Why Can’t I Trust Our Programmable Thermostat?
I am becoming borderline obsessive about checking our programmable thermostat to make sure it is set at the temperature it is supposed to be. I don’t know why this consumes me so but it really does.
I guess I got used to the summer, when I would just turn off the a/c altogether until I couldn’t bear it any more. I didn’t use the programmable thermostat to control the temperature, I used me and how much I was willing to bear. Now that it is cold outside and we’re using heat instead of a/c, I tend to operate the same way. When I get up in the morning, I just turn off the heat altogether. But the thermostat is set for 64 degrees F. I shouldn’t have to turn off the thermostat because the heat shouldn’t run unless it got unbearably cold. In fact, I have yet to get up in the morning and have the heat running. But still I turn it off.
In fact, last night I hit a new low. I woke up in the middle of the night and it seemed hot in our room to me. So I dashed downstairs to check on the thermostat. The heat in fact was not running, and the house’s temperature was 70 degrees F. We’ve been having what passes for a heat wave in the midwest in November (today’s high was 60 degrees F in fact) so the house had warmed up on its own without the heat running at all. But yet my first thought upon waking up feeling warm was “the thermostat must be messed up!” Argh. In a side note though it makes me happy that I now feel like 70 degrees F is unbearably warm. Makes me feel like my body is easily trainable to what I want it to believe, since just a month ago I found 70 degrees F unbearably cold.
My spouse claims that my constant turning the heat off is messing with the programmed cycles in our thermostat and to leave it alone. So I am trying. But I check it. A lot. And so far it hasn’t gotten near 64 during the day so it hasn’t come on. And sometimes I still turn it off, just because.
The heat generally runs in the evening and at night though. My spouse didn’t agree to 64, so it goes up to 68 an hour before he gets home and back down to 64 right before he leaves for work. I’m working on him. Slowly. Once I learn how to program the thermostat, that is. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessive about it. Only my spouse knows how to actually program it. I think I am going to figure that out today and change it to 66 overnight. :shhhhhh:
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November 20th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
If you let the house get unbearably cold, when you turn up the heat again it has to work longer and harder to get the temp up again. So, in the long run, you’re not saving anything.
Same goes for a/c. If you shut the system off or let the house get too hot, when you turn it back up again, the system has to work long and hard to get the place cooled.
I keep the thermostat at 63 during the day (I am home) and 65-66 when DH gets home from work. We’re used to it. At night, when we sleep, the thermostat goes back down to 62 because we sleep with our electric (dual control) blanket (combined with a down comforter that I buy once every 5-6 years).
We are used to this BUT when my kids come over (or guests) I have to put the thermostat up to 70 and grin and bear it. Ugh!
It’s best to keep the temp at a constant rather than keep fluctuating. That’s how I save money and energy.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Isn’t it the same as having my thermostat set though? In the summer I would turn the a/c on when I couldn’t take it any more, but I would set it for one degree under whatever it was already. And that is what I would do in the winter - if I found 64 unbearable I would bump it up to 65.
But maybe it makes a big difference vs having the thermostat set, I just thought it would work the same way.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
That is bizarre - kind of negates the purpose of them, huh? Good luck getting it worked out before it gets REALLY cold!
November 20th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I have a wee obsessive streak.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:24 am
Just a wee bit
I applaud your effort, but I would never want the temperature only one degree above unbearably cold. Of course, I *hate* being cold. From the same point, I can put up with heat easily.
Of course my wife is the opposite. She hates being hot and does not mind being chilly.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:27 am
your hubby is probably right (to a certain extent) about messing up the programs by turning it on, and off, etc. If your thermostat is like the ones I’ve had, it “learns”. Say you want it set to be 66 at 4PM, it will run for several days, and “learn” at what time it needs to turn on and start warming (or cooling) the house to bring it to 66 at 4PM. So by manually changing the temp etc, you are interfering w/this “learning” process. other than that, everything should work, no matter what you do.
November 21st, 2007 at 11:18 am
Darn… don’t tell the hubby he is right! lol But that does make sense now that you’ve explained it that way mjmcinto. thanks!
Brandon I am all about the sacrifice now to have a better tomorrow… I think. Until I get chilly.
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm
LOL, paidtwice! You sound like me, except I keep it even colder in the house, mostly because the furnace makes me ill. I hate artificial heat, and I’d rather put on more clothes than have that dry heat running. That’s one time that hot flashes help.
Boomie’s right; if you turn the temp down, everything in the house cools to the lower temp….say 58, or wherever you put it. So you’re not only having to raise the ambient air temp, but also the temp of the objects in the house…ie, your furniture, tile, sheetrock, etc. This takes much longer than just raising air temperature.
Re your programmable thermostat: most of them have a swing of about 3 degrees….you need to play around with yours to find out just how big the swing is. I’ve had them up to 5 degrees. The swing is the variation off of what you’ve set it at–so if you keep your furnace set on 64, the temp could vary in your house by a range of several degrees, with 64 in the middle. So….it might warm to more than 64, but not kick on till it was well below that. It doesn’t hold at a constant 64.
Rather than shooting for a particular temperature, I try to monitor how many times per hour the furnace kicks on, and for how long it runs each time. On a really cold day(by my south Louisiana standards, and with a serious lack of insulation) the furnace might kick on as often as every 10 minutes. I try to hold it to once or twice an hour; if I’m really cold, say, in the bathroom, or while working at my desk, I use a small ceramic heater to warm just the area I’m in. I’ve found that’s far cheaper than heating the whole house, and doesn’t dry my skin nearly as badly, either.
I slowly edged the heat in our house down; I keep it at about 62 to maaaaaybe 64 during the day, if it’s really cold out, and turn it down to about 57 or 58 at night, because I like it flat out cold in the house to sleep. (My husband starts looking for snow when the temps fall below 70, though) At 70 in the house, I’d have a constant migraine…but when my parents come over, I do boost the temp for them. Right now, it’s 42 out and I have my bedroom window cracked open a bit…and we usually have a door wide open, as well.
Stay warm!
November 26th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Ah, the “thermostat wars.” We were fighting about it just this morning as I was freezing and my husband was saying “Isn’t it hot in here?”
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November 26th, 2007 at 10:20 am
I just want to second NAwlinsKat’s mention of a ceramic heater/space heater. That way you’re not heating any space you’re not already in. I use one in my office, since I find I can’t work as well if I’m cold or wearing a huge thick coat. Carrying one around with you to wherever you’re going to be for a while is also a good idea.
December 28th, 2007 at 10:02 am
It is not true that turning it way down and then heating the whole house back up costs more money. There are many studies to this effect.
We keep ours at 55 all the time except from 7-9 pm. We are even still hot at night, and no one is home during the day, so it works for us. We have a small bathroom heater to run for 30 minutes in the morning.
I have the same paranoia when I wake up and the furnace is running, like this morning, because that means it was below 55 in the house!