Same here.

But there is middle-ground here. My wife came from a very temperate country. She wants the thermostat set at like, 26.

I'd be happy to have it at 17 and wear sleeves indoors. 9 degrees thermostat difference makes a hell of a dent in the utility bill.

Don't be lazy. You can type with your toes.

Yeah, nah, I'm on the side of the government paying for utilities. Human right to electricity. Figure out a system to prevent overuse, but everyone deserves to have heating and cooling when needed.

That said, definitely wear a sweater in the winter if you can. Acclimate to the season and you'll hate going outside a lot less, and need less heating in the winter. I typically don't heat most of my home in the winter (I don't have central heating). I just use a space heater in whatever room I'm in, and move it to the next room with me, and wear warm clothes. I'm in Tennessee, which routinely gets well below freezing in the winter. Not ideal, but it works

Pets? One of my cats found a nice solution for that: recruit some dumb human as her heating pillow. (The "dumb human" is me, by the way.) And when I'm not on the bed she sleeps inside a blanket folded in the shape of a pocket.

...although winter here rarely goes below 0°C, subtropical region and all that shit. If I was a bit souther I'd probably have some heaters in the bedrooms, and that's it - there's no reason to heat the whole house.

I'm sorry, me heaters are set to 16°C 😢
In my defence they don't go any lower than that for some reason

Yeah how else will ChatGPT tell you how to distribute (a^2 +b^2)(c^2+d^2)? /s

True, but also let's not just let ourself dash toward suicide. Society is not meant to sustain nudism in the middle of winter 24/7.

> *buys new iPhone*

> *uses Google as primary search engine*

> *doesn't use adblocker*

> *pays for youtube*

> *pays for spotify*

> *pays for netflix*

> *buys brand clothes*

> *doesn't give a shit about monopolies, worker conditions, product origins, nothing*

> Guys, it's the corporation's fault for making all these products for me to buy!

God, I recall when we lost power for a week in the middle of a freeze, it was so cold that my multiple blankets weren't enough to keep me warm when trying to sleep. I had to break out a nasty comforter that I've got that doesn't breathe at all and gets real sweaty during normal weather. Worked well to lock in the heat.

nobody can afford that here lol

It does not have to be brick and mortar. The house with the best insulation I know is made of wood and straw bales.

Cold one or hot one?

7200' here, I'll keep my furnace as well. I usually only keep it at 62°, unless I want a $600 gas bill. But, that the tradeoff of having mild awesome summers.

My old housemates were the opposite lol. We tried saving every penny on heating costs. In the winter, we taped the windows over with cardboard for better insulation (they are old single-pane windows), and fashioned an automatic door closer from an elastic cord to keep the door into the living room shut (our "warm zone"). Instead of using gas heating, we mined ETH with our gaming PC's (this was before ethereum went proof-of-stake). Between the three of us, the total energy output was close to 2kW, so totally viable for keeping the living room warm. Pretty sure we ended up earning money from heating the house lol.

If you have south or west facing windows:

Metallized privacy films have made a big difference in my home. For heat protection, they should be the weather resistant kind and applied to the outside of the window. (They should be removable without leaving any residue)

If you want to try this method out first: Stick a few space blankets in front of the windows. Looks like shit, but it's a cheap way to test whether this method might work for you.