By reducing your home temperature by as little as 3 degrees during the day, you can benefit from noticeable savings on your heating bill this fall and winter. Programmable thermostats make it even easier to maintain energy efficiency by allowing you to “set and forget” lower temperatures for the times you’ll be away from home.
Statistics Canada estimates that just over half of Canadian homeowners lower their home temperature while sleeping or away from the home. Households that use a programmable thermostat are more likely to lower their temperatures than houses that do not. To understand how using a programmable thermostat can help save on heating costs, consider the weekday schedule of an average household:
- 6:30 am-7:30 am: Household members wake up and get ready for work or school. At this time, the house temperature is set at 21 degrees.
- 7:30 am-4:30 pm: The house is empty. During these hours, the temperature can be reduced to 18 degrees.
- 4:30 pm-5:30 pm: Family members arrive home from work or school. The thermostat can be set to rise to 21 degrees ahead of time so the house is already warm when everyone gets in.
- 10:00 pm: Most or all family members are in bed for the night. The house temperature can be set to 18 degrees while everyone sleeps. It can also be programmed to warm the house up to 21 degrees just before everyone wakes up the next morning.
Using a programmable thermostat in this manner keeps you from over-heating the home, and will help you maintain energy efficiency this winter. If you’d like more information about programmable thermostats or any other home comfort issue, contact Arpi’s Industries Ltd. With more than 50 years of experience providing expert plumbing, heating, and cooling service to the Calgary area, we can answer any questions you have about energy efficiency in the home.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Calgary, Alberta about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about home temperature and other HVAC topics, downloadour free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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