can conservation be immoral?

I don't see a problem. If there was, your apt would probably be warmer than 60 and cooler than 90.

The neighbors above and below you and the ones on either side would be the ones bearing the injustice (if there is any).  It would not affect "everyone in the building".

If your door opens onto a common area where the bill is shared and you were proping the door open to get your heat or cooling, he would have reason to complain.

Is your heat actually electric ?
Ken

Dave:
The only thing that sounds crazy or too extreme is "100% electric" and "33 degrees outside".  Unless the building isn't plumbed for gas, or some other reason, that is crazy.

I lived in Germany as a GI. I heated my apartment with coal. No Refrigerator. We cooled our bier with cold water from a well (hand pumped, the well was colder than the city tap water). In the winter, you would set it out on the windowsill or balcony. Had to bring it in before it froze.

Extreme is only a matter of perspective.

It is always “warm” in California. Felt a bit chilly today. Midday temp was only 52. But that is cold for us. I may have had to scrape ice off the windshield one or two mornings so far this fall, but I really don’t remember if I did or not. Usually, a squeegee will take care of the condensation.

Take care,
Ken

Dave,

This is a great topic to bring up. Thanks for sharing this story. I agree with other posters that there is no ethical problem in your situation provided you don't indeed prop open the hallway door to "steal" therms. You have a reasonable expectation that every unit was built to handle most of its own heating and cooling. There is an inherent advantage to having only 1 of 5 outside walls; presumably, everyone in your building has that same advantage, or nearly so. And you even have a heating advantage, being on the south/sunny side; your neighbors can't complain that you're taking much heat from them, since your thermostat is already positively affected by the thermal gain (to some extent).

I do hope you patch it up with your neighbor because 1) we're all in this together. So many millions of us live in adjoining dwellings that it's important we should all recognize our common cause and shared resources. I would love to see, for example, ad hoc conservation committees springing up in apartment buildings to address these issues. 2) You had him early on in the conversation! I would like to think he will still consider his consumption habits rather than to focus on a perceived wrong done to him, and will pursue his own conservation program. It is in his, and all our, best interest that he should.

Keep spreading the word. Ears that are ready will hear it.

Cheers,

Ben
AltE

What if the true "problem" is one that nobody wants to acknowledge? Lets say for example that the true "problem" is the existence of an additional 4.5 billion people that where not here a little more than 100 years ago. That, additional 4.5 billion people are not living off of just thin air, they are consumming natural resources.
(By the way, I would like to point out here for the sake of driving my point, that it took thousands of years from whatever humble beginning humans had on Earth up to the 1900's for human population to reach 2 billion people.)

We all speak of balances in nature. How too much or too little of one or more aspects within nature can upset the balance, having the potential of crashing to one side. For example: the recent talk about honey bees being on the decline. We all know what would happen without honey bees to pollinate plants.
Now think about the mass of 4.5 billion people. 4.5 times an average of 160 pounds each = 720 billion pounds of mass that, for the most part, only consumes natural resources while doing very little to give back to nature. I am not just referring to food and feces but all natural resource; metals, minerals, fossil fuels, air, and water, etc., etc..

 It would seem that when I bring this subject up there is the written equivalent of "selective hard of hearing" and "looking the otherway." The one thread the actually got some response also got a "repremand" from our illustrious coordinators here at Alt-E store when the subject eventually turned to religion and why wouldn't it? Has religion not been with us, here on Earth, for thousands of years as well? I can't be 100% certain but I don't think we have cruel and inhumane Inquisitions to worry about anymore. Enough about that.

Back to the additional 4.5 people on Earth that began to "arrived" a little more than 100 years ago and, that began consuming Earths natural resources.
Well, that says it all now doesn't it?
Imagine if your at home with your family of 4 and over the course of a year 8 more people come to live in that same house. Of course now we have 12 living that house but how long will it stay at 12 before there is 13, 14 and if this is happening at all of your neighbors homes as well?
I wonder if things had been different. I am going to inject a little little si-fi here. What if a little more than 100 years ago, a vast fleet of star ships carrying the remnants of a people whose sun had gone super nova or they had exhausted their planets natural resources to the point that life could no longer exist there. Imagine if they had left their Star system headed for Earth. Would we welcome that additional 4.5 billion immigrants, over 100 years, to Earth as readily as we have our own?
There are those that would argue that 4.5 billion more people over 100 years is insignificant. That this planet could easily support 12 billion or more. What if that additional 5.5 billion arrived over the next 50 or so years? Again, consuming Earths natural resources while doing little to replace them. Would this not, at least, unbalance the scales?
The one thing I haven't mention is the amount of unnatural pollution these people, we people, are leaving in or "wake". Of course we all know that one ansewer is for all of us humans to live off of the Earth more responsibly but does that responsibility stop at just sustainability and cleaner energy? Maybe its time we put away our "toys", before "Mother" nature does it for us but of corase, what would happen to that additional 4.5 billion people?