I ask you: between that dude and JZ, who's the idiot?

I want to say "JZ by a long way, in the way that travelling to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is a long way compared to travelling to the coffee cart upstairs,"

Heh. Although I'm assuming you meant it the other way around?

We have a weird situation wherein the heat for our whole building (2 apartments) is controlled by the people in the downstairs apt., so if we desperately need it turned down or up while they're out, tough luck. They tend to keep it pretty warm; it's been on for a week or two by now. On the bright side, we don't have to pay for it!

Oh, and night is set to 60, which is as low as I feel comfortable having it with a baby in the house.

flea, I turned it on when I came home one day and it was 63 inside. Too cold for me. I pretty much have it at 66 now, and it only comes on at night, since with just lights and me and the furballs, the apartment stays at 70, at least. My tolerance for 70-as-reasonable will decrease as the winter progresses. By the time February hits, I'm betting there will be days I notch it up to 78 because I'm just too damned cold.

My criteria is not calendar driven, just OMGI'mCOLD.

I want to say "JZ by a long way, in the way that travelling to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is a long way compared to travelling to the coffee cart upstairs," but I'm afraid I'm just an idiot religious type whose opinion doesn't matter.

Um, good? Because I think you meant that the other way around.

Hivemind survey: have you turned on your heat yet? How do you decide when to turn on the heat? What do you set the thermostat to?

Turned it on this weekend, after a concerted effort to last till November. It was the 35d night that did it.

There is a concerted/crazed effort at temp control over a day for us, since we are in a huge, badly insulated apt. on the 1st floor. So:

Flatmate turns heat up to about 70 -- 6am
Nutty turns heat down to 60 -- 8:30 when leaving for work
Flatmate turns heat up to about 70 -- when getting home about 4
Somebody turns heat down to 60 -- bedtime

For all values of "we have a thermostat so old it has mercury switches inside it, you can open it up and look at them, so don't go expecting a fine difference between 68 and 70."

My criteria is not calendar driven, just OMGI'mCOLD.

This is me.

Nutty, can you get your landlord to install a programmable one, or permission to install one yourself?

I don't control my heat, which is annoying. I get plenty, it's keeping cool that becomes a problem. Which is why I currently have the heat, the wide-open window, and the A/C fighting it out, with the cacophony of hisses, clangs and whistles that brings. Plus I'm probably killing the AC unit, but I've already decided to get a better one next year, so I don't really care.

I do what Nutty does, except not to 60 at night. My nose would freeze and fall off or I'd be suffocated by the cats.

My landlord nearly blew up the house last night trying to light the furnace pilot. (He didn't believe me that you turn the knob to the left, so that the indicator points to "off" rather than to "on".) We showed him the mercury doohickeys, and he was as stumped as any of us, so much so that he checked with the upstairs people to ascertain that they had the same thermostat as us.

I foresee a new thermostat eventually, but only if I make a lot of pointed hazardous waste jokes every time I write the rent check.

My landlord is kind of malleable, but also kind of cheap and helpless. He is, in fact, far happier for me to buy things and take them out of the rent, which allows me to spend like crazy on the front garden.