Dealing with heating bills can be frustrating. There’s nothing homeowners can do to change fuel prices, but with programmable thermostats, they can change home heating requirements and impact energy savings. But you have to know how to program the device to maximize your home’s energy-savings potential.
The Alberta government advises homeowners to turn down thermostat settings to lock in savings. In fact, by adjusting your indoor temperature by one degree, you can turn that action into a two percent savings on your next utility bill. Increase the setback even more to increase savings. It really is that simple.
Guidelines to follow for energy savings include:
- Daily setbacks for eight hours. The eight-hour timeframe isn’t a number someone pulled out of thin air. It’s a proven timeframe that will guarantee energy savings, backed by solid evidence. When you turn the thermostat down, your furnace cycles off, and the home’s temperature dips, but when it cycles back on, it will run longer to return your home’s temperature to comfortable levels – and it will run longer than if you simply kept it on. A long set-back schedule of at least eight hours offsets the energy the furnace will consume during this process. Science backs up this timeframe, too. When your home is comfortably heated, it actually loses energy due to the extreme difference in temperatures between your warm home and the cold outdoors. So, when the home’s temperature dips and the difference in temperatures decrease, the home loses energy more slowly, and that encourages energy savings.
- Daily setbacks of three degrees. You can optimize savings by further reducing your home’s temperature by three degrees, and realize a six percent savings on your monthly energy bills possible. Over the long winter season, those savings add up.
Programmable thermostats are a low-cost, effective way to remove the stranglehold energy costs can have on your budget, and give you back a measure of control over heating bills. If you’d like to explore how a programmable thermostat can increase your savings, or if you’d like to investigate other energy-saving measures, contact the experts at Arpi’s Industries today!
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Find more information on smart thermostat installation in Calgary or download our free Home Comfort Resource guide for more information about programmable thermostats and other HVAC topics.
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Digital Thermostat image via Shutterstock
