…for those of you who have more experience with keeping your houses cold in the wintertime. This past winter is the first time we’ve kept our house at 65 degrees or less, and I do think that my body adjusted to that(not as much as I’d have liked, though!). As a result of that adjustment, temperatures that used to seem cold to me don’t seem so cold anymore. For instance, we used to keep our house at 70 degrees all winter long, and that used to feel cold to me. However, the current weather conditions here are keeping our house right around 70(with no heat), and I don’t feel at all cold. I’m walking around wearing one shirt, one pair of jeans, and no socks or slippers, and I feel completely comfortable.
This has made me wonder if my body will have an especially hard time adjusting to the hot summer weather that’s coming since it became accustomed to a lower temperature than usual over the winter. Do those of you who keep your homes fairly cold over the winter notice that summers are particularly miserable, or does your body adjust fairly quickly?
Just so you know, we do use our AC in the summertime(going without AC entirely would be bad for my piano, and besides, I become rather crabby if my house is allowed to soak up every bit of humidity from the air…I hate humidity!) but we keep it set at 80 degrees usually. This means that my body is going to need to adjust to a 15 degree temperature difference(from 65 to 80).
So, all you that routinely freeze your buns off over the winter, tell me what the summer holds for me!
Lynette
Sunday 10th of May 2009
I live in N. Ga- we keep the thermostat at 80 or so in the summer & keep the ceiling fans going. An unless I am doing laundry or cooking, it feels fine to me. But, I don't like the cold, so I have not tried lowering the thermostat in winter yet, except for a few degrees at bedtime. (My daughter kicks covers off no matter how cool it is, and the rest of us have electric blankets). But during the day, I haven't diped below 68. Space heaters use a lot of energy, so they just aren't an option for us like the ceiling fans in the summer~
Deanna
Sunday 10th of May 2009
We live in Oklahoma. Seems like i'm always cold in the winter and miserable in the summer! Didn't seem like it used to bother as much before so i thought maybe it had something to do with age! LOL Summers here are very hot and humid. We do keep the thermostat at about 65 in the winter, but we have a wood burning fireplace and about 72 in the summer, any higher than than that and i'm miserable. I can stand to be a lil colder than hotter and have just decided to pay a higher electric bill in the summer to stay comfortable!
Michelle
Friday 8th of May 2009
In the summer, I often put my crock pot, bread machine, and/or rice cooker outside, rather than in the house. My kitchen has large south- and west-facing sliding doors, so it's routinely 5-10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house.
Allie
Thursday 7th of May 2009
I have trouble dealing with heat (and yet I live in Houston - brilliant), but I've found that if I run fans in the rooms we spend the most time in, open the windows to get good air flow and minimise my use of the oven (this one is toughest for me, because of bread), that I'm able to keep reasonably cool for the most part. We've had a couple days already where we closed the windows and cycled the A/C a few times to generally cool the house down, but overall I've been okay with the fans. I might invest in a larger fan to use once it really gets hot here (I think we've topped in the high 80s or low 90s so far).
I've also tripled my water intake.
So, yeah, I'm adjusting to the heat, but not NEARLY as quickly as I adjusted to the cold.
Kristen
Thursday 7th of May 2009
LOL Jenny! Fortunately, our bedroom is downstairs, which means it stays fairly cool down there(it stinks to sleep there in the wintertime, but in the summer it totally rocks!).