Quote:
Originally Posted by Stu from NYC
Our house is about 11 years old and has a very simple thermostat set it and forget it.
Some day when we can travel again will set it to a temperature in accordance with the season adjust humidity and off we go.
We like to be comfortable and getting up in the middle of the night would rather not be to hot or to cold.
Based on that is there a reason to purchase and install a smart thermostat?
|
If you are the sort who wants your house, say, 75 in the daytime and 65 at night, or vice versa, a smart thermostat may be worthwhile. Likewise if you are gone every weekend. In general, I wouldn’t bother, especially in The Villages. Really, for November through March, you can get by probably with your heater turned off completely if you aren’t there. It’s not too hot or too humid most of the time. Or you could turn the heat down to 55° or 60°, so any excess humidity is occasionally dried now and then. Even if there was a freeze or a week in the upper thirties, which is very unusual, your pipes aren’t going to freeze.
If you are gone in the summer, just leave the air conditioners set at 78°. There’s no reason to change that between day and night. You can set that in five seconds.
Changing the temp day and night is okay if it’s a matter of comfort, but it doesn’t save very much. Even if you like it, say, cool at night and warm in the morning, the energy to heat the house to warm again from cool is not much less than leaving it at a warmer temp. So change it if you like that difference. I keep my temp at 74° all summer, day and night, and use a ceiling fan on occasion as necessary. I keep it at 70° all winter, day and night. I could save money by turning it down to 65° all winter and up to 76° all summer, but I’d be less comfortable all year round. I can afford the extra $20 a month it costs me.
When I lived in a bigger house in Pennsylvania with a family and heated with propane, we’d go away for Christmas vacation for a couple weeks to visit relatives. I’d turn the heat down to 50° and expect to save a lot of money. I was always disappointed. It didn’t make all that much difference. In The Villages, you won’t save much in the winter. You can save a lot more in the summer, but you do need to dehumidify your house if it’s closed up, and that is best done with air conditioning. So there’s a limit to what you can save. Still, if your house is empty and the air conditioning is set at 78°, your electricity bill may be close to $60 in March and $125 in July. That’s almost entirely air conditioning.