New answers tagged thermostat
-1
The only way to save money on heating bills is to run the heater less.
If you can figure out a way to do this manually and can stick to it, you can then find a thermostat ("smart" or otherwise) that will allow you to automate that pattern.
Hoping a "smart" thermostat will magically find a way to save you heater run-time will lead to ...
0
Smart Thermostats - really aren't that smart.
Yes they can run your fan a little longer but you can program some non-smart thermostats to do the same. Smart thermostats will learn after you go over and bump it for weeks... what you like.
Smart Thermostats are really good - if you are too lazy to program a 7 day thermostat.
If you are just too lazy to ...
0
A smart thermostat will only save you money if your house is already very poorly insulated.
The same considerations apply whether we are heating or cooling, so I'll just talk about heating, and you can do the hot/cold/heat/cool inversion yourself where necessary.
You pay for the energy your house loses. If you allow your house to cool at times you do do not ...
4
I installed a pair of Nest smart thermostats in my house and my energy bills have not changed to a statistically significant level compared to my rather basic programmable thermostat. That is, the amount saved due to using less energy was less noticeable than the amount I saved by switching to a different electricity provider (YMMV, highly dependent on how ...
0
Lots of great guidance in other answers, let's apply it to your situation
Say you have a completely dumb thermostat, no timer, and you have periods where the home is unoccupied or you don't mind having less heat or AC while sleeping, so there is good opportunity for savings. Say all the arguments in the other answers favor a smart thermostat. The ...
3
A smart thermostat is almost guaranteed to reduce your energy usage by 4 to 19%, depending on your climate and HVAC system type.
No need for hypotheticals -- there's hard data
Given the length of time that smart thermostats have been on the market (the first generation Nest was released in 2011), there have been a number of field studies to verify energy ...
0
I don't believe there is a clear answer despite all the theories/guesses that are purported as fact (not here, but elsewhere). So, I default to logical scenarios to better understand.
Imagine a tire is filled with compressed air, but has a tiny hole in it. The tire is the house. The air is the heat. The size of the hole is the quality of the house's ...
0
One benefit of a programmable (not necessarily smart) thermostat that I recently saw in a youtube video is that you can schedule your heating / cooling to occur while energy rates and demand are lowest - i.e., overheat / overcool your house. For example, cool your house to 65 degrees overnight, and let it gradually warm up throughout the day to 75. Depending ...
12
Here is the science-based thermodynamic law that drives all this.
Suppose you have 2 spaces, A and B, at different temperatures. Between them, there is some level of thermal insulation.
No matter what is true about the insulation, this rule always follows:
Thermal transfer is proportional to the difference in temperature.
Take any random insulator (green) ...
6
One of the benefits of "smart" systems is you can make more than just time-based adjustments, though it depends on the system. I have an EcoBee (no affiliation) so I'll speak to that.
The selling point to me with this was the room sensors, which have temperature and motion. I have 3 in the house, plus the main thermostat (which itself has ...
1
Depends on where you would set things, the insulation, etc. You would really need to test it yourself (to the extent possible) to see what is possible.
Why might it help?
Your heater has one job: to replace the thermal energy inside the dwelling that has been lost. If replaced exactly, the temperature is maintained. For most structures with reasonable ...
27
I only worked in the commercial/industrial field of steam and hot water boilers so take what I say lightly. Here is what the heating engineers told us; if you can set back the thermostat or reduce the buildings temperature for 8 hours or more then there is a cost savings and if you can't it is probably not worth anything. One of the main problems with ...
7
It all depends how do you set up your not-smart thermostat VS how do you plan to set up your smart thermostat.
They don't just save energy for the same use.
If you set up non-smart thermostat for 'comfort always' you will pay more. If you will set up it as 'discomfort always' you will pay less.
For the same level of comfort you need different temperature at ...
1
The answer is yes, you can. You could ask why your system isn't working that way. You could start by looking at whether it seems to generally be intended to work that way, in which case something is wrong.
If your system is meant to have two zones you should see the hot water pipe that comes out of the boiler split into two pipes, and each one should ...
2
Yes, it can be done. It just needs to be plumbed (and wired) right. Each thermostat should control a valve that admits hot water to its section of the house.
The boiler should be wired to fire up whenever either thermostat is calling for heat.
For example, if the basement is cold, but the rest of the house is warm, then the valve allowing water to the ...
2
Simply set your thermostat to "fossil" or "gas/oil" mode
Most thermostats out there support what you describe, as it turns out, as gas furnaces control their blower automatically by default, and only use the G terminal as an override to turn the blower on when the system is otherwise not running. So, simply set your thermostat of choice ...
1
I wish I could post this as a comment rather than an answer, but pictures aren't supported in comments, but here goes. This isn't a product recommendation, just an example of what might work for you. Most sophisticated thermostats have a LOT of settings for various types of heating/cooling configurations. I have in-floor hydronic heating and A/C on the ...
3
You'll be fine with solid wire. Tstat wire is generally 18 gauge which is pretty small. Also, since you'll be going thru all the work to fish the cable (which can be a PITA), I'd go with 18/7 cable. That way, if you or the next homeowner wants to install a heat pump or A/C the cable will be in place to support that.
Edit: Thanks for the contribution from ...
0
You are correct
Based on the wiring diagram and provided photo, you appear to be correct that terminal 5 on your air handler's control block is your C terminal. So, go ahead and run your new thermostat cable, using that as C while matching the existing wiring for the remaining connections.
1
Depending on your boiler, you can at least see the DHW called temperature on your boiler display. I have the Smart 30 water heater coupled with a Triangle Tube Prestige Solo boiler, and on its display, under the various info items, I can see the DHW temperature. I'm guessing that will be the closest you can get with this specific setup.
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