1y ago

30 December 1986

25 comments

I feel like people freaking out over touching thermostats is like turning on a dome light in the backseat of a car at night. In my 30's and also am a newer homeowner and don't give a shit if people touch the thermostat. Wonder what caused it to be to be such a hot button topic?
- Finances. It costs money to run the heater, and working class families are on really regimented budgets. A difference of $30-$50 in your power bill can really mess things up when you're living on a strict budget.
- At a certain point in this cartoon, I think it stops being entirely about the thermostat, and becomes more about Calvin doing what his mum told him to do.
- Monitoring my electric and gas bills now as an adult and I get it. It's not too bad going from 65 to 68, but 65 to 90 would use up a lot of electricity in my case (and prior to my HVAC upgrade, uses gas which is cheaper but dries me out more). I'll still let guests do it to some degree, but we're talking a few dollars a day in the extreme. A month of my kid not touching my thermostat is equal to my kid getting a modestly priced video game.
  Granted, I'm also the type to walk or bike a few miles instead of drive to avoid a few dollars in gas and maintenance costs. I'm not ecologically friendly, I'm just stingy.
  
  Dude holy crap is that why I'm so dry this winter? First winter in this house that's gas heated.. apartment was electric.
- Do you have kids cranking it up to 90?
  
  Or people who don't understand how a thermostat works and crank it up thinking that'll mean it gets to the actual desired temperature faster and then overshoot to then turn it way down and repeat....
- hot button topic
  
  finger guns
- It really is. I get it if you’re on extremely limited finances, but for most American families the $15 difference between a comfortable temperature and a uncomfortable one is hardly worth caring about compared to actually feeling comfortable in your own home.
  
  In my case it's a difference of nearly $100/month to run the heat for a couple hours in the morning and it's only set at 70. I'd love these tiny amounts people are paying. I don't even live in a big place.
- I would rather pay 50 bucks than 75 to 85 bucks a month for my heat
  It saves money and means I can spend 250 on something that matters. Whereas wearing an extra layer to be warm isn't hard at all, it just makes more sense
- My older relatives still routinely cite the 70s oil/energy crisis whenever someone adjusts the thermostat. I think that kind of cross-societal scarcity of resources leaves an impact on someone for the rest of their lives.
  (I'm assuming most home heating in the 70s then would have been gas or oil based)

25 comments