist there. The better insulation, the deeper this is in the wall. No level of ventilation will save you here and if you don't do anything about it, you get mold inside the wall. Which you would not get without this extra insulation.

The solution is vapour barriers. They need to be close to the inside of your walls to work. This is a tricky subject and part of the reason why adding insulation after the fact is hard.

As I get older, I'm finding my extremities are not maintaining circulation/warmth. While I can wear socks no problem, I don't really want to wear gloves indoors. Heating the house more makes it feel cozy and nice, so I can see why some people would make that choice.

Generally agree, though fingerless gloves are nice compromise.

I now have chilblains. I wear gloves even while sleeping. I also have to regularly rewarm my hands, using an electric pad.

I hate hats, gloves, scarves, masks, etc. But I got used to it.

None of this keeps my hands warm.

Or makes me feel comfortable.

After growing up in a house with no insulation and being miserable all winter long, now for an extra ~$50 a month during the winter I get to keep my house at a nice toasty 74-76 degrees F and I'm comfortable year round.

> None of this keeps my hands warm.

> Or makes me feel comfortable.

I wrote, 'Keep the thermostat at the lowest comfortable temperature', not an uncomfortable one. Don't lump me in with strawpeople who tell you to be uncomfortable.

> for an extra ~$50 a month during the winter I get to keep my house at a nice toasty 74-76 degrees F

I agree that you can do what you want with your $50. But there are other costs too: Our choices creates climate change for others.

> But there are other costs too: Our choices creates climate change for others.

Optimising your personal heating choices has a maximum benefit of $50 per month of fuel saved in the fight against climate change, then.

That rounds to zero compared to industrial-level decisions, and requires perhaps similar mental thinking time.

I don't see climate change being fought this way, not even if engaged people make themselves feel uncomfortably cold in the winter to the point of risking hypothermia (which is already a significant risk especially in the older population).

I don't see it being fought any other way, either. You think we can tell the big polluters to take it down to zero and just continue by ourselves? Not only is that incongruous, we wouldn't be reaching 1.5°C either. Unless perhaps you pay for scrubbing of your CO2, which would be fine by me (I currently pay for Climeworks, not because I can reach net zero that way (yet) but because it helps them fund the way there, they just need enough customers; something tells me we'll need scrubbing tech and capacity in addition to cutting emissions, seeing as the person above... let me just stop there).

Keeping your core warmer, especially with the thermal underwear discussed at length in the article, will also keep your hands warmer.

There's an entire section of the article titled "Hands and feet". You could read it instead of dismissing the whole idea out of hand.

> Keeping your core warmer, especially with the thermal underwear discussed at length in the article, will also keep your hands warmer.

That's a lesson of wilderness camping in cold weather - if your hands are cold, put on another layer.

> Keeping your core warmer, especially with the thermal underwear discussed at length in the article, will also keep your hands warmer.

That works on the general case, but not always.

I've worked in buildings where I can be sweating in my coat and still have cold hands.

I can easily wear extra thick socks, have my feet swimming in my shoes, and still have my ears be cold.

Theory is great until it runs into reality.

(If theory worked so well, there wouldn't be an active market for desk heaters to warm up hands!)

edit:

Example from the article

>> But of course, the permeability index is not of any importance for indoor couch potatoes: they don't sweat.

Which is complete BS. I am sitting here in a t-shirt right now and the part of my back that is up against my chair is rather sweaty.

Likewise, feet sweat in shoes.

> However, it is important to note that if the body as a whole is kept warm enough, hands and feet will not be greatly affected by lower indoor temperatures.

Again, not true in my experience.

> While insulating your neck and feet will greatly improve your thermal comfort, there is no need to wear gloves or caps indoors.

If the indoor temp is below 65f I am not going to be typing anything for very long. For that matter at around 68f I'm starting to get uncomfortable.

Truth of it is, I've worked in more than one office where I was stuck wearing a cap indoors.

> experiment a bit and test what you become accustomed to, and you'll know for the rest of your life.

Probably worth pointing out that people's metabolisms and body shapes do change throughout their life, so expect that you will have to tweak this periodically.

> Heating a building when you aren't there is silly. [0]

If I don’t heat my home when I’m not there in the winter, the water supply lines will freeze and burst causing thousands or tens of thousands in damage. I think I’ll heat my home when I’m not there, thanks.

I'm pretty sure the OC means "don't heat your home to a comfortable habitation level when you aren't there." Obviously turning the heat off entirely with a risk of pipes breaking is a bad idea. However, setting your thermostat to 50ºF is sufficient for that.

If you live in a climate where pipes are a factor in your heat decision, then you should have enough insulation that the difference in energy isn't all that much.

Also, there's this concept of thermal mass - once you heat up you walls, floors, furniture, etc, they retain it. If you keep on letting your house cool down and then heating it up again, you basically lose that stored heat and need to pay for it again. It's cheaper to just maintain the same temperature all the time.

And, as a PNW resident I really need to emphasize this: MOLD. It's a thing.

This seems to be a common misconception, but not true. Letting the apartment cool down will always use less energy than keeping temperature up.

I would think this is just very obvious. Keeping the temperature up will lead to more heat loss. I can try to find some supporting material if you wish though as I've heard this same claim before.

Not sure of the total outcome but the heat source might not be as efficient at pumping out heat for it to get warm quickly enough than it would at a constant rate. I cannot find a source now but I believe this is even the case for new refrigerators that they run in a much more continuous mode than the jagged cool/off mode.

I suppose that's possible with some special cases, I wouldn't really know. This type of energy loss would be quite different from the claim parent mentioned about "stored heat" though.

Isn't mold handled most effectively with a dehumidifier, rather than a heater?

So add a second appliance rather than using one that you already have for both comfort and mold prevention?

If it worked better and more directly attacked the problem, I'd consider it yes. I'm not even certain a heater will prevent mold, but will take your word for it.

Well things are not quite so easy, for one you can insulate your house much better than your body. Passive houses for example can keep your house at a comfortable 20 deg all year using only heat from the bodies of the inhabitants and the water heating system. One reason is, that the temperature differential between your body and the surrounding is much larger than between the house and it's surroundings, another that you have to have exchange heat (i.e. need to breath).

Also how hot or cold you feel is highly dependent on what activity you do, i.e. you are likely to be much colder working on your computer than e.g. cooking. So if you adjust your temperature to the minimum for most of your activities will automatically lead to you freezing at some activities.

> Well things are not quite so easy ...

It's not easy to put on and take off warm clothes to manage your personal temperature?

> Heating a building when you aren't there is silly.

Is this true? I've thought about it for a while but can't quite wrap my head around an answer that feels obviously correct. It takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of a house - more than to maintain a given temperature. Allowing for changing temperatures during the day, and concrete slabs and walls and the ground as heat stores, is it always the case that it uses less energy to have a lower set point while you're out and raise it when you get home than to just keep it at the comfortable level the whole time?

> It takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of a house - more than to maintain a given temperature

is this true? the house is constantly bleeding off its heat at a rate proportional to the temperature difference between interior and exterior. it should always cost more energy to maintain the higher temperature gradient than to just let the heat bleed off (which it was always going to do) and add in more heat once the building is occupied.

Yes, because when the inside of the house is close to outside temperature the temperature difference is lower (obvious). Heat loss depends on temperature differential so there will be less energy lose.

The real question you should ask isn't is it true - it is. The real question is it significant enough to worry about. If you are going to be gone for several days it is.

If you are only talking about a part of a day though things are different, and get complex.

If you heat with electric (including heat pumps!), keeping the house a consistent temperature makes you use an even amount of heat all day, and so your house can be better supplied by renewable energy. If many people turn the heat up when (or just before) they get home at 5pm - the renewable power available isn't enough and the power company will have to turn on fossil fuel plants to make up the difference. Thus you might use more energy but use a better type of energy by keeping the house warm.

For many houses solar heating (from windows) is nearly enough to keep the house warm all day even on the coldest days, so it doesn't matter as the heating system isn't working anyway.

Note that the previous two paragraphs contradict each other. I don't know how to work that out (for cooling it is a big deal), so you will need to ask questions - be prepared for different answers at different times.

If your house is well insulated you shouldn't see much a change in temperature indoors, and as such there is only a tiny amount of energy save with setbacks. So why not just enjoy a comfortable temperature for the rare exceptions to your schedule? If your house is not well insulated, fixing that should be your priority.

There are probably other factors I can't think of.

> If you heat with electric (including heat pumps!), keeping the house a consistent temperature makes you use an even amount of heat all day, and so your house can be better supplied by renewable energy. If many people turn the heat up when (or just before) they get home at 5pm - the renewable power available isn't enough and the power company will have to turn on fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.

It also depends on what kind of renewable. A lot of people set their thermostat lower at night, which aligns well with solar power, which is only available during the day. But turning it down during the day and turning it up in the evening doesn't align as well (especially in the winter when the sun goes down early).

The answer is complicated. For the same amount of insulation, the amount of heat lost is also dependent on temperature. Leaving the house at a lower temperature (but still heated, not off!) while you are absent for long periods of time _usually_ is a better approach. Because you are losing heat anyway, the question is just how much.

Sure, if you have really amazing insulation(outside of specially engineered buildings you probably don't), the difference may not be significant and you would be right.