Re: heat temp while away from home

It depends on the type of heat, how well insulated the house is and
where any pipes containing water are located. If you have forced air
heat and water runs are located well inside the house or well
insulated, then you can get away with a lower temp. If you have hot
water heat with runs in exterior walls and no antifreeze and not much
insulation around pipes in walls, then you need a higher min temp. One
problem of course is without doing some testing, you have no way of
knowing how much insulation and/or drafts there might be in any
exterior walls with pipes. One tip to consider is leaving any kitchen
or bath cabinets below sinks by outside walls open, as this lets some
warm air get closer to the pipes in outside walls. You can also take a
look at where your water pipes are run in walls.

I have a reasonably insulated home with forced air heat that is about
18 years old here in NJ where it gets down to single digits
occasionally, have kitchen and bath pipes in outside walls and I've set
it for 45 with no problems. But for 2 weeks, it's better to be safe
than sorry, as the few bucks diff in heating isn;t much compated to
having a big disaster.

.

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