Thermostat change from conventional to Nest

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by emm74

And I like the way it looks so I remain completely satisfied with it.

Does it save you money? Do you think it would save money in the situation I described?

[z28lt1]

Originally Posted by Bill the Butcher

I’ve been contemplating getting a smart thermostat. But I am wondering if it makes sense in our situation. We live in a very hot climate during the summer. Winters are mostly mild. It’s California. Wife refuses to let the thermostat go above 79 or 80 when we are not home. Our typical comfortable temperature inside the house during these hot summers is 75. The outside temperature is easily in the mid 80’s by 9 or 10am. Highs around 98 to 106.

Is the HVAC really going to work less if it is trying to constantly cool the house from 80 to 79 as opposed 76 to 75? With the outside temperature being significantly hotter than both those temperatures it seems to me the thermostat would be calling for the HVAC to come on and work about the same amount of time.

Study after study shows that setbacks save money. Of course, there are tons of variables (how long you are gone for, how "tight" your home is, the type of equipment you have, etc...) With your extreme heat, i would guess you would be on the low end of the. I've seen studies that show a typical 4-5 degree change for 8 hours might be 4-7% savings. Since your AC will still work hard during those hours and take a while to recover, you may be on the low end (or even lower) than that. Hard to say how worth it for you it would be. My "guess" is still some savings.


The nice thing with soomething like an Ecobee (and I imagine others), is you see all of that reported. You can see how long it runs for at a certain temperature and compare the next day with some set backs and stuff. You can also see how long it takes to recover from the setback versus various outdoor temsp, because in your case, depending upon equipment, I could see it taking more than an hour just to recover the 4-5 degrees if it is 106 outside (and if it is 106 outside, some systems might not recover at all).


No one can say for sure based upon your situation, but there is likely something savings. That said, if you save 1-2% of your AC bill the payback on the thermostat is probably pretty long.

[emm74]

Originally Posted by Bill the Butcher

Does it save you money? Do you think it would save money in the situation I described?

With relinquishing control over my AC to the electric company? I have no idea, I haven't done that and don't ever plan to.

As for saving money, I never claimed that the Nest is some magic device that would somehow save more money than any other programmable thermostat. I do have it programmed, but I also like that I can adjust on the fly, with a voice command. That's a more valuable feature to me than maximizing the amount of money I save.

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by emm74

I do have it programmed, but I also like that I can adjust on the fly, with a voice command. That's a more valuable feature to me than maximizing the amount of money I save.

The voice control part of it doesn’t really do anything for me.

I am more interested in the money savings aspect. Google advertises that it will save 15% on cooling bills and 10-12% on heating bills.

[JWG223]

Originally Posted by Bill the Butcher

The voice control part of it doesn’t really do anything for me.

I am more interested in the money savings aspect. Google advertises that it will save 15% on cooling bills and 10-12% on heating bills.

https://www.norbord.com/na/blog/prog...ly-save-money/

From the EPA: “Consumers are often advised that installing a programmable thermostat can save them anywhere from 10 to 30% on the space heating and cooling portion of their energy bills. While reliant on proper use of the programmable thermostat, such savings are easily true in theory; however, there needs to be more field-tested data to better substantiate savings claims. Analyses from recent field studies have suggested that programmable thermostats may be achieving considerably lower savings than their estimated potential.”

Some studies show that programmable thermostats actually save between 6.2 and 6.8% while a Florida study showed that people who had programmable thermostats used an average of 12% more energy. The reason few programmable thermostats save money is because while occupants do use less energy when they are away or sleeping, they tend to use more when they are at home.

I'll be sticking with my tried and true Honeywell, and will be going solar for the house, instead, and later upgrading the HVAC system when this one fails. THose two things will be much more effective and considerably easier/simpler/involve less fiddling with crap.