We are a very busy society now a days which means more and more we end up running out of the house forgetting to do some things like change the thermostat before we leave. This leads to wasting energy by heating or cooling a home when no one is there to enjoy it. This drives our energy bills up meaning we spend more money than needed. Choosing a programmable thermostat is a great idea. Programmable thermostats save you money on your energy bill. If you reduce your temperature 7-10 degrees for 8 hours a day you save 10% on your energy bills. You can do this by lowering the heat during the day when no one is home. Lowering the heat at night when everyone is sleeping will help save on energy cost too. You can also have the same effect in the summer by raising your AC temperature during the day when no one is home to need it cooler. You can have the programmable thermostat lower or raise the temperature automatically by setting it once. This helps when our lives get so busy that we are always on the run and forget to change it. There are a few different types of programmable thermostats to choose from.
Basic Programmable– With a basic programmable thermostat you can set your preferred temperature throughout for different times of days. You can also set it differently for weekends vs weekdays too.
Remote Energy Management– This kind of programmable thermostat allows you to change the controls from wherever you have internet access. You can even access it from your smartphone too. You need to make sure your thermostat is connected to your homes WiFi to be able to do this.
Learning Thermostat– This is another type of programmable thermostat. A learning thermostat will learn your habits of setting temperature. It will recognize the patterns over a span of time and creates a program to suit your needs. You can also connect to and change settings from any internet access point if the thermostat is hooked up to your homes WiFi network.
You can over ride the settings if you happen to get home early without messing up the rest of the settings that are set for later times. The programmable thermostat can also be set to raise the heat from the lowered setting before you get home so you can walk into a warm house even after the temperature had been lowered all day. Some people have suggested that the furnace has to work harder to heat the home after being lowered so it defeats the energy savings but this is not true. When your home is set at a lower temperature, you lose energy slower than when it is set higher. The longer your home is at a lower temperature the more you save because the heat loss is less. Digital thermostats offer more features for adjustment but can sometimes be difficult for people to figure out. Once you learn the thermostat though it will be fine. Electromechanical thermostats have slider bars that you use to set temperatures if the digital thermostat seems like it would be too much hassle to learn. As with all thermostats, make sure it is in the right spot in your home. If it is in direct sunlight the reading can be thrown off leaving your home hotter or colder than you want it. A professional like the ones at Bartlett Heating and Air can determine the best place for the thermostat in your home to make sure you don’t have that issue. Call Bartlett Heating and Air today to get your programmable thermostat installed in your home so you can start saving money right away!
