Save 10% a year with your thermostat
Most of the energy that we use at home - about 54% - goes towards space heating and cooling. To make a real reduction in your energy bills, start with a focus on heating and cooling, since that's where there's the most room for improvement. This week, we're focusing on thermostats and how you can use what you have to save about 10% a year on your heating and cooling costs.
How do most Americans use energy at home?
ARTICLE AT A GLANCE:
Set the temperature lower at night in the winter
In the summer, let the temperature rise when you're away
Don't overshoot the temperature you want
Consider a smart thermostat, unless you have a heat pump
What's best if I have a heat pump?
We'll also share more about how you can save energy with two of the top thermostats we recommend:
Nest
Ecobee
And finally, for clients who want to complete a project to save even more on heating and cooling, we'll call out priorities to consider. Learn more about Portland HVAC or Bend HVAC priorities.
Best practices to get the most from your thermostat
Set the temperature lower at night in the winter
If you heat your home with a gas furnace, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that you can save as much as 10% a year on your energy bills by turning your thermostat back 7° to 10°F for 8 hours a day from its normal setting.
Try setting the thermostat to 68°F while you're awake, then lower while you're asleep or out of the house.
There's a common misconception that if you lower the temperature at night, your furnace will have to work harder to warm your home back up in the morning, negating any energy savings. This is BOGUS.
In the summer, let the temperature rise when you're away
If you have a central air conditioner, you can follow the same strategy in the summer by keeping your house warmer than normal when you're away.
To save the most on your bills, set your thermostat as high as you can while still maintaining comfort. Experiment with increasing the temperature 1°F at a time. It's unlikely that anyone in the house will notice incremental changes.
Don't overshoot the temperature you want
We've all been there. On a cold winter day, you come inside and crank up the heat beyond where you would normally set it. Because you're JUST. SO. COLD.
But this will not heat up your home any faster. You'll just have excessive heating and unnecessary expense. Be careful not to overshoot your mark!
Smart thermostats are the ticket, unless you have a heat pump
We'll come back to heat pumps in the next section, but if you have a gas furnace and central air conditioner, definitely consider a smart thermostat like the Nest or Ecobee.
Both thermostats learn and adapt to your schedule, automatically adjusting the temperature, for example, when you regularly go to sleep and when you wake up. You can override the automatic settings anytime.
What's more, if you have smart-home assistant like Google Home (for Nest) or Amazon Echo (for Ecobee), you can connect your smart thermostat and set up routines to save even more energy.
As an example, you could set a Good Morning routine that adjusts your lighting and thermostat while brewing a cup of coffee as you get out of bed. Your Leaving Home routine could switch your home to power-saving mode by turning down the lights and thermostat as you head out the door.
Image credit: Constellation
We're planning to write more about smart-home assistants in another newsletter, but for now, feel free to check out this overview of how you can save energy with smart-home assistant routines.
What's best if I have a heat pump?
For clients with a Mitsubishi heat pump, we typically recommend Mitsubishi's MHK1 Thermostat rather than a smart thermostat.
When a heat pump is in the heating mode, setting back your thermostat can cause the heat pump to operate inefficiently, canceling out any savings that you would achieve by lowering the temperature. Overall, the most cost-effective way to manage your thermostat when you have a heat pump is to maintain a moderate temperature setting.
More about specific thermostats
Nest Thermostat
This article from Google gives a great overview of steps you can take to get the most from Nest: How to improve energy savings with your Nest thermostat
A few highlights from the article:
Teach your Nest thermostat good habits. See the results of teaching your Nest thermostat in your Home Report.
Set your Eco Temperatures thoughtfully. Choosing energy efficient Eco Temperatures will prevent your home from wasting energy while there’s no one inside.
Check your Energy History. You can view the last 10 days of your heating and cooling activity in your Energy History. It’s a helpful tool to build better habits to save even more in the future. If you want to see your energy activity over a longer period of time, check out your Home Report.
Ecobee Thermostat
Ecobee features some helpful energy saving tips in this article: 14 Ways to Maximize Savings with ecobee4
Some tips to consider:
Connect ecobee to wi-fi for Weather Impact. The Weather Impact algorithms help your ecobee understand how outdoor temperatures affect your home’s heating and cooling. This allows ecobee to make smarter heating and cooling decisions to prevent your system from running unnecessarily.
Input information about your home. When setting up your ecobee4, enter information about your home in the web portal - like the size, age, type of home, and number of people that live there. Heating a 600 SQFT condo takes different runtime and energy than for a 2,000 SQFT home.
Room sensor placement. Make sure that your room sensors are placed in optimal locations: high traffic areas, approximately 5 feet off the ground, away from windows, vents and direct sunlight, and placed so they have a wide view of the room.
Project priorities for heating and cooling
If you're thinking about a project to save more on heating and cooling, we typically recommend two sets of priorities.
Start with a combination of air sealing and insulation. This will keep the conditioned air in your home, so you waste less money heating and cooling air that escapes through gaps, cracks, and thinly insulated surfaces.
Consider installing an energy efficient furnace, AC, or heat pump that lasts longer and costs less to both operate and maintain.
Here at GreenSavers, we're passionate about helping people save energy at home. Our clients saved enough energy last year to offset more than 823 tons of carbon dioxide or power about 90 average homes for a year. We love this!
Learn More About Heating and Cooling
Start by visiting our heating and cooling resource pages for homeowners in Portland or Bend, Oregon. You can also keep reading our latest blog articles about energy efficient heating and cooling.
