61 degrees

My family is keeping our thermostat at 61 degrees this winter. We decided to bring it down from our traditional 65 degrees in order to save energy. [Note: Late at night at my house, the temperature automatically drops down to 55]. I've put a thermometer in various rooms to check the accuracy of the thermostat. The actual daytime temperature ranges from 59 to 62 in the various rooms. When we are all gone for the day, we manually set the temperature down to 55. When I mention "61 degrees" to people, most of them are surprised; some of them are aghast. Apparently, at least among Americans, 61 degrees is an usually "cold" temperature for the interior of a house in the winter. Over the past couple of weeks, I even heard from several people who keep their thermostats above 70. When you browse the Internet, you will find numerous "authorities" advising you to set the thermostat down to 65 to save energy (e.g., here). Here's an informal survey of quite a few folks. Apparently, even our new energy-conscious President likes it toasty indoors.

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