I set my thermostat to 68 degrees

[radarrider]

I do this mainly to save money on my natural gas bill. It also has the side effect of reducing the amount of carbon-based exhaust products that are emitted by my home. But if that were the only benefit, I'd set it higher.

Of course, when you don't have to pay for it, there's no reason not to crank it up:

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

What the hell happened to, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” from last year's campaign? Well duh, whaddya think happened?

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

You can't, but Obama can. He's special.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

68? We have ours set to 64 trying to keep the propane bill down.

[mywoogie.livejournal.com]

I'm curious if you have the same natural gas provider we do. We keep ours set at 74, and the bills have been around the cost that I normally see in the summer. It's strange, because last year we had the temp set at 72 in the day and 68 at night - and according to the company our gas usage was 4 times greater than it has been this year. Personally, it really don't make much sense to me, since this year has been a colder overall.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

Our provider is Puget Sound Energy. Our monthly cost varies widely between winter and summer.

One possible contributing factor is the amount of other devices in the house that produce heat. I've seen the temperature as measured by the thermostat go up a degree or two when I've been running the Xbox.