Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:11 am Post subject: THE Thermostat Thread (merged)
I have a gas fired furnace. Thre service guy was here the other day and said I should not turn off the heat when I am at work. He said I should also never vary the thermostat by more than two degrees. This is based on the idea that I will use more gas to displace the cold air than to maintain a constant tempatrure.
Joined: Sep 08, 2005 Posts: 791 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:23 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Daryl wrote:
I have a gas fired furnace. Thre service guy was here the other day and said I should not turn off the heat when I am at work. He said I should also never vary the thermostat by more than two degrees. This is based on the idea that I will use more gas to displace the cold air than to maintain a constant tempatrure.
Anyone agree or disagree with this? Thanks.
While it's not a good idea to turn it off except on the milder days, it's usually beneficial to turn it down a few degrees if you're going to be gone for more than a few hours in the day...what I do is to crank it down at night, bump it up to 65 or so in the morning to take the chill out, turn it back down to 60 during the day and back up to 63 when I get home, using a space heater in the room I'm in for extra heat. The lowest you should turn it down to is around 50 or 55 degrees F, however, to keep the pipes from getting too close to freezing...but in a mild climate like Atlanta, that's not likely to be a problem except for the coldest of days.
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:13 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
The service guy may be correct if the setback is for short periods of time. But if you can keep the setback for more than about 6 hours, you will save energy. Most furnaces cycle between fully on or fully off. So, for example, if you set the thermostat back overnight, then during morning warm-up the system simply cycles on for a longer period of time. When setback periods last more than six hours, the longer warm-up cycle requires less energy than would be consumed by the system cycling to maintain temperature during unoccupied times. Here's one link with more details: http://www.advancedenergy.org/progressenergy/setback.html
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:28 pm Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
I manage 4 apartments. I keep track of oil usage for each unit. I know my tenants thermostat settings. From my experience, your service guy is wrong. My buildings are 1860 homes with attic insulation and double hung windows. They are not the most energy effecient buildings. I am in the Boston area so we have very cold winters.
My thermostat is set for 40 degrees when I am not home and or asleep. It is set at 55 for for about 15 to 20 minutes before I need heat. If its not enough I just turn it up a bit. My tenants who all have dogs subscribe to the "wont it use more energy to heat it back up" theory. I used 300 gallons of oil last year and my tenants used 550, 700, and 800 gallons. Each unit has its differences so it is not a very well controlled experiment. However, they have more similarities than differences.
While the other posters speak from some higher faith I speak from direct experience. You will save a lot of money if you turn the thermostat down as low as possible without your pipes freezing when you dont need it.
Having more heat in your house increases the temperature difference. The greater the difference the faster you loose heat. Whoever thinks keeping the heat on is a good idea is just wrong. Why schools dont teach thermodynamics in first grade is beyond me.
Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 1212 Location: western Wisconsin
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 6:35 pm Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
I work in a large educational facility with dozens of buildings. We have spent many tens of thousands of dollars putting in night-set back thermostats in most of the buildings over the years to save energy, and the energy savings is carefully documented. Your service person doesn't know what he is talking about, unless you have is a very odd situation.
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 7:59 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Daryl wrote:
I have a gas fired furnace. Thre service guy was here the other day and said I should not turn off the heat when I am at work. He said I should also never vary the thermostat by more than two degrees. This is based on the idea that I will use more gas to displace the cold air than to maintain a constant tempatrure.
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:36 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Thanks for all your advice. What about airconditioning? On really hot summer days if I leave the AC off all day, it becomes so hot inside the house that my central AC is unable to cool the house down. My genius service guy said that the systems aren't designed to handle temperatures about 90 degress and that I should leave the AC on all day too. ????
I also have an attic fan i.e. cut into the upstairs ceiling, sits on floor of attic pulling air from house up into attic. Any ideas on how to use this in conjunction with AC? Thanks.
Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 1212 Location: western Wisconsin
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 9:33 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Run the whole-house attic fan in the evening/night when it is cooler and dryer outside than inside, then use the AC when needed when you are home during the day.
Remember that shade trees can make a big difference in the heat gain during a sunny day, by shading the house. Also, light colored shingles make a difference in keeping a house cool. I had read somewhere of a study that showed how much energy could be saved if all homes with dark shingles had light colored shingles instead. Makes a difference in cold climates too, as light shingles keep the snow from melting off the roof as quickly, and a layer of snow helps insulate the roof too.
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:02 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Daryl wrote:
Thanks for all your advice. What about airconditioning? On really hot summer days if I leave the AC off all day, it becomes so hot inside the house that my central AC is unable to cool the house down. My genius service guy said that the systems aren't designed to handle temperatures about 90 degress and that I should leave the AC on all day too. ????
Can't comment on what your system can handle.
In general, to minimize your own costs, don't heat or air condition
at all if you're not at home. Get a programmable thermastat if you want
the home comfortable at the moment of arrival.
AC is different from heat as to the grid however. If everybody allowed
their homes to warm up all during the day while at work, then had their
AC to work full time to cool down over a short time period, the peak
demand could greatly increase overall costs and perhaps rise above the
level that could be produced, leading to a black out of electricity.
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:44 am Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Daryl wrote:
Thanks for all your advice. What about airconditioning? On really hot summer days if I leave the AC off all day, it becomes so hot inside the house that my central AC is unable to cool the house down. My genius service guy said that the systems aren't designed to handle temperatures about 90 degress and that I should leave the AC on all day too.
All the writings that I have seen on this topic have mentioned an eight degree difference between high and low settings as key. More than eight degrees requires to much energy to make up the difference and cuts into your savings. Less than eight degrees and your not saving as much as you can.
The other rule of thumb that I have come accross many times is not to set back the thermostat unless the set down period is roughly eight hours or more.
For heat, I keep at 68 when home and 60 when away or sleeping. This got my heating costs down to about $1,200 a year with a 2,300 sq ft house, natural gas, at $8.72 mcf. I'd make it colder, but there are some days that my hands go numb while at the keyboard of my computer in my home office and my wife would kill me.
I applied the same rule for my AC. I keep at 80 when not home and 72 when home or sleeping (I like it cold when I sleep).
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:49 pm Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
Re heat loads, supposedly if you attach foil-backed bubble pack (or just aluminum foil I would suspect) to the underside of rafters i.e. inside the attic, quite a bit of the radiant heat load is eliminated. Not sure if this works as one would think the roof would diminish reflective radiant energy, but it's probably worth researching.
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 7:24 pm Post subject: Re: Question about most efficient thermstat settings
I wonder if our silver painted roof reflects heat in the summer as well as allows snow to slide off. You've seen our house, Frank. Almost every house in my part of Maine has a metal roof, painted with silver paint. It gets warm around here, and I just thought that these shiny roofs may have a function in both summer and winter.
All times are GMT - 6 Hours Goto page 1, 2, 3 ... 13, 14, 15Next
Page 1 of 15
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
