In a classic analogy, if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, he’ll immediately jump right out. If you drop the frog into comfortable water and gradually heat it to boiling, the frog will be boiled.
Side Note #1: My husband thinks the frog in the pot scenario is a bunch of baloney, but we’re too nice to test it out.
Whether or not the frog story is accurate, most of us would agree that gradual, subtle changes are more easily accepted than sudden, drastic changes.
I want to use the principle of the frog analogy (in the reverse) to explain how we save on heating costs.
When people hear how low we keep our thermostat during the winter they think we’re nuts! They can’t imagine changing their homes from 78 to 58 degrees in January.
Neither can I! Like a frog placed in boiling water, I would hop right out!
Our secret to saving on heating bills is that we wait as long as possible to turn our heater on. Like the frog who gradually gets used to increased temperatures, our bodies gradually acclimate to a lower temperature.
In addition to normal acclimation, we dress appropriately to increase our temperature stamina. We wear sweaters and slippers around the house. In the evenings I blog with my hoodie on. For Christmas, I made the kids warm fleece robes and bought them quality hard-soled slippers.
Side Note #2: Just so you know, our kids aren’t suffering. They handle the cold (and heat) far better than grown-ups (especially me). They run around our cold cement floors with bare feet and it doesn’t even faze them. I have to constantly remind them to wear their slippers or put on a sweater because they say they aren’t even cold.
We love challenges and competitions, so seeing how long we can go before turning on the heat is actually fun for us. (Maybe we are crazy.) When we do turn on the heat, we don’t crank it up to 78. We just turn it up a wee bit from the temperature that we decided was just too low. If the temperature starts to dip to that point, the heater kicks in and we’re fine.
Side Note #3: I know there is an observant reader who is thinking, “Wait! I thought that you didn’t pay any utility bills with your sweet hook-up living in your in-laws’ unfinished basement?” (I’m really impressed if anyone wondered that.) It’s true. We figure that my husband’s parents are saving us loads by letting us live here for free, so we are happy to do what we can to help keep their bills down. Besides, we also challenged ourselves like this during our law school years when we did pay for heat.
There are lots of ways to save on heating costs, from putting plastic on your windows and a rolled towel to stop drafts under the front door, to blowing new insulation into your attic. No matter what efficiency strategies you employ, waiting as long as possible to turn on the heat and keeping the thermostat low when you do will only increase your savings. Each day you wait to turn on the heat will save you money and provide a fun challenge as well.
How about you?
- How long do you wait before turning on the heat when the weather cools off?
- Do you dress warmly at home in order to keep the thermostat set low?
- Do you think the frog would really get boiled?
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Carolyn @ Raspberries in the Rough says
So, we live in a frigid, windy place with long winters. The house we’re renting has a thermostat and forced air heat powered by a propane tank. What I can’t figure out is why, even though we don’t change the thermostat, the house is freezing at night (other than around 5 in the morning when it gets really hot). Isn’t the thermostat supposes to keep it at the set temp all the time? Can anyone explain this phenomenon?
Stephanie says
That does sound weird! The thermostat is supposed to regulate the temperature. Maybe the location of the thermostat doesn’t experience the same changes in temperature as, say, a bedroom in a far corner of the house?
Patricia says
This all makes perfect sense. I’m all for waiting until its absolutely necessary to turn the heat on and the same with air conditioning. My husband is usually the first to cave.
Georgia says
I used to room with a friend who was such a light sleeper that she’d wake up whenever the heat came on, and so she turned the heat way down to the 50s and dressed warm. Rooming with her, I came to love snuggling in bed with a thick comforter and wrapping myself in a plush robe and fuzzy socks once I got out of bed!
And my favorite trick for keeping the house warm is turning on the oven and baking lots during the cold months! We’re so enjoying baked meals and cookies since we held off from using the oven much during the summer! (we live in a small house so the heat in the kitchen does make a big difference in the rest of the house, too!)
Jennifer says
We mainly leave our heaters (electric baseboard) set at 55 degrees to prevent any pipes freezing (we live in Central IN). If it is really cold in the evenings, we’ll close the door to the bedroom and turn up the heat in there to 64 or so for about an hour before bed to warm the room up a bit, and then turn it off when we go to sleep. It has worked pretty well so far, our heating bills last year weren’t too bad. We keep warm with a lot of throw blankets and wearing robes and slippers around the house. If we have guests over, we do turn the heat up more as we don’t want them freezing as they aren’t used to the temps.
In the summer, we wear shorts and tshirts around the house, and only ran a few fans at night if we needed some extra air. We do have central air (yes our house is weird—central air but baseboard heat), and really only used it twice last summer, both times when we had lots of family over for parties. I couldn’t imagine trying to pay the bills of keeping the house at a steady 70 degrees or so all year long.
Stephanie says
That’s great Jennifer! It sounds like you have a great system worked out for winter and summer! Dressing for the weather makes such a difference!
Mona says
Living in SWFL, we don’t run heat…but the A/C bills!! I try to keep the temp at 79. DH would love it to be 74, but I tell him we wouldn’t be able to pay the electric bill. 😉 Now that it’s cooling off a bit, I try to turn off the a/c overnight, but it gets too warm for DH by the time he comes home from work, so we run it for a couple hours. As soon as it cools off outside though, I turn it off & open the windows. I celebrate when we can finally leave it off for the winter! When it does get cool out, I do some baking to keep the house warm.
Stephanie says
How nice that you don’t worry about heat, but I’m sure all the A/C makes up for it! We do a lot of opening and closing the windows to help with regulating the temperature in the house, too.
Liz S says
My husband always tells me that if your head is cold, your whole body will be cold. But if your head is warm, chances are that the rest of your body will be warm. So, we (all 4 of us) gladly wear cozy winter hats around the house pretty much all winter. This helps with the thermostat, but don’t be fooled–we also keep the thermostat MUCH higher than yourself, as we don’t adapt to the cold like you guys can. Also, our new home is HIGHLY efficient so it doesn’t cost that much to heat. It’s less to heat our 3-level home than it was to heat our 1-level condo…THAT is how efficient our radiant floor heating is. Also, I will add that with our radiant floor heating, we did an experiment last winter. During the day we always turned the upstairs thermostats way down, and turned them back up a bit at night for sleeping so the kids wouldn’t freeze. We did this for a few months. Then for one month we stopped, and just left the thermostat alone at the warmer temperature…and our bill went down 30 bucks! So with our type of heating, it was cheaper to leave it warmer all the time than it was to turn it down during certain times. 🙂
Stephanie says
Its amazing what a difference a hat makes. My MIL wears a hat all the time! That’s great that your house is so efficient!!
Nichole @Budget Loving Military Wife says
We do the same things… fleece blankets and thick slipper socks are how I get through. LOL. When we lived in eastern WA, we tried to hold out until November to turn the heater on. Now that we live in England and it barely freezes here, we have been able to hold out until December/January and only run it only on some days. It’s so nice to only have to run the heater for a couple months!
Stephanie says
That’s great! You’re probably tougher that the locals when it comes to temperature!
CeCee says
We keep our house freezing all year long. In the summer the AC is always cranking. The hubby and I joke we would eat Ramen every day before we would sweat in our own home. Trust me, I grew up without AC in the deep south. Its. Not. Fun. Because we love our house FREEZING we almost never turn on the heater in our home. Last year we turned on the central heat three times max, and used a space heater less than 10 times. If I know it will be super cold outside I plan our dinner to be baked in the oven so that it will heat up the house. If for some reason that residual heat isn’t enough we will then use a space heater in just the living/dining area. The three times we turned on the central heat last year was because it was under 10 degrees outside (We live in Reno, Nv, get all four seasons, and experience snow pretty often)
Stephanie says
That’s awesome that you agree temperature-wise! When it’s extra cold is a great time to bake in the oven!
Myles Money says
I live in Spain and the houses here are designed to lose heat to keep them cool in the summer. The problem is they don’t have a contingency plan for the winter and heating a home with cathedral ceilings is not an option, so when winter comes along the house is colder inside than outside: I can see my breath for a good 3 months of the year no matter which room I’m in. But you get used to it: we keep warm by eating hot meals, drinking warm drinks and wearing lots of layers. It’s not like central heating and A/C have been around since the stone-age, is it?
Stephanie says
That’s neat that the houses are designed like that when it’s summer, but it makes for a rough winter. Warm meals and hot drinks are great ways to keep warm!
Mary Ann says
Every year our goal is to wait until at least November 1st before turning the heat on. Many years, we’ll finally cave at the end of October if we have a cold snap. But this year, I think we’ll actually make it as it has been pretty warm during the day still. We do the same thing in the spring for turning on the AC–we wait as long as we can.
I don’t like a really cool house–makes it more difficult for me to breathe, especially at night– but we don’t have it cranked up either. We’re definitely wearing winter clothing in the winter—no shorts here while the heat is running! LOL
Stephanie says
We do the same thing with the A/C too. 🙂
Mom @ Three is Plenty says
We keep the heat off as long as possible too (when we have control over it – not this winter unfortunately). What I don’t like is that we acclimate to the colder temps and almost die from heat exhaustion when we walk into a store to anyone else’s house!
Stephanie says
That’s so true! It makes other people’s houses feel so unbearably hot!
Kim says
We keep our heat at about 58-MAYBE 62- during the winter, and even that we play the “how long can we go” game. We live in upstate NY, where it gets mightly chilly during the winter. Last year we went until mid-December, and the year before it was the beginning of January before we even touched the thermostat. We do have one of those electric fireplace heaters that we use occasionally to take the chill off, but for the most part, its sweatshirts, socks and blankets for us. We have 2 young children ages 6 and 3, with on one the way due in February, so we will have to turn it up for sure when she arrives.. but until then, we can just not financially afford to keep our heat on all the time with the oil prices as high as they are!
Stephanie says
I’ve hear that oil prices are outrageous. That’s great that the family is willing to be tough until the baby comes.
Shannon @ GrowingSlower says
In architecture school they taught us that this is the idea of adjusting your “clo” level to create more comfort in a wider range of temperatures. It really works! For instance, when it’s 80 in the summer we’re just fine without air conditioning, but we’re certainly not going to heat our house to 80 in the winter. We adapt really well! So far it’s in the 40s and we’re just starting to turn on the heat. Being pregnant and or breastfeeding for the past 4 years really helps me stay warm too, but the rest of my family doesn’t have that advantage! 🙂
Stephanie says
Pregnancy and breastfeeding during the winter definitely has benefits! 🙂
sarah @ little bus on the prairie says
Heating in the bus is going to be… interesting. I think we are planning in buying an electric heater, since our electricity is free via solar, and find some way to channel it up to the upper levels at night!
Stephanie says
That’s a great idea! May as well use electric if it’s free! Heat rises, so if you the upper level is open, the warm air should get up there!
Kristia @ Family Balance Sheet says
I call it our “thermastat dance”–my husband turns it up and I turn it down. It goes like that all winter long. I like a cooler home. I sleep better and I don’t like the high heating bills. My husband on the other hand likes a warmer home. Fortunately the weather in PA has been mild so far this fall and we haven’t had to turn the heater on except for one night when it did dip into the 20’s.
Stephanie says
Hooray for a warmer fall!
Emily @ Simple Cheap Mom says
It was pretty cold up here at the beginning on September, so I’m proud that we made it to November.
We used to be a 72 all the time house. Last year we tried 68 day/65 night and it wasn’t too tough. This year we’re trying 65 day 62 night (just got a new thermostat in Celsius, so it looks like we’ll be trying 64.4 day 59 night). We’ll see how it goes.
Sweaters and slippers definitely help. I always say I can’t put the temperature too low because of our toddler daughter, but she seems to stay warm even when she’s running around naked.
Stephanie says
Good for you Emily! That sounds like an awesome goal! Young kids are pretty amazing– I guess they’re always moving so they’re always burning calories!
maia says
My teen-age girls do feel the cold unlike when they were little and running around but instead of turning up the heat to heat the entire house, I’ve given them both electric blankets that they use to snuggle up with when they’re watching a video, doing homework, reading, etc., and it allows the rest of the house to be at a cooler temperature. They automatically turn off after a couple of hours. Of course sweaters and slippers are a must too, but the blankets give them their own little “heaters” so they don’t feel so hard done by. We’ve also installed an air-source heat pump, which has cut our heating bill in half.
Stephanie says
Those are great ideas Maia! Way to go!
Judi says
We also keep our thermostat around 58 or 60, but I have two dogs laying on me at all times…it’s actually summer that we have to control ourselves from turning on the ac. Besides due to brown adipose tissue thermogenesis it’s actually healthy for you to keep your thermostat low. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2014/07/17/lets-cool-it-in-the-bedroom/
Stephanie says
That’s an interesting article Judi. I had no idea that cooler temperatures could help people with diabetes. I don’t have diabetes, but I’m afraid I might get it someday because I love sugar so much.
Beth @Goodness Gracious Living says
I totally thought you didn’t pay utilities 🙂 I also play the “how long before we turn the heat on” but I have already lost. To be fair, I’m in CT and we have already had one frost morning. Stay warm!
Stephanie says
You win Beth! 🙂 It gets a lot colder in CT than it does where I am!
Mrs SSC says
I have tried this method year after year and can not seem to trick my husband. I keep telling him that I don’t want to wear shorts in the winter and pants in the summer because of the AC. When it is cold out, I expect cooler temps inside too – like my body just naturally regulated to it. Before I met Mr. SSC, I used to live in Boston, and I figured out what temperature the pipes would freeze at, and kept the house a few degrees above that…. maybe a little extreme. But I liked bundling up in blankets!
But, I’ve used a similar method to switch to skim milk from 2%.
Stephanie says
That’s awesome that you are temperature tough and that your husband is the one who caves!
As for milk, when we got married, I drank skim and my husband drank whole milk. We settled on 2% for years. Now we drink skim though because it’s more than 50 cents a gallon cheaper.