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Lower your thermostat every time you leave the house in the winter mon (1 Viewer)

brohan invest a hondo to get a good programmable control and save yourself more than that the first year in heat and cooling costs just kick it down when you aint around if you know what i am saying take that to the bank brohan

 
In FL, we have the opposite problem. I program my thermostat in summer to keep the house at 79 degrees during the day, then bang the A/C to drop it to 72-74 by the time I get home from work.

In winter, it takes care of itself. On days like yesterday/today, I just put jeans and socks on at night and use the blanket instead of just the sheet when I go to bed. On 70 degree days, I just open all the windows and let the breeze blow through. On 80 degree days, the A/C will kick in just often enough to keep it 5 or so degrees cooler inside.

 
Any of you guys actually done analysis on any of the energy savings investments made in your home or work? I swear it doesn't matter what I do the bill is always about the same.

 
We just moved into our house a couple months ago and about 70% of our time so far has been devoted to figuring out our thermostat.

 
Yeah seriously, there are people who don't have programmable thermostats still?

WINTER:
House goes up to 75 about 15 mins before I wake up so it's warm for showers
Drops to 68 during day while gone.
Climbs to 72 at 5pm before we get home.
Drops to 70 at 10pm for comfortable sleeping. I'd like it cooler but GF would never allow.

Holds 72 9am-10pm on weekends 70 otherwise.

SUMMER

76 during day while at work.
72 when home from work and on weekends.

 
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[icon] said:
Yeah seriously, there are people who don't have programmable thermostats still?

WINTER:

House goes up to 75 about 15 mins before I wake up so it's warm for showers

Drops to 68 during day while gone.

Climbs to 72 at 5pm before we get home.

Drops to 70 at 10pm for comfortable sleeping. I'd like it cooler but GF would never allow.

Holds 72 9am-10pm on weekends 70 otherwise.

SUMMER

76 during day while at work.

72 when home from work and on weekends.
Click to expand...
Our programmable thermostat separates weekdays from weekends. During the week, we have ours set to kick on to 70 at 6am, drops to 65 at 9am when we leave for work, back up to 71 at 5pm when we're getting home, and then kicks off to 65 again at midnight for bedtime. It gets GD cold at night, which helps us both sleep a lot better.

On weekends, it's still on 65 from the Friday night program and then it kicks on to 70 at 9:30, then back down to 65 at 1am.

 
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chet said:
VA703 said:
Parrothead said:
George Jefferson Airplane said:
Program it to be lower when no one is at home and during the overnight.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
neighbor swears this is more of a waste than leaving it on all day
Click to expand...
Is your neighbor just stupid or is he ######ed too?
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There's some truth to what his neighbor is saying. If he's turning it "off" when he's not home where the HVAC unit will have to make a 30+ degree adjustment twice a day, then maybe.

 
Got a good friend in the HVAC world that thinks Ecobee is the best product on the market. Has it in his own home and put in another one at their cabin as well. He gave me a hand me down unit when we got a new one free that included an extra room sensor. It's pretty sweet, and looks a heck of a lot nicer than the 20 year old big off-white rectangle that it replaced. Especially like that it has a place to set your home/away/sleep temp, so when you change those settings it changes them everywhere in your program. (meaning you don't have to go to every day of the week to change your temps)

 
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With my old furnace, it's better for me to just keep it constant at 66. Run a Eden Pure in the living room at night to keep it a bit warmer there.

 
Only add if you don't see a difference in your bill when Turning down the thermostat during the day when gone and sleeping time, have your insulation checked.

 
Michael Brown said:
[icon] said:
Yeah seriously, there are people who don't have programmable thermostats still?

WINTER:

House goes up to 75 about 15 mins before I wake up so it's warm for showers

Drops to 68 during day while gone.

Climbs to 72 at 5pm before we get home.

Drops to 70 at 10pm for comfortable sleeping. I'd like it cooler but GF would never allow.

Holds 72 9am-10pm on weekends 70 otherwise.

SUMMER

76 during day while at work.

72 when home from work and on weekends.
Click to expand...
Our programmable thermostat separates weekdays from weekends. During the week, we have ours set to kick on to 70 at 6am, drops to 65 at 9am when we leave for work, back up to 71 at 5pm when we're getting home, and then kicks off to 65 again at midnight for bedtime. It gets GD cold at night, which helps us both sleep a lot better.

On weekends, it's still on 65 from the Friday night program and then it kicks on to 70 at 9:30, then back down to 65 at 1am.
Click to expand...
:thumbup:

Yep... no way i'd go back to old non-programmable therm. Don't need a fancy nest unit either. They're not expensive and are easy to install/use. Prob pay for themselves in a month or two.

 
Why do you keep your house at 68 degrees when you are not there? Seems like a waste.

And 75 degrees? Jesus, does your fat ### walk around bare chested all night long?

 
brohans also think about insulation in your attic above the top floor of living space that helps keep a lot of heat in the house and especially on an older house can be a good investment that pays itself back pretty quick on heating bill savings but hey this is wisco and we basically ahve to have the damn heat on except for july take that to the bank bricicles

 
Tips for programming your thermostat:

In winter:

1. The amount of energy saved by letting your house drop X degrees is approximately the same as it will spend raising it X degrees.

2. Maintaining a constant lower temperature will save energy vs. maintaining a constant higher temperature.

So, it only pays to reduce to a temperature your house has a chance to hit while you're away/sleeping. If you drop from 68 to 62, you will save energy for as long as the house hits and stays at 62. If it drops to 64, then turns back on to hit 68, there is no energy savings.

In summer:

The opposite holds true, except AC units remove humidity too. In humid climates, you may be better maintaining a constant temperature so that the humidity doesn't return. A less humid house at 78 feels cooler than a humid house at 78.

Can't locate the information I read a while back justifying this, so removing it. Everything I can find now says heat loss is less the closer inside temp is to outside, so there would be savings while the inside temps are dropping.

The AC/humidity issue still remains a consideration for summer.

 
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I turn it off when I'm not home. It takes about 10 minutes to reheat my two bedroom apartment. That's not going to kill me.

Plus, there are only a handful of winter days here in Denver compared to where I grew up in MN.

 
Use Nest. You can program it easily, but it also senses when you are gone an automatically lowers the temp.

ETA - I can program from my phone, so I can turn the heat on, or schedule it to come on before I/we get home.

 
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I've got a Z-wave thermostat with basically infinite settings. I do a similar set-up to [icon] where it comes on and off depending on what I'm doing. I also have a dual-zone house, with an upstairs furnace and a downstairs, so that kind of complicates things as sometimes I turn the upstairs way back, etc but overall, same concept. I've never quite figured out the most efficient way to manage dual-zone thermostats. One side of me says run the one for the area you're in....but if I have the downstairs on, and the upstairs lower, the heat rising just makes the downstairs one run more...

From a cost savings standpoint, we've been in our house for 4 years. We've had the programmable thermostats for 3 of them...but we also installed a new 2-stage heat-pump/oil system for the downstairs 2 years ago, and did a major system tune-up last year. Add in the obscenely cold winter last year, and it's hard to get a baseline. I keep very close track of my oil usage and average temps, and I can say that I definately see improvement in my oil usage with what we've done...some of that from thermostats, and some due to the 2-stage system and tune.

 
yeah brohan not for goethermal loop systems but your saving there is from the system itself and that is uses the earth to heat and cool not a furnace and gas so totally apples to bananers on that one bromigo take that to the bank

 
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