How cold should it be before you put the heating on?

The ideal indoor temperature is between 15°C – 21°C, so that gives you a good point of orientation. It is natural, however, for your home to be warmer in summer and cooler in winter. This means you’re going along with the seasons, and not using too much energy trying to change the temperature of your home. Of course, you’ll want to be comfortable at home, so you might be asking when it is cold enough to put on the heating. That is a personal choice – we don’t know how toasty you want your home, or how happy you are to layer up and make use of hot water bottles. The best advice we can give you, is to distinguish between the different ways of deciding when to turn on the heat.

There are two main ways of thinking about when to turn on the heat. Typically, heating season runs from October to May which is in line with the change from Fall to Winter to Spring. However, if you’re asking yourself when it is cold enough to put the heating on, you might already be aware that a set heating season may leave you heating your home unnecessarily. For that reason, we prefer thinking about when to turn on the heat in terms of the weather changing. If you’re on the heels of a particularly warm Fall, you may only need to turn on the heating in mid-November. On the other hand, a spell of chilliness in September might lead to turn on the heating a little earlier – and no harm done.

The last thing you want when Jack Frost pays his first visit is to discover that there’s a problem with your heating. If you’ve decided when to put the heat on in my house – and it just so happens to be right now – you might find that your heating system has run into some issues after not being used.

Have you already checked out our other articles? If not then how about reading though these ones: how to clean gutters, how to clean windows and how to dispose of paint. They might just come in useful!