Gas Heater Settings

[Desiderato Chouinard]

Youcan save money on your heating and cooling bills by simply resetting your thermostat when you are asleep or away from home. You can do this automatically without sacrificing comfort by installing an automatic setback or programmable thermostat.

Using a programmable thermostat, you can adjust the times you turn on the heating or air-conditioning according to a pre-set schedule. Programmable thermostats can store and repeat multiple daily settings (six or more temperature settings a day) that you can manually override without affecting the rest of the daily or weekly program.

You can save as much as 10% a year on heating and cooling by simply turning your thermostat back 7-10F for 8 hours a day from its normal setting. The percentage of savings from setback is greater for buildings in milder climates than for those in more severe climates.

The smaller the difference between the indoor and outdoor temperatures, the lower your overall cooling bill will be. You can easily save energy in the winter by setting the thermostat to around 68F to 70F while you're awake and setting it lower while you're asleep or away from home.

In the summer, you can follow the same strategy with central air conditioning by keeping your house warmer than normal when you are away, and setting the thermostat to a setting as high as is comfortable for you when you are at home and need cooling and to ensure humidity control if needed.

Avoid setting your thermostat at a colder setting than normal when you turn on your air conditioner. It will not cool your home any faster and could result in excessive cooling and, therefore, unnecessary expense.

A common misconception associated with thermostats is that a furnace works harder than normal to warm the space back to a comfortable temperature after the thermostat has been set back, resulting in little or no savings. In fact, as soon as your house drops below its normal temperature, it will lose energy to the surrounding environment more slowly.

During winter, the lower the interior temperature, the slower the heat loss. So the longer your house remains at the lower temperature, the more energy you save, because your house has lost less energy than it would have at the higher temperature.

The same concept applies to raising your thermostat setting in the summer -- a higher interior temperature will slow the flow of heat into your house, saving energy on air conditioning. Check out our home heating infographic to learn more about how heating systems and thermostats interact.

Programmable thermostats are generally not recommended for heat pumps. In its cooling mode, a heat pump operates like an air conditioner, so turning up the thermostat (either manually or with a programmable thermostat) will save energy and money. But when a heat pump is in its heating mode, setting back its thermostat can cause the unit to operate inefficiently, thereby canceling out any savings achieved by lowering the temperature setting. Maintaining a moderate setting is the most cost-effective practice. Recently, however, some companies have begun selling specially designed programmable thermostats for heat pumps, which make setting back the thermostat cost-effective. These thermostats typically use special algorithms to minimize the use of backup electric resistance heat systems.

Electric resistance systems, such as electric baseboard heating, require thermostats capable of directly controlling 120-volt or 240-volt circuits. Only a few companies manufacture line-voltage programmable thermostats.

The slow response time -- up to several hours -- of steam heating and radiant floor heating systems leads some people to suggest that setback is inappropriate for these systems. However, some manufacturers now offer thermostats that track the performance of your heating system to determine when to turn it on in order to achieve comfortable temperatures at your programmed time.

Alternately, a normal programmable thermostat can be set to begin its cool down well before you leave or go to bed and return to its regular temperature two or three hours before you wake up or return home. This may require some guesswork at first, but with a little trial and error you can still save energy while maintaining a comfortable home.

Most programmable thermostats are either digital, electromechanical, or some mixture of the two. Digital thermostats offer the most features in terms of multiple setback settings, overrides, and adjustments for daylight savings time, but may be difficult for some people to program. Electromechanical systems often involve pegs or sliding bars and are relatively simple to program.

When programming your thermostat, consider when you normally go to sleep and wake up. If you prefer to sleep at a cooler temperature during the winter, you might want to start the temperature setback a bit ahead of the time you actually go to bed. Also consider the schedules of everyone in the household. If there is a time during the day when the house is unoccupied for four hours or more, it makes sense to adjust the temperature during those periods.

The US Department of Energy, which knows a few things about saving energy, says you can eliminate 10% of your HVAC costs by shifting your thermostat setting 7-10 F for 8 hours a day. Since air conditioning is one of the consumers of energy at home (costing American homeowners $29 billion each year!), this can mean significant savings.

To stay warm in the house after setting your temperature to 68 F, make sure to dress warmly. (It is winter, after all!) By lowering your thermostat by 10-15 F for eight hours, you can reduce your heating bill by 5-15%, a savings of roughly 1% for each degree.

Managing your thermostat can be a little trickier in the spring and fall. Because the weather tends to be unpredictable with large temperature swings, you may need both heating and cooling and need to set both an upper and lower limit on your programmable thermostat for heating or air conditioning. In contrast, you only have to set a lower limit for your heater during the winter while you set a higher limit for your AC in summer.

Getting a good night's sleep is important for everyone. The benefits can enhance your life: improved productivity, reduced risk of heart diseases, and improved immune function, just to name a few. Luckily, you can adjust your thermostat to ensure a good night's rest.

The best approach is to start by setting your thermostat to the temperature you use most often. From there, adjust it towards our recommended seasonal settings one degree each day until it truly feels uncomfortable. Then adjust it back one degree. This will be the setting that will help you save on your electricity bills while still keeping your house comfortable.

If you install a smart thermostat with a smartphone app, you can make adjustments with ease. Forgot to change the thermostat setting before you left home? Just open the app and make the change from wherever you are.

Installing energy-efficient ceiling fans around the house is a great way to use less energy with your summer thermostat settings without sacrificing your comfort. A fan will make you feel cooler during warm days as the air flowing across your skin creates a wind-chill effect.

Fans are also a great option to help you save money in the winter. Many fans can run in reverse and blow air upward, pushing the warm air near the top of the room down to you near ground level. This keeps the entire room at a more consistent temperature.

By improving heat distribution, fans let your heater run less while keeping your home at the ideal temperature. However, to get the most out of your ceiling fans during winter, don't let them run continuously when you're not in the room.

Before you crank your heater or air conditioner, consider what else you can do. Can you open a window, put on or take off a sweater or turn on a fan to stay comfortable? It can take much less energy to heat or cool a room or a person than a whole house.

To find out how much you would save with a home solar panel system, get started with a Free Solar Savings Estimate. When you request more information about rooftop solar for your home, we will put you in touch with a Palmetto solar expert in your area who can review your system design in more detail, and answer any questions that you might have.

Cory brings over 8 years of solar expertise to Palmetto, and enjoys sharing that knowledge with others looking to improve their carbon footprint. A dog lover residing in Asheville, NC with his wife, Cory graduated from UCSB. If you run into him, ask him about the company he founded to rate and review beer!

Below, we'll outline the best temperature to set your thermostat to save energy during summer and winter. We'll explain why it works to manage your home's climate more efficiently and share a few bonus thermostat tricks and heating habits to reduce your overall usage.

According to the US Department of Energy, the best technique for staying cool yet minimizing utility costs in summer is to keep your home warmer than usual when no one is home and then set the temperature as high as comfortably possible when home. Energy Star, a program of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy, suggested that homes be kept at 78 degrees Fahrenheit when home during the day.

It also suggests that the thermostat be set to 82 degrees Fahrenheit when sleeping and 85 degrees Fahrenheit when out of the house for maximum savings; recommendations that were met with scorn and disbelief on social media.

If setting your thermostat to somewhere in the 80s sounds too warm, then a good rule of thumb to follow is to turn your thermostat up 7 to 10 degrees from your normal setting for eight hours a day, so you can save up to 10% a year.

According to the US Department of Energy, it's best to keep your thermostat at 68 degrees Fahrenheit for most of the day during the winter season. For maximum efficiency, you should also designate eight hours per day during which you turn the temperature down by between 7 and 10 degrees. By following this routine, you may again be able to reduce your yearly energy costs by up to 10%.

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