Do you turn up your home thermostat when you are away?

Everyone pushes the benefits of programmable thermostats and I've been running one for years. When I leave for work, I set it 4 degrees higher (83) vs 79. It's set at 77 for bedtime.

With the weeks averaging 105ish in the day, and upper 80s at night, I've had A/C run times of about 4:15 - 4:45 if I set the thermostat higher in the day by 4 degrees. If I only move it up by 1 degree, my run times are 5:00 - 5:30. So it seems to be saving me money to turn up the thermostat on the A/C when I'm away.

Do you see benefits by turning it up during the day?

i did when i had one :giggle:

As a rule u want ac on as early as possible so it can keep 1/2* split and run for shortest ammnt of time.

Example:
U set it to 75 whole day and it runs 10 min an hour.

VS

It’s 90* inside and u punch in 75 it has to runs 2/3 hr to bring temp in the house to 75 ( at 90* it’s not just air but your furniture, walls and everything else that will radiate heat after air is cooled off)

U only 4* off so it helps to run less and save energy that way.


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Poor Parker lives with a cheapskate. Only turns the AC down we he is home, poor Parker lives with the higher temps all day.

Mb30sdl said:

As a rule u want ac on as early as possible so it can keep 1/2* split and run for shortest ammnt of time.

Example:
U set it to 75 whole day and it runs 10 min an hour.

VS

It’s 90* inside and u punch in 75 it has to runs 2/3 hr to bring temp in the house to 75 ( at 90* it’s not just air but your furniture, walls and everything else that will radiate heat after air is cooled off)

U only 4* off so it helps to run less and save energy that way.


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I get what you're saying especially with the heat soak, but the numbers show that the a/c runs less over 24 hours vs if I leave it set to a lower temperature. I've also heard that its better to run a bit longer each time than to start and stop several times. BTW, with the heat here, it will run 20 minutes per hour to maintain temps. If I have a temp adjustment, it runs about 45 minutes in that one hour.

3Hummers said:

Poor Parker lives with a cheapskate. Only turns the AC down we he is home, poor Parker lives with the higher temps all day.

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He sleeps all day, he doesn't notice.

Surprise surprise! Another cooling concern/question from an H3 owner

SlcHummer said:

Surprise surprise! Another cooling concern/question from an H3 owner

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Hahaha!

We only use a 3* differential between night time and day time use. 74* at night and 77* during the day. That seams to be the most balanced for us in Florida from an indoor comfort perspective. Our current home is 15 years old and is not very well insulated and I've toyed with all kind of settings and have noticed very little difference in savings. There are so many other factors (air tightness and insulation, sun exposure/heat gain, etc..) involved than just the thermostat settings. So every house probably has a slightly different sweet spot when it comes to efficiency.

I am currently building a new house to accommodate my youngest sons accessibility needs. It is much tighter construction than my current home and much better insulated with ecynene sprayed on the underside of the entire roof deck to keep the heat gain out of the shell/attic during the day. The ecynene was just sprayed in last week and it was amazing to feel how much the temperature dropped in the house during the day compared to before and thats with no AC or power yet. Its easily 15* cooler inside. The house has large front and rear porches to keep the morning, midday and afternoon sun off the windows/doors in the living, kitchen and main living areas and faces a large lake which has a pretty steady breeze on most days. It will have three 2-ton AC units. The house is 2,900 Sq.ft. on the first floor and 1,100 Sq.ft. on the second floor and I am anxious to see how well it performs relative to my current 2,700 Sq.ft. home. We are excited and should be ready to move in before the end of October.

I had foam insulation sprayed on the underside of my roof in my attic and it made a huge difference in my heating and cooling cost. Return on investment was pretty quick. You can go into the attic in the middle of the summer and it is not much warmer than the house.


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My AC is set at 68* and I'm surprised if it comes on before 3PM even on hot days......But I don't live in AZ or S. CA.:giggle:

We have a Nest thermostat and it's been pretty nice. The house doesn't warm up too much during the day if it's a workday since it's pretty well insulated (and it's a rambler, it's a LOT easier to heat/cool single story than multi-level), and it's nice to not have to remember to turn it up/down when we go on a longer trip. You can set it so that it won't let it go above or below certain temperatures while you're away, so if you don't want it to get too warn or too cold you can set it to whatever. I think the default is 90 for the high and 55 for the low. I think it's a lot better than just setting a programmable thermostat, and far better than a non-programmable one (yes some people still have those).

The other really nice thing about it is since my wife is a school teacher, she no longer has to keep adjusting the heat/cooling every day on her breaks, it knows when she is home so it just keeps it at the right temperature. Before we used a programmable thermostat and since most of the time she's working at the same time as me, we had it programmed to adjust the temp during the workday. But when she'd be home for a break shed get partway through the day and start wondering why it was so cold/hot in the house.

So even if you get a smart thermostat but set the "away" high/low temps to not very far from your inhabited temps, it's still really nice to not be having to fiddle with the thermostat during vacations or days off or something. Plus most power and gas companies will give you a rebate on them. I ended up only paying about $50 for my $200 Nest thermostat thanks to rebates from the gas and the power companies here.

Since I really do not have air conditioning, I am going to say no. Occasionally it will get over 80 and I will turn on the portable units to keep the house reasonable.


Sorry . . . . had to brag. If you see my house payment, you would probably take the heat.

cbetts said:

Sorry . . . . had to brag. If you see my house payment, you would probably take the heat.

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Ahh, the wonderful weather you have!

And knowing that my mortgage is less than some people pay in taxes (like in NJ) I ain't complaining.

We kept our house at 74 in Florida, any higher and the humidity made it uncomfortable. We'd lower it when we were home and the humidity was higher, but mainly let the t-stat keep it at the set point of 74. I was puzzled when my sister said she kept her house at 78 in Phoenix, thought that was ridiculously hot--then we moved to El Centro (same dry climate as Phx) and realized 78 is a reasonable number to leave the house at. We lower the temp to 76 if we are home and feeling hot, but the t-stat adjusts every couple hours to bring it back up to 78 so we don't have to keep re-adjusting unless we want to be cooler again which rarely happens.
Now in Oxnard/Ventura/Port-Hueneme in the travel trailer I've been able to sleep with windows open most of the summer until about two weeks ago when humidity went higher and I leave trailer at around 78 unoccupied and 74ish when I get home--hell, utilities included with RV park rent so I don't care, just don't like using the AC equipment more than needed