When to Turn on Your Heater
HE SAID WHAT?!
Posted By Alex
The following is a true story but before I begin, a little fact about myself. I am lazy. When I am lazy about doing something around the house, I will tell you that I don’t want to do it—because I am lazy. I won’t make any other excuse to justify my being lazy other than the fact that, shit, I don’t want to get the fuck up.
About two weeks ago, we were watching some football when Wendy got up to prepare our dinner (we were having turkey burgers). Right before she headed off to the kitchen, she stopped by the thermostat to turn the heater on. As she was preparing the burgers, she asked me if I want to grill them on our grill. To which I replied, “Hell no, it’s too cold outside.” Her response? “It’s not THAT cold.”
Wut.
“Seriously? Because you just turned the goddamn heater on and you’re inside the freakin’ house!” I told her incredulously. “Well, it’s not,” she said. A few days later, she told me that she thought I was just being lazy but was blaming it on the cold weather instead. I was not because there have been a few times during the summer when she wanted me to barbeque and I simply said no because I was feeling super lazy.
In our area, the weather is pretty moderate. Yes, it gets cold but not like, say, Massachusetts where their winter highs are 15 degrees. Here, highs during the day are never below the 30s and even those are rare. So at night, when the weather dips below 45, I know that this calls for some backup in the form of our heater. During those cold months, as many of you know, the heater tends to dramatically drive up your energy costs. So when the weather outside is about 50-55 degrees I know that we won’t need our heater at all that night. Wendy, though, says otherwise and uses her cold nose to prove that she’s right. Because her nose basically acts as the weather man for her body.
Shut up, nose! It’s 55 degrees outside and the heater is completely unnecessary! You might think I’m being stingy about the heater but truly, I am not. I hate being cold as much as anyone else. Ask Wendy if I went outside when it was 22 degrees at 12:00 PM on the east coast last year. There was no way she was getting me off the heater vent I was sitting on. It was warm like pee.
So whenever the weather outside is a nice 55-60 degrees and Wendy asks me to touch her nose because she’s cold and about to turn the heater on, I give her nose the evil squirrel look. You know the one:
SHE SAID WHAT?!
Posted By Wendy
A little fact about my husband. When I say it’s cold outside, he—instead of opening up the door and seeing how it feels outside—checks his friggin’ phone. He’ll say, “No, it’s not cold outside. It’s 55 degrees out.” And I’ll say, “Okay, it’s not 55 degrees out. I was just out there. It’s colder than that.” His reply?
“Babe, it’s 55 degrees! Watch, I’ll check weather.com.”
So yeah.
Alex’s little story about the turkey burgers is true. And although I still believe he was being lazy (we’ve used our grill a total of five times, and three of them were when someone else was behind the grill), I will also argue that there’s a difference between being cold outside and being cold inside. Fifty-five degrees outside is warm. Fifty-five degrees inside is cold. Why? Because outside you wear a jacket, some layers, maybe even a scarf if you’re a wuss. You are outside for maybe 10 minutes when you grill a couple of turkey burgers. However, no one wants to wear a jacket and a bunch of layers inside. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be comfortable in my own home. I want to bum around in a T-shirt and not feel like my nipples will cut glass.
I’m from the east coast and I lived through 26 years of cold-ass-motherfucking winters. I walked a mile in snow and wind to the train every morning to get to work in New York City. In Massachusetts, I started my car 10 minutes before I got behind the wheel to thaw out the ice on the windshield. I hated it, but I learned something from it. What did I learn? That 55 degrees OUTSIDE is not cold. When I came indoors from 15 degree weather, you know what temperature I had my thermostat set to? Seventy degrees. Because that is a comfortable INDOOR temperature.
I understand wanting to save on the energy bills. I agree with Alex’s stance on turning off lights and TV when you’re not using them, not falling asleep with any electronics running, etc. But we don’t get a lot of natural light in the house and our floors are cold, hard travertine tile. It’s usually not a whole lot warmer inside than it is outside. At the end of the day, Alex runs really warm and I run cold. What he may consider comfortable inside feels like an icebox to me.
When I tell Alex to feel my nose it’s to demonstrate that my freaking extremities are cold. It’s not just my nose, it’s my fingers and my toes. I’m wrapped up like a burrito on the couch and he doesn’t want to turn on the heat. Meanwhile, he wonders why I don’t wear sexy lingerie to bed. Well, I’ll be hanging out in my boner-killer flannels until he makes it nice and toasty inside.
14 Responses to “When to Turn on Your Heater”
Nice jab at Eric for wearing scarfs. Whatta pan.
Hahaha. Totally unintentional. But I’ll take credit!
Just an FYI to all of our readers, those boner killer PJ’s Wendy mentions are the same ones she uses when the weather is 70 outside. On top of that, she gets under the covers and complains about how hot it is. I just can’t win here!
Sorry, Alex, I’m siding with Wendy on this one. There is a difference between 55 degrees inside and 55 degrees out. Also, you guys have high ceilings and as you might know, heat rises. I work with people who run colder than I do, and I live with Eric, who was known to bump the heater while sleeping in his “tan tan das!”, so I get your frustration to a point, Alex. At the same time though, if your wife, who’s lived in cold-ass places tells you her nose is cold, turn up the heat. Then put on a jacket and go grill those turkey burgers!
Seriously, if you do that, you might get her out of those b-killers in the summer.
I blast the shit out of my heat now. I used to be OK with the cold temperature but now i am in need of heat, heat and more heat. This past winter in Salinas was pretty brutal so i don’t think turning on the heater is a big deal at all. So i can’t disagree with Wendy wanting the heater on.
On the BBQing issue, i would have just said, “you go outside and cook them”. And that’s all.
True story.
I’d love to be lazy. Even for 2 minutes.
In our home if the inside temp drops below 65 the heater is on. And if it gets hotter than 75 our AC is on. Matt usually tries to bump up the heater or drop the AC but that’s where it stands in our home. Maybe I’ve been living in Florida too long but 55 requires a jacket and that’s way too cold of a temp in the house.
My perspective is a bit different, but I figured I would give it ago since the subject is about “Heaters.”
Part of me wants to totally be accommodating to other people in my house, especially because I love them so much. But the other part considers my health…
So I have suffered from Asthma, allergies, chronic pneumonia, you name it for most of my life. Something I inherited from my Dad. So growing up because of us, my mom, brother and sister weren’t allowed to turn the heater on because it would always trigger our allergies ☹
A common saying was “ put on a sweater, get a blanket, or put socks on” because my dad and I would for sure get sick, or have an attack. This of course did not make us the most popular people in the house. We were sad too, we didn’t want everyone to suffer because of us… But there was a fine line between their comfort and our health.
Yes, I am making an argument to help me feel better about it. But its true. If you know someone who has a peanut allergy, you do whatever you can to make sure there isn’t a peanut in sight. I don’t know the scientific link between heaters and allergies; I just know my body and the reaction I get when heaters are blasting (see: car heaters, personal heaters, home heaters) is horrible (excluding dry saunas).
So what to do?? I’ve compromised by having the heater on a whopping 63 degrees (MAX) and if im outta the house, the sky is the limit. May not seem like much of a compromise on my part, but we try to make it work in our house :/
That makes total sense. If you are suffering from allergies and you are legit in pain/discomfort because of the heater, then compromises need to be made. But Alex doesn’t have allergies. Unless you count the fact that he’s allergic to a high energy bill
.
Sorry, Wendy, but I turn the heater on only when I see my kids’ fingers turning blue.
Ok, I didn’t even have to read the entire blog to know that I am voting with Wendy!!!!!
We don’t spend money on many things in our household, but I will tell you this. I would rather live off of Top Romin than be cold in the house. And I am talking about the house needing to be at least 68 degrees at all times. We love our heater. It is on every day that it is less than 68 in the house and we are home. That is just the way it is. If I can’t be warm in my own home, then I am not a happy camper. It is worth the money for my husband to not have me grumpy.
Put the heater on!!!! Enjoy the warmth! It is fabulous!
Forgot to add that we don’t have a fireplace so the heater is our only option to warm up our home.
Thanks for your nice post. You efforts putting this blog together was worth the while. Well put wtg22.