Your house is hotter than the outside primarily because it acts like a greenhouse, trapping the sun's shortwave radiation through windows and walls. This heat is absorbed by your furniture, floors, and walls, turning into trapped longwave radiation that slowly cooks the space even after the sun goes down.
One of the primary reasons for a hotter indoor environment is poor insulation. Inadequate insulation allows heat from the sun to penetrate your home, raising the overall temperature. Areas such as attics, walls, and floors that lack proper insulation can contribute significantly to this problem.
Top 5 tips for solving uneven temperature in house:
Drapes, darkening shades, roller shades, awnings and louvers all provide helpful window coverage. Outdoor awnings and louvers reduce the heat that enters a home more than indoor window shades or curtains. Additionally, consider adding reflective film to your windows.
Ideal House Temperature for Sleeping
According to the Sleep Foundation, the perfect bedroom temperature for the most comfortable sleep is a few degrees lower than the temperature you're used to during the day: between 65 and 68°F (18-20°C) for adults and 69°F (20.5°C) for infants.
Merriam-Webster gives as a medical definition a range of 15 to 25 °C (59 to 77 °F) as being suitable for human occupancy, and at which laboratory experiments are usually performed.
“However, it's vital that we keep them warmed to around 18C (degrees centigrade), if possible. If our homes drop to 16°C or lower we are putting ourselves at risk of major health problems, particularly for those people with pre-existing health conditions or over the age of 65.
No, 23 degrees Celsius (73.4°F) is generally not too hot for a house—it's within a comfortable range for most people. However, some may find it warm, especially for sleeping, and prefer a slightly cooler temperature.
It takes time for your home to warm up and cool down. If you're not sure how long it takes, try turning the heating on about 30 minutes before you need it. You should turn it off 30 minutes before you'll stop needing it.
Fans are considerably cheaper to run than air conditioning. Expect to pay around 20 times more when using split system air conditioning compared to a ceiling fan, and even more for ducted AC. Does a fan or AC use more electricity? Air conditioning consumes much more electricity than fans.
Uneven heat in your home is typically caused by one or more of three factors: poor airflow in your heating system, inadequate insulation, or air in your home. More specifically, causes include: Restricted airflow between the furnace and vents. Leaky or poorly installed ductwork.
Your smartphone can tell you the precise room temperature of every room in your house… if it is connected to the Netatmo Smart Weather Station! Simply install the connected station in your home and you have access to air quality, temperature, pressure, humidity, and many other weather data in your home.
How can you tell if a thermostat is bad?
But in addition to making you uncomfortable and interfering with healthy sleep patterns, being too hot at any time of day or night can cause health risks like dehydration and heat stroke.
Simply put, it means you should never set your thermostat for a temperature more than 20 degrees cooler than the outside air.
In building science, this is referred to as night-flush ventilation. Don't forget to close the windows and blinds before things get too hot in the morning. Summer sun delivers heat right through your windows. Block the heat with shades or blinds during the sunniest hours to keep your home cool without AC.
The 3-minute rule is a simple but important guideline: wait at least three minutes after turning your air conditioner off before turning it back on. That short pause gives the refrigerant pressure in the system time to equalize.
Here are the most significant home electricity users:
Use a bucket of ice
Placing a bowl of ice or cold water in front of a fan can help create a cooler breeze as air passes over it. Running your fan strategically throughout the day, rather than only when a room feels too warm, can help maintain a more stable and comfortable environment.
Your HVAC system is typically the biggest energy consumer, followed by your water heater and refrigerator. These appliances work hard to heat, cool and run 24/7.
Heating and energy expert Stephen Hankinson said that one "big energy cost saver" is to make sure you have your heating off when you're not at home. For instance, if you typically arrive home from work at around 6pm on weekdays, you could set your heating to activate just as you walk through the door.
For most customers, we recommend turning on your furnace when the weather is consistently below 18° Celsius, which usually happens to be around the end of September, or early October. Some homeowners try to put off turning on their furnace as long as they can to save money, which is okay if you're healthy adults.
Is 20 degrees cold for a house? No, 20°C (68°F) is considered a comfortable temperature for most people during winter, especially when dressed appropriately.
Experts anticipate 2026 to be exceptionally warm, though records remain uncertain. As of May 6, 2026, Carbon Brief, which synthesizes multiple datasets and expert analyses, indicates that 2026 is likely to be the second-warmest year on record, with a 19% probability of surpassing 2024's record for the warmest year.
Extreme heat is also the No. 1 killer of people globally when it comes to extreme weather events.