My old Carrier HVAC finally rusted out. I get it serviced on contract twice a year. The techs were concerned they’d find a hole in the heat exchanger and have to condemn it. (state law)
I got a new Carrier 48VG unit installed and upgraded my thermostat to Wi-Fi. The 48VG is 16 SEER/80.1% efficiency. I’m supposed to see cheaper bills compared to my old HVAC from 2003.
I’ve been surprised how much I use my Wi-Fi thermostat. I have the Sensi App installed on my phone.
It’s very helpful at night. I set the heat at 74 before going to bed. I adjust the temp to 76 if we wake up cold during the night. Then turn it down the next morning.
We sometimes stay at my mom’s house. I set the temp to 68 while we’re gone. I reset it to 74 just before we drive home. The 20 min drive is just enough time for the house to heat. It’s wonderful coming home to a warm house.
We used to just set the thermostat to 75. Never adjusting it when we weren’t home. If someone got cold it might get pushed up to 77 and not lowered until it felt too warm in the house.
I expect to see a nice savings on the natural gas bill.
Wow, you keep your house really hot. I have my thermostat programmed to 68 during the day and 61 at night, and I rarely touch it except to hold it at about 60 when I’m on vacation.
I hate being cold and I hate bundling up in clothes inside my own house. So we’ve always kept it warm around 74 or 75.
We save on AC in the summer for the same reason. Thermostat is on 76. That’s cool enough for me. I have friends that set the AC on 72. :eek: I freeze my butt off during visits.
My home inspector suggested that I change the digital battery powered thermostat to a wi-fi one, powered by the house. Best $100 I ever spent. I don’t have regular work hours, so I can’t program a thermostat. The wi-fi works great and has saved me lots of money.
Yeah, I’m with you. I actually don’t have a choice. Our apartment used to be an old factory so we have ridiculously high ceilings and giant windows. The apartment can’t get higher than 68 (maybe 70) because the heat just rises to the ceiling and the motor to the heat pump just keeps going.
But nice thing about having the wifi thermostats is that I can get alerts when the nanny jacks up the heat and then shut it down remotely.
I have a pellet stove. It has a rheostat-like device to control the speed of the auger that delivers the pellets to the burn chamber. I’d love to be able to put a timer in that so I could turn the fire up an hour before I wake, or an hour before I’m due home from work.
Interesting. I’m still convinced I wouldn’t really want it, since it doesn’t take long for the house to change temps. But it might be like remote start on a vehicle. I pooh-poohed the idea until I got one. After being able to periodically run the truck from inside a restaurant in the summer (keeping the doggos cool) and having it comfy when we return, there’s no going back.
I have the same thermostat and app. I recommend monkeying around with the scheduling part of it, it’s really pretty cool. You can manually override it when you feel the need.
BTW I keep my phone in the kitchen overnight, so I don’t use it in that way. It’s a shorter walk to the actual thermostat than it is to my phone.
Yeah, here the tenant laws require a minimum of 68 during the day and 66 at night. I guess that one just makes it, but barely.
I love my Wi-Fi thermostat as well. And it’s nice having it hooked up to our Alexa speakers so I could just shout into the kitchen or bedroom to turn up or down the thermostat without even having to find my phone.
Is that high or low? (I honestly can’t tell. I’m guessing high? But my landlady in Budapest complained about why I wasn’t turning the radiator up when my flat was at 75 or more degrees, so who knows.)
For here, during the winter, my wife and children (5 & 3) complain if the night temperature is lower than 74, so there’s really no choice. We do 70 during the day and 74 at night. I want my wife and kids to be comfortable. When my brother and I lived together, we kept the house during the winter as low as 58 during the day, but when we expected company, we’d knock it up to about 70. My current tenant was complaining about being cold, and then I realized “cold” for her was 72, so I had to go in and do some extra winterproofing at the condo. 74 does not seem an unreasonable indoor temperature for the winter, though I grew up with 68 and, on my own, like something closer to 63-65.
Oddly, during the summer, 74-75 is also just about perfect for air con. Any colder and it feels cold to me. Guess the body adapts or something.
