When you think about investing in your home’s heating and cooling systems, you likely think about furnaces, boilers and air conditioning.
But don’t overlook your thermostat! The right thermostat can improve energy efficiency while making it easier to heat and cool your Seacoast region home.
P. Gagnon & Son offers installation of programmable thermostats that, when used properly, can cut your heating and cooling costs by 10 percent! Considering that heating and cooling accounts for around half of your home’s energy costs, that’s no small chunk of change!
Once upon a time, you had one choice for a thermostat: the manual mercury switch thermostat. Some were square with slider bars, some were round with dials, and that was pretty much the only difference.
Walk through the thermostats area of your local home improvement store today, and the choices can get a little overwhelming. Beyond the old school manual thermostats, you have all kinds of programmable thermostats and smart thermostats.
Programmable thermostats first gained national notice when California required clock or setback thermostats on all new-construction homes in 1978. As technology evolved, programmable thermostats did as well, with additions like digital display and memory to store data. In 1995, they were included in the Environmental Protection Agency’s EnergyStar program.
With a programmable thermostat, you can set temperatures on your thermostat and have the temperature adjust based on what time of day it is. For example, you can program your thermostat to turn the heat down in the morning when you leave for the day, then have the heat turned back up a little while before you get home so the house is warm when you arrive.
With today’s digital technology, you can program multiple settings on your thermostat. In addition to the above setting, you can add a setting for when you’re home on weekends. And you can have a setting for when you’re on vacation, so the home stays at a safe temperature but not wasting energy while you’re away but returning the home to a more comfortable temperature by the time you get back.
Smartphones changed so many things about our daily lives. One of those changes is in how we heat and cool our homes.
Wireless connectivity lets you check your thermostat settings and your home’s temperature from anywhere you can get a signal. If you forgot to turn on the vacation setting for your central air conditioning, no problem! You can do it while waiting in the security line at the airport.
Smart thermostats have programming that lets them learn your heating and cooling habits, creating a schedule that matches them. You can check the energy usage of your heating and cooling systems. Some even connect with your home automation system like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, so you can adjust your thermostat with a verbal command.
Smart thermostats have a lot going for them. But they can be pricey, with some costing as much as $500. People also have concerns about privacy and compromised internet security.
While programmable thermostats may not offer the connectivity that smart thermostats do, they still have a lot going for them. But you have to use them right to maximize your HVAC system’s energy efficiency and lower your energy costs. We have some tips to help you do that.
Contact P. Gagnon & Son to find out more about our programmable thermostats!