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I really enjoy coconut oil as a rough weather gauge.
I cook with it a lot, but prefer it to be in liquid form for easy measure (which only happens in the warmer bits of summer here), so in winter, I keep a jar of it on top of a particularly warm heat vent.
I keep my place at 60f/15.6c in winter or it costs a fortune to heat. When it’s relatively warm out, the heat doesn’t kick on often enough to melt it, but when it’s real cold/windy the entire thing will be liquid.
How are you able to keep yourself warm enough with 15-16c of room temperature, though? I can sleep with 18 and above, do daily stuff and touch water regularly without much hassle, but even that drains a lot of energy from me. Below 18 would be a high risk of catching an illness if I am staying home those days.
Heated mattress pads on my bed and couch, mostly. And a heated chair pad when working. They cost a ton less to run than filling a drafty space with gas-warmed air, and are mostly sufficient. A month of both of the big pads being constantly on, on high, barely touches my electric bill, but my gas bill for heat… I keep it that cold because that’s still around $200 usd/mth. If I bump it to 65/18.3, it shoots up to the $350-400+ range. And since I’m not actually comfortable at 18.3 either (26-33/80-90 is about my sweet spot), might as well just keep it at 15.6 and save the money :)
So those, and fuzzy socks, fuzzy pajama pants, and a fuzzy bathrobe. Maybe a high-heat pad here and there, if I’m feeling luxurious or my back hurts. A friend of mine does something similar, but uses heated vest and socks to take the warm along with (rechargeable ofc).
80 to 90 °F is your sweet spot?! Did I read that right?
Yeah, I’m basically built for tropical environments. I’m cold at 75 unless I have a sweatshirt on. And I still wear that big fuzzy bathrobe through most of summer (I don’t have AC, and never have, but I do have dehumidifiers for when it’s really warm, and that’s generally enough).
Hmm, good to know. Electricity rates here are not quite good to go with electric heating, even if for a smaller area, but might be worth checking out to use from time to time. Thanks for the details.
The nice thing about it is that this isn’t actually heating an area, it heats you and the mattress/blankets around you, basically making a microclimate in your sleepy cocoon. Very very efficient, even if your electric rates aren’t great (mine really aren’t either, but it still barely touches it, they just don’t use a lot of electricity). I put my heated pad under a padded pad to help retain and even out the heat, and it helps a lot.
Happy to help either way! So here’s some more info!
https://electricado.com/how-much-electricity-does-heated-mattress-pad-use/
Most of the below comes from that link-
60-100 watts is roughly average energy use, but you can get lower, and smaller pads will use less.
Energy Cost = (Wattage x Usage Hours) / 1000 x Electricity Rate
For example, let’s assume your heated mattress pad has a wattage of 75 watts, you use it for 8 hours per night, and your electricity rate is $0.12 per kWh. The calculation would be as follows:
Energy Cost = (75 watts x 8 hours) / 1000 x $0.12 = $0.072 per night
For one mattress pad for a 30-day month with the above assumptions, it would run you a whopping $2.16/mth.
Sounds pretty reasonable. I'll try to see if I can find good ones for the coming winter.
Warm cloth. The problem is mainly that if it gets warmer during the day, then you end up having a lot of condensate from air humidity on everything and that is the perfect condition for mold to form.