Derek Cole covers thermostat settings for every season: 64-68°F in winter, never above 78°F in summer to let your AC dehumidify, and 60-67°F for sleep. Avoid constant adjustments, and account for pets and babies when setting temperatures.
Questions this episode answers
64°F (heat sometimes turned on at 64; typical winter range 64–68°F).
67–68°F (the host says they usually keep about 67–68 during the day; general winter recommendation cited as 68°F).
78°F (do not go higher than 78°F so the AC runs enough to dehumidify).
60–67°F (studies mentioned showing better sleep in cooler environments).
70–78°F (the host suggests an empty house should be between 70 and 78°F, while reiterating not to exceed 78°F).
Foreign.
I'm Derek Cole, host of the Derek Cole Podcast and we believe in taking the time to explain how things work for your air at home or your business. And we also believe you deserve clean air in that home. And that is why we founded the Healthy Home Challenge. It's a five day online video series with daily emails, worksheets and even quick action steps you can take to protect you, your family and your co workers. If you haven't joined us yet, you can sign up. It's free to free five day access. You can go to Simmons One Hour Comm. You'll see a link to learn more about indoor air. You've probably known for a while that you need better indoor air at home or at work. After all, we spend 90% of our time indoors these days. Your breakthrough awaits at Simmons One Hour Comm. Now let's get into today's episode. Please listen closely and maybe even take some notes so you can remember these insights of home comfort and energy savings. And share this episode with three of your friends because we all need to share better ways to be more comfortable at home. Be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram Derek Mcole so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. And let's begin.
Foreign. The most popular questions we get is about the thermostat, you know, which, what's that? You know, switch my thermostat to what temperature should it be on? What's the right temperature? What should be happening? Well, we said to everyone that calls but, and I, I've said it to everyone when I've gone to a house is, you know, set it to what you're comfortable at. But I wanted to dig a little, a little deeper in that because there are some, you know, if you want a thermostat guide, kind of a rule of thumb for a few, few things, a few seasons, few temperatures, I'll give you some of the information. But again, we especially have this problem with some of the switches from an analog kind of old school thermostat to a digital thermostat. When they get a new system, the temperature on the digital is not the same as the slide bar or the analog thermostat. Well, two reasons. One is because it's reading a digital temperature, the analog was going off of mercury or something else. It was not calibrated correctly because the age, it's not calibrated where it needs to be. So that is going to be off. And two, you have a new system and you know, don't get so Hung up on the number as you are, hung up on the feel, you know, what feels right to you. So I'll give you what I do at my house. This is not what you have to do your house. But I'll tell you what we do at my house during the winter. You know, we sit at the 64 at night, usually keep about 68, 67, 68 during the day if it's cold. But in the winter, in the winter, 68 degrees everydays, you know, that's kind of the, the standard. So that's fine. If it's the empty house, obviously, you know, you could turn the heat down even more if you have pets in the house but you're not there. I would probably still keep around the six day mark, 68, 70. I probably wouldn't go, you know, too much lower than that. But I mean it all depends on what you're comfortable at. So in the wintertime, 68 degrees every day is good to go. Like I said for me personally, we, you know, put the heat on at 64 and sometimes when you get up and it's chilly you got to turn the heat on. But most of the time we, we keep it within that range of 64 to 68. And we have a cat so we don't want to make it too cold for, for Vegas. So we don't make, we don't make it uncomfortable for Vegas. We're not home. But that's the winter time again. Go and feel what feels right to you. Maybe it's 72, maybe it's 73, maybe Zen. I mean whatever is good for you is what you need to set that thermostat at and stay with it and stay with that temperature. You know, one of the things to avoid a PDF that we made might have been 20, 21, you know, stop. Basically it stop playing with their thermostat. Yeah. Stop going up, going down, going up, going down. You know, keep it, keep it constant, keep it to what you want to, what feels good for you. Don't get too hung up on the number on the screen now. Ser time. So was a big one around here. Now we're in southeastern North Carolina. So it is hot, it is humid. So the reaction is to if I'm not home, I'm going to, you know, bump temperature up. Some AC will come on. Well, I would not recommend going any higher than 78 degrees every day whether you're in the house or not. I would not go higher than 78 degrees because you want the unit to come on. You Want to dehumidify. You want to keep that humidity under control as much as possible in the home. Again, it's muggy, sticky hot here in the summertime. So you don't want that temperature to be higher than 78 because then that's not gonna come on enough to keep that humidity in check. You don't want things to start growing. You don't want that happen. So you have to keep the humidity in check. And the way to do that is keep the thermostat at least no higher than 78. At least no hard miss 78. And that's regardless if you're home, not home, selling the home, renting the home, whatever it is, do not go higher than 78 because you want that unit to come on and de miniva. Now for me, usually we keep about 75. We bump it down when it gets close to bedtime. Studies have shown that you actually sleep better when the home or the space is colder than if it's hotter. So we, we're bringing the temperature down to, you know, 72. We could sit on 72 during day and 60 at night. It all depends on the weather and what, what's happening. It all all depends on it. But if you have pets, I wouldn't again, I would just never go higher than 78. Pets at pets at home. But you're not home. Temperature should be between 70 and 78 degrees. Some folks say if it's an empty house turned off again, Southeastern North Carolina, I'm not speaking really whole country, wherever you're listening to me at, I'm speaking for southeastern southeastern North Carolina. You want to not go above 78 degrees because you need that unit to dehumidify and keep that humidity in check. Ideal temperature for bedtime year round is between 60 and 67. Obviously it might not be achievable in the summertime when it's, you know, 98 degrees outside with the 60 humidity, you're probably not going to get there. But it goes back to what I said before. Studies showed that at bedtime it is better to cool the house down so you can sleep better because you need to recharge and you need a cool environment away from light to make that happen. Houseplants don't go above 75. New baby, 75 says 60. 75. I'm reading one of our, our one hour thermostat guys, but new baby, it says 60 to 75. Again, You're probably never going to get 60. So in the summertime, maybe the winner, but not in summer. Throwing a party? No, Iron 70. It's one of those things where it depends on the day. I mean, we're in North Carolina, South Carolina, weather changes around here. Every single day seems to be something different. I mean like today when I'm recording this or in the mid-70s and I think tomorrow is going to be in the mid-50s, so you never know what's going to happen. But a thing to remember when throwing a party or having guests over or anything like that, it's each human is 98 degrees of heat, right? So the more people you have in the space, the more that space is going to heat up naturally. So you want to cool it down, keep it cool and kind of, you know, plan for that. Hey, it, you know, 96 degrees outside at 7pm tonight, I'm going to have guests over. You know, it's 12. I, I should start getting this thing to climb down in temperature. That way when everybody gets here, when everybody gets in that one room, they're not fanning and not sweating and because all of a sudden we went from a room with zero people to a room with 10. I mean, just be aware of that. So, you know, we'll call it pre cooling, pre cooling the house, pre cooling the room, whatever we want to call it there. But if you have guests over, just take that in into consideration. The people, what they call loads, the people load. You know, you're going to have those people at 98 degrees in that space. But I hope that helps with thermostat questions. I mean, it's just so, it's so broad of a question. It's kind of, you know, it's kind of like a, you know, which filter do I use? Or it all depends on the house, depends on your needs. The only absolute I have personally is never in the summertime, especially in the summer. Never said that thermostat above 78 degrees, you want it to dehumidify and you want to take that moisture out there so things don't start growing and you have a whole different problem than the energy bill.
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