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Comment by ashark | Hacker News Reader

cmd+f "pipe"

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Try setting your heat to, say, 50 degrees F and you may discover you've got some cold spots in your house when the pipes there freeze and burst. Let alone if you try going for lower temperatures, or entirely without whole-house heating.

So set it to the low 60s and wear layers? Welcome to what anyone who's ever been even close to poor already knows.

[edit] Maybe this is more useful in places that already barely need heating. Winter lows in the 20s and 30s (F), that sort of thing.

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It's pretty common around here (Copenhagen) for people to set their radiators to around 5-8 C (40-45 F) in rooms that they aren't using, or the whole house/apartment to that temperature if they're gone for more than a day or so, to save money on heating. Most radiators have a specific "frost protection" setting, indicated by a little snowflake icon, which is set by the manufacturer or building to whatever temperature they think is suitable for frost protection (mine are at 5 C / 41 F). I haven't heard of anyone having trouble with burst pipes from this setup.

Could be an issue with hollow-wall wood-frame construction and forced-air duct heating? With brick/stone construction and regularly spaced radiators, things typically won't freeze anywhere, even if you have the temperature set down to 5 C. It's also relatively uncommon for pipes here to be in outer walls; all of mine are run along or in the interior walls.

I think as much as anything natural gas is cheap in the US.

Does a house usually cool all the way down to 5 if you are gone for the day? A wood house definitely would (newer houses with better insulation might not, but many standing houses would).

No fuel source--apart from a wood- or coal-fired stove--is cheap enough in the US for folks in coldish climates to be indifferent to heating costs. Natural gas is probably the best deal right now, but lots of homes have oil or electric and it doesn't make economic sense to cut over the equipment. Also bear in mind a lot of the (populated, chilly) northeastern US's average housing stock is older than many other places.

I think there are quite a lot of people who aren't terribly concerned about their heating costing $2,000 vs $1500, and even more at $750 vs $500.

That doesn't mean there aren't lots of people on the other side of it making sure to mind every dollar, just that you might expect the full range of anecdotes in a typical discussion.

I had pipes freeze when our heater was set to 68 F. It's not a brick house and the people who built it were not professional builders so I don't think they got the insulation completely right.

> It makes good sense to return to this concept of heating, but that doesn't mean that we have to go back to using fireplaces and carrying burning embers around the house. While the old concept of heating is more energy-efficient, the same cannot be said of most of the old heating devices.

Two problems meet one stone - hydronic heating (http://www.warmmfloors.com/ | http://www.hydronicheating.net/)

Just use local heating (Heat Tape) on your pipes too. No need to heat the whole crawlspace just to keep your pipes from freezing.

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