I just moved into a rental house after years of living in apartments with district heating. I still paid for electricity in my apartment, but there was less dir

I just moved into a rental house after years of living in apartments with district heating. I still paid for electricity in my apartment, but there was less direct control and a smaller space to heat. This winter, I'll be heating a full house. I'm researching whatever I can about optimizing my energy usage, and I'm totally up for just wearing more layers. The problem is, I was warned that at some point in winter the heat would _have_ to come on and stay on at some minimum level or otherwise our pipes will freeze. We won't actually even have day to day control over the heating level: when we think it's getting cold, the landlord will come turn it on for us. I think they suspect that we'll want the heating on before the pipe freezing point happens, which might be true. I'm hoping we can get them to just set it to the minimum possible heat level for the sake of the pipes, and layer up for the rest. Overall, I am doubtful as to how much I myself can optimize because it seems like this mandatory heating usage will just blow whatever impact I might have out of the water in comparison. That's not to say I won't try, though. Overall, I am not complaining. I for sure want to do whatever I can to lower my own bill, but in the long term I think this whole situation can be a net positive (with the full realization that I'm in a privileged position of having a decent emergency fund and the option to find a cheaper place to live if things get _that_ bad.)