What Should Your Home Temperature Be When Kids Are at School and You’re at Work

Fall in the mid-Atlantic has a tendency to bring a drastic shift in cold temperatures without much warning, as the waning days of summer give way to chilly nights. It is time to become reacquainted with your programmable thermostat. Across the region, school has started, and the kids are out of the house just as much as you are away for work. To this end, keeping your home’s temperature set at your personal comfort level does not make much sense. You have an opportunity to save considerable money by lowering your home temperature settings while away, and having the programmable thermostat bring them back up just before you arrive home.

Home temperature setting

For families between Maryland and New Jersey it is recommended to follow energy saving tips and keep a comfort level set between 68 and 70 degrees while at home during the cold months, and when away, have the programmable thermostat reset to between 58 and 62 in order to save money. You don’t want to go much lower than that, however, for two primary reasons.

Prevent freezing pipes

The first consideration is freezing pipes. You want your home to maintain some level of warmth should winter temperatures affect your basement plumbing and create frozen and burst pipes. Keeping a reasonable home temperature setting will help avert this scenario, and if a severe cold snap is on the horizon, you might consider raising your daylight temperatures to accommodate.

Stop energy loss

Secondly, the lower you allow your house’s temperature to drop, the more work your heating system will require to raise temps to a comfortable level. This takes a great deal of energy, and you may well lose the benefits you gained by lowering the thermostat during the day.

At Sobieski Services, Inc., our goal is to help our customers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey learn more about energy and home comfort issues – especially HVAC and plumbing issues – so that they can save money and live in healthier, more comfortable homes.

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