A programmable thermostat setback allows you to save energy with energy-saving setbacks when you’re not home or are sleeping at night. Some people,however, think that they aren’t actually saving energy, rather just prolonging the inevitable energy use when they have to bring the temperature back up in the house.
This is not the case, and even when you run your furnace again to increase the temperature, you’ll still save money, as long as you program and use the thermostat correctly.
A lot of your savings have to do with the temperature outside versus the temperature inside your home. All homes lose heat through gaps, cracks, roofs and so on. No matter how tightly sealed you think your home is, you will still lose warm
air. If you utilize a programmable thermostat setback to keep your home cooler when you’re not at home or asleep, this brings the temperature inside closer to the temperature outside. Your furnace will not have to run as often to maintain a high temperature and compensate for the heat loss.
If you choose to leave your thermostat at its current temperature, your furnace will have to run frequently to account for the heat loss in your home. It’s simply going to turn on more if the outside temperature is much lower than the one inside. It takes just as much energy to raise an indoor temperature one degree whether you have to raise it 10 degrees to 70 degrees fahrenheit in the morning or just maintain a constant 70 degrees. You will be able to give your furnace a rest by using a programmable thermostat setback periodically.
For more expert advice on how a setback can save energy in your home, please contact us at Marsh Heating & Air Conditioning. We have been helping the Twin Cities Metro area save money and live comfortably since 1974.
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Our goal is to help educate our customers in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about programmable thermostat and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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