I live down south, and last year our winter was extremely mild.
Most afternoons saw weather in the 70s, while lows in the middle of the night would rarely get below 60 degrees.
I am only into the second week of December and nearly every night the temperature has gotten down to 45 degrees or lower. My house has issues with cold drafts making it even colder than it needs to be inside. I need to hire a professional to fix the insulation problem here, because it’s as much of a problem during the summer as it is during the winter here. Because once we hit the end of June, temperatures start to climb over 100 degrees. With a poorly insulated house, a lot of the cool air from the air conditioner leaks outdoors. With this kind of setup, our HVAC system isn’t very efficient. That’s why even though it’s December and the weather is dropping into the low to mid 40s at night, I still won’t waste electricity trying to get my central furnace to heat a house that leaks all of it outdoors. If I’m really uncomfortable from the cold temperatures, I’ll use a small space heater either in my home office in the afternoons or next to my bed while I sleep at night. It’s less of an energy waste, and this way I’m not paying to heat the entire house. Instead, I’m using targeted heat that hits me and everything around me. It’s comfortable at night to have direct radiant heat from a space heater enveloping your cold body. I feel spoiled now after upgrading to one of these quartz heating element radiant space heaters. It was only $50 but it was one of the best investments I have ever made.