We have a new house and overall it is not bad. I find the bedrooms get a bit cool but this is because the thermostat is centrally located and the heat does not run that much, even on relatively cold nights, and the bedrooms are on the exterior walls. They cool faster than the main living area and we have a single zone of heating/cooling. The houses are not the most energy efficient homes you will find but I assume this is because there is not a demand for such. They undoubtedly meet all of the Florida codes. For the most part, you need to build a custom home to do better than the building codes. In our previous home, I included a number of energy/comfort features but it wasn't clear to me that there was a return on investment: Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF), closed-cell spray foam insulation, sealed attic, and 4-zone high SEER-rated heatpump.
I would recommend that you keep the heatpump on at night (I am assuming you have a heatpump). Heatpumps work best when set to a specific temperature that you are comfortable with and not changed. A degree or 2 difference between the setpoint on the thermostat and the actual temperature is typically enough to trigger the electrical resistance auxiliary heat and that will increase your electric bill. If you keep the heat on and leave it at a fixed temperature you will minimize/eliminate the use of the auxiliary heat. 60 degrees is pretty cool. You could have additional insulation blown into the attic. Doing anything about the wall insulation may be impossible and even if you could it may not be cost effective. Covering the windows and sliders with drapes will help with heat loss. You can probably have the house inspected with some thermal imaging equipment to see if there are areas of high heat loss.
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Originally Posted by Patf
We are new to The Villages and trying to figure out if there is a problem with our house. The house was built in 2008. During the cool months, we keep the thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and turn the heat off at night. On a typical night when the low is 45 degrees, the temperature in the house drops to about 60 degrees. Is this normal?
Our neighbors tell us they do the same thing and the temp in their house only drops to about 65 degrees.
We do the same thing in our house in Michigan. When the temp is 45 degrees at night the temp only drops to about 65.
I can not find any drafts or cold air leaks in our Villages house. Are our neighbors just lucky, or do we have a problem with our house?
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