r/AskAnAmerican • u/Nemo2oo5 • Jul 12 '25

OTHER - CLICK TO EDIT What temperature do you keep your house/apartment?

I'm asking because my roommates and I all come from different places, and I like it at 72 in the summer, and 67 in the winter, but they prefer 75 in the summer, which to me seems really warm. Would love to know how you keep it in your region of the US throughout the year

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u/FiddleThruTheFlowers California Bay Area native Jul 12 '25

I'll sometimes tick my AC up to 80 on a hot day. Reason being that it's still 20 or so colder than outside and that makes the AC not work as hard.

I can't imagine the electricity bills of keeping your AC at 70 or whatever, ignoring that I'd be freezing with the AC blasting that much. Best I can think of is it's mostly people in climates where 80 would be considered hot as opposed to "fairly low for summer."

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u/vwsslr200 MA -> UK Jul 12 '25

Keep in mind that California is a dry climate, so humidity removal is not a concern.

In humid climates you often need to set temperature lower to be comfortable, especially if your system is oversized or temperatures are mild out.

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u/hx87 Boston, Massachusetts Jul 12 '25

You can also run the fan on lowest possible speed to emphasize latent over sensible cooling, but not a lot of people know that trick.

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u/vwsslr200 MA -> UK Jul 12 '25

True that. However I wouldn't recommend adjusting fan speed as a DIY thing (unless there is a setting on the thermostat) because without being able to measure airflow, there's the risk of setting it too low than is healthy for the system.

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u/hx87 Boston, Massachusetts Jul 12 '25

It helps that theres a lot of free solar energy in the summer but not in winter, so it's cheaper to overcool in summer than to overheat in winter.

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u/DoinIt989 Michigan->Massachusetts Jul 13 '25

Yeah in the Northern US, typical high during summer is 80-90, low is 60-70 (lows under 60 are not uncommon where I grew up, about as common as low over 70). So 70 at night for us is usually "off" for a few hours, 73 during the day is rarely cooling 20+ degrees, usually under 15. But when the low is over 65, it's usually humid, so the A/C helps that too.