Thermostat to 58 and it came on once.

I have no heat. Furnace is getting replaced next week. I do have a small space heater that can heat one room if needed. I've used it maybe 5 or 6 times just enough to take the chill off the room. House is an icebox otherwise.

A candle is not providing heat to your house. Mine has been on once to make sure everything was working fine. Woodstove does the rest unless I'm away for a weekend.

Yeah because your house is staying above 65 without doing anything. I have my heat set at 65 and it comes on all the time. Are you in a 3rd floor apt?

I am. I’m curious, how does that help? Do my neighbor’s beneath me somehow warm my apartment up? I’ve had to turn on the heat once so far, but attributed it to working from home and having a lot of electronics on throughout the day.

Yeah, you're likely getting a lot of heat rising up from downstairs. I used to live on a 3rd floor and had the same thing.

You're all made of sterner stuff than I 😆 .. I think mine came on in early October (I keep the thermostat set at around 63).

But I wfh, so I need to be comfortable.

Hot air rises. If your walls and attic are insulated then it should trap some of that rising heat. Thermodynamics. Fuck yeah science.

I am a 62-63 thermostat setter myself. Heat has been coming on since October, but not super frequently. Low 60s is a good energy saver mode.

Not to be pedantic, but a candle can throw ~100 BTUs of heat energy.

While it might not be appreciable vs. a mini-split unit or other HVAC, to say it is not providing heat is a complete misnomer. Grab a candle by the top or the jar, or from the top of the jar and tell me it isn't throwing heat.

I'm not suggesting that two or three candles are going to heat a whole house by any means, but it certainly is throwing off heat.

I’ve never understood the chest beating people do to brag about not turning their heat on.

Maybe it’s from a position of privilege but I turn the heat on when I get cold and I shut it off when I’m warm.

I never think about it outside of that context lmfao

You and any other occupants are the ones producing the heat in you home, not a couple of candles.

Did you miss the whole giant rate increase thing or what?

If anything the electronics and you would have not needed it to be turned on. It was probably just a colder day.

If you had people living above you and they had their heat on yes, heat rises so even a little bit would help your own place. Not huge amounts but a little bit.

And a PS4 and 2 computers, and several 98° bodies, sure.

I never turn on the heat, if anything it gets too hot even in the winter with heat off like 75-76 degrees. I have to open the window to get it down to 70-72 degrees. Even with window open it won't drop below 70. But Summers are insane, have to have AC blasting 24/7

Haven't noticed it yet. I was bracing myself for it last month but the bill was in line with past months.

still haven't turned on the oil furnace....
buuuuuuut we have been using the heat pump set to 64... . so how does that count?

Currently wfh and when I’m grinding mentally but completely still physically, I get cold as hell. Heat goes on whenever it dips below 50. On the flip side, I don’t have to jack up the AC all that often.

Do you live on top of a hot spring or something? O_o

I'm a bit jealous. They did a bad job of insulating the attic when they built the place and I haven't gotten the whole thing sealed up yet, so my massive house runs wild on heating/cooling 😭

RI Energy (a.k.a National Grid) has increased electricity prices by 64% per kWh this coming year. And some guy from NRG in Walmart stopped me and asked if I wanted a $20 gift card to switch to clean energy. Same distributor(National Grid) , same supplier (NRG) are trying to “incentivize” people by giving them a $20 gift card and saying that cost of electricity will be cheaper if we let them supply us using renewable energy… Seriously? If it was cheaper for National grid don’t you think they would have done it by now?

I did this a couple of years before and while the $/kWh is just a few cents cheaper, they hit you with all sorts of bullshit fees and it ends up costing way more. They’ve already fleeced us with inflation and bullshit prices to pad their CEO’s bonuses.. what more can they take from us who are barely trying to survive? Besides it should be a policy based implementation to switch to clean energy without waving a carrot in front of normal working class citizens.

I never do, google controls mine in eco mode

Lmao, I should check. It's a small condo. Must be a combination of good insulation, electronics and lights giving off heat in a small space and they crank the heat up pretty high in the building so heat comes in through my door from the hallway. Other thing could be because my water heater is in a small closet inside my condo. But hey I'm not complaining, my heating bill last month was like $8 lol, guessing for the hot water from the water heater that I use.

There was a one time credit on everyone’s bill

Are you in an old brick factory building? I used to live in one and I used to have to crack windows because it would get too hot.

My HVAC system is smarter than I am. I let it turn on whenever it thinks it needs to.

I’ve used a thermal imaging camera on a candle before to test this. A typical candle is producing heat but it usually outputs that heat straight up above the flame and hot wax, usually going right into your ceiling and getting pulled by the draft. If you want to actually get a useable amount of heat, add something to catch the heat. Clay pots work nicely, they catch the heat and have enough thermal mass to then slowly output it to the environment in a way you can really feel.

I’m currently living in a 1 room cottage down in Gansett, and a cheap candle with a clay pot above it and placed in the center of the room is enough to keep the heat off, down to about 45F outside temp. Now I’m starting to worry about my pipes freezing so the heats going on, but it worked in the fall!

RI Energy is not a/k/a (also known as) National Grid.

National Grid sold its RI gas and electric business to PPL - Pennsylvania Power and Light - which has rebranded the RI utilities as RI Energy.

Interesting, cos the portal for my RI energy has my previous national grid accounts from other states I’ve resided in. I guess they are using the same portal but different business?

That counts! I have heat pumps and gas boiler. Not using heat pumps and with thermostat set at 62, heat rarely comes on.

How did this get so many downvotes. Guy is 100% right.

Appreciate that. I have a master's degree in mechanical engineering, and I get downvoted for posting the results of something I literally conducted experiments with back in undergrad...

I just don't understand how people can disagree. Have they ever held their hand to a flame.... Makes me realize how retarded people truly are...

It's worse when you realize that they vote and reproduce, but here we are... :D

:(

Partner + feather puff + cat = who needs heat in the bedroom? I would still have it turned off in there if not for wishing to avoid a recurrence of the time I opened the windows on a weirdly warm winter day and everything in the bedroom got sopping wet with dew.

I think it's a special New England kind of brag.

It is not about the money for me. It is about the environment and leaving the smallest carbon foot print possible...saving money is a nice side effect.

Just once I did for an hour.