So at work today, the discussion of household heating and gas/electricity bills came up (entering winter Down Under), and I commented that we have our central heating set to 14 Celsius (approx 57 Freedoms) overnight, and off during the day/evening. We find that 14 is quite comfortable under a fluffy doona/duvet. I was warmly mocked (well natured), and informed that something closer to 24C (75F) is appropriate, day and night.

Surely not… right?

  • We have our thermostat set to 63°F in the winter. We’ll go up to 67°F or so if there’s a storm bad enough that power loss is possible.

    In the summer, we have our air conditioners set to 70°F.

      • We rarely lose power also, but it’s happened and we’d rather have the house warmer just in case.

        The last time we lost heat was due to a problem with our heater. It happened during a particularly cold day and our house temperature was dipping quickly. We have a little parakeet (Dewey) who can’t handle cold weather so we had to get someone to fix it quickly and needed to put heaters in his room to keep the temperature up in there.

        Thankfully, they fixed it relatively quickly and Dewey was fine.