Thermostatus: The latest on Thermostat legal status

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Comment by tedkidd on February 23, 2012 at 10:42am

The presumption is that the general public is qualified to operate equipment in a way that maximizes efficiency.  Actually, the presumption is that the equipment replaces heat lost, and increases interior temperatures, at the same efficiency no matter how you operate it.  

This tremendous oversimplification, already absurd once you give it a reasonable amount of consideration, get's magnified by the unmeasured.  In other words, SAVINGS!  WHERE IS THE BEEF?  

Folks, every house is different.  The equipment is different, energy replacement characteristics are different, duct efficiency (often different in the SAME house because of staging equipment and fans), loss via radiation, loss via leakage, and the efficiency of heat delivery for your CURRENT SYSTEM may have a really wide amount of variably based upon how it is run.  

I had a client tell me they suffered terrible discomfort, but didn't think they could afford to set the thermostat any higher than 60.  This made me think, then ask, "How do you KNOW?"

So, what is your "cruelly enforced sense of appropriate temperature" saving you?  How do you know?  It may be saving you money, but it may be COSTING you money, unless you do some significant tracking over statically significant enough period of time, how do you know?  

And, after you KNOW what it costs, now you can make an EDUCATED decision about how to manage your temperatures.  Say it's 5 cents a day to live 4f warmer, mightn't having your kids and wife not thinking you're a  fascist be worth it?   

BPI tells us to measure before, make adjustments, measure after.  If you are attempting to save money on energy with behavior modification you need to track CONSUMPTION before, modify behavior, track results and compare.  

And if you are making sacrifices around comfort, shouldn't you know how much you are getting paid for it?

Comment by Tom on February 23, 2012 at 8:38am

FWIW, I expect my Nest will result in greater energy consumption as it's amenable to members of my family cranking up the heat, learning from their habits rather than what I'd like to force upon them! Previously, my Honeywell unit would cruelly enforce my sense of appropriate temperature - they could bump up the heat or AC if they wanted to, but the next time around it would go back to what I had initially set.

Although I can now turn down the HVAC remotely from my phone. ;)

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