Q–We bought a programmable thermostat last winter and never installed it. My husband says we should just wait until the fall to put it in.
Here’s the question: Would it make a difference to install the programmable thermostat now for our central air conditioner? I say it would since we’ve already paid for it. My husband thinks differently.
A–Here’s a short answer: Put the programmable thermostat in.
A programmable thermostat can be just as beneficial with a central air-conditioning system as it can be with the furnace or a boiler.
And now that we’re entering the cooling season, it’s a good time to install it.
Versus the manual dial thermostat, a programmable thermostat can be adjusted to raise and lower temperatures at specific times, which reduces energy costs. Why cool your home if there is no one in it?
For example, let’s say you leave your house at 8 a.m. You can set the programmable thermostat to raise your home’s temperature from 72 degrees to 78 degrees until 4 p.m. or so. Then, you can program the thermostat to gradually lower the temperature to 72 degrees. That way, the home is cool and comfortable when you walk in the door after a long, hot day at work.
You can do the same at night. You can have the temperature rise after you fall asleep, when you’re least likely to notice the warmer temperatures. Then you can set the programmable thermostat so that it lowers the temperature to a cool 72 degrees by the time you wake up.
During that time, the temperature has been raised up to 78 degrees, the compressor on your air conditioner (which eats up the most energy on a central air conditioning system) works a lot less as does the blower fan.
Hence, within a few weeks, a programmable thermostat (which costs anywhere from $50 to $100) can pay for itself. Then, the savings from your electric bill over the summer months stay in your pocket.
Remember, the longer that temperature stays high, the more you save.
A programmable thermostat works best if you have a set schedule, meaning that you leave the house each morning at the same time and go to bed each night about the same time. But some thermostats will allow you to program them for each specific day of the week.
As a result, if you work late on Thursday, you can set your thermostat up for that.
You can also manually override settings with a click of a button.
Of course, for those folks without a programmable thermostat, you can do the same things with a manual thermostat. You’ll just have to wait for the house to cool down, however.
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