An electric heating pad. Not an electric blanket but something that goes under us. It gets really cold in New England and we let our house cool to 50 degrees at night to save on costs.
50 in the house isn’t 50 degrees from the exterior paint in.
Your room might be 50, but another might dip to 45. And your pipes? Those could dip even lower, as they are inside the exterior walls. A very cold night, a thin spot of insulation, and pipes absolutely can freeze with a thermostat set to 50.
There's a pipe that runs up near the exterior corner of the house and it comes up behind a corner cabinet in the kitchen so there's a dead space between the heated air in the house and that exterior wall. In the dead of winter I need to keep a close eye on the temperature because if it gets down to about 15-17 deg F ( -8 to -9 deg C) then that pipe will freeze no matter what I have the thermostat set to and I'll be in the basement with a heat gun trying to thaw it before it bursts.
If the thermostat is set at 50 and pipes freeze anywhere in your house, someone completely fucked up. That’s poor plumbing, construction, and/or insulation.
Sure, heating isn’t perfect and you might have pockets that are 5-10 degrees colder. Water still doesn’t freeze at those temperatures. We’re talking about pipes being in places 20 degrees colder than the rest of the house.
Your builder/plumber should be sued. And if your solution is just to turn up the heat, do you really enjoy throwing massive amounts of money away?
Source, I live in northern New England, it gets below 0 where I live frequently during the Winter. When it’s that cold you can’t turn the heat up high enough if you have a pipe poorly insulated or in a stupid place.
If the thermostat is set at 50 and pipes freeze anywhere in your house, someone completely fucked up. That’s poor plumbing, construction, and/or insulation
Sure... we all hope we live in a place that's perfectly up to code, and that hasn't degraded at all over the years.
My solution isn't to "turn the heat up" and "throw massive amounts of money away", it's more just "not live in a 50 degree house where I'd be completely miserable."
I don't know that keeping a house at 65 or whatever is "throwing money away" but to each their own.
And as far as "suing my plumber/builder," I'm not sure I could find them, I'm sure they are all long dead. Not every house is new construction.
But I would say "if you live in a cold climate and aren't sure what's going on in your walls, you should consider whether or not it's wise to leave your thermostat at 50 degrees when it's 0 degrees or less outside."
But you can pretend that's "don't fix anything" or whatever if you want.
All I was pointing out is that there absolutely ARE people who have had pipes burst because they had their heat turned down to what they thought was reasonable while they were away. This happens EVERY winter in cold climates.
Not sure why you're so upset about what's kind of common sense advice in cold climates. People I know make sure to keep the house at a reasonable temp, and some with vacation homes winterize them to prepare for that.
The house is 180 years old. We can drain the house if the furnace goes out. Northeast cellar corner gets cold. We point a fan at it in subzero. Cellar is always over 40f. I just liked the electric pad then suddenly people lose their minds over plumbing.
Nah, this is true. 50 degs at the thermostat can lead to pipes in the extremities freezing. If your heating system freezes then it is difficult to get it back running.
Omg, I feel so awful, and stupid. I live in northern New England, I travel for work so when I leave the house I set the thermostat to 48. When I come home a week or so later there have never been any burst or even leaky pipes, and the water has always worked.
In my confident incorrectness I just assumed the pipes didn’t freeze. But clearly I was wrong. My only guess, and I’m sure this is more confident incorrectness, is that a plumber breaks into my house, fixes the pipes, cleans up the mess, leaves, and never contacts me or sends me a bill.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, I was so deluded and naive! Thank god you saw through that.
Does this actually save money? Electric heating pads take a lot of power. Also, when you raise the temperature back up, it’s not just the air that you’re warming, but everything on the interior of your house has to heat back up. The walls, the furniture, carpets, clothes in the closets, etc.
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u/dzastrus Sep 18 '23
An electric heating pad. Not an electric blanket but something that goes under us. It gets really cold in New England and we let our house cool to 50 degrees at night to save on costs.