By Albert Tsoi:
I love smart thermostats. People waste a lot of energy heating and cooling their homes because they leave the heat or air conditioning on when they’re not at home. Smart thermostats help address this problem. But what if you’re at home but just not in a room? Even with the smartest thermostat, people waste a lot of energy heating and cooling rooms they’re not actually in. The heating and cooling of most homes in the United States is dictated by a single thermostat in that home. That means that the hot air or cool air is either all on or all off in all rooms. There’s not a lot of control.
The thermostat turns the furnace or air conditioner off when it reaches the temperature set by the homeowner. In the vast majority of cases, that’s the temperature of the room the thermostat is in, not the temperature of any other room in your home. The thermostat could say 67 degrees, but you may still not be comfortable because the thermostat’s in the hallway and meanwhile, the living room is actually 63 degrees. This is a lesson that my parents recently learned.
Hypothermia builds character
I learned how to deal with being cold because my parents are the cheapest people on the planet. Growing up, I’d remember it being 63 degrees inside during the winter time. I’d be shivering and would plead with my parents to turn up the heat. My dad would respond with something along the lines of, “No! Being cold builds character! Put on a sweater!” I’d reply, “I’m already wearing a sweater!” He’d retort, “Which I paid for! Go do your homework.”
I was more or less in a constant state of hypothermia during the winters for the first 18 years of my life. Now that I’m an adult and living on my own, I set my Nest thermostat to 67 degrees. Many people find that a bit frosty but it works for me. Plus, I feel good knowing that I’m saving on energy costs.
My parents don’t like character.
My parents stayed with me during the Christmas holidays. “It’s too cold in here” my Mom complained. What?! I could practically see my breath indoors from December through March when I was growing up and they’re complaining about it being too cold in my home?
“It’s 67 degrees right now,” I replied. “Don’t you set your thermostat to 45 degrees – just enough so the pipes don’t burst?” I added. “No,” my dad replied. “We set it to 67 degrees.” Apparently, they’ve mellowed out with age. I have central heating and cooling and my parents have radiators but we both have smart thermostats. So why was 67 degrees in my apartment so much colder than the 67 degrees at my parents’ home?
Will the real 67 degrees please stand up?
The answer is that when you only have one thermostat to control only one zone in your home, 67 degrees is not really 67 degrees. It’s only 67 degree at the one spot where the thermostat happens to be. In my apartment, my thermostat is located in a hallway in the center of the apartment, away from all the windows and exterior walls, where the heat in my apartment escapes. It takes some time for the cold air to reach the hallway where the thermostat is located. When the thermostat eventually senses the cold air, it kicks the furnace on.
When my parents visited me, they were hanging out mostly in the living room, where it was colder. It took too much time for the thermostat to detect the temperature drop and kick the furnace back on. The thermostat in my parents’ home is located in their living room. That’s where the spend most of their time in their home. When they’re in the living room in their home, they were enjoying a temperature that was closer to the “real 67 degrees.”
I used to think I was being green by setting my thermostat down to 67 degrees. Now, I’m not sure because that’s only the temperature of one room and each room in my home is different. It’s not easy being green when you don’t have a complete sense of what’s going on in your home.
It’s not the thermostat’s fault. It only knows what it knows. No thermostat can control individual room temperatures because no thermostat alone can control airflow to individual rooms. Ecovent knows the temperature and climate in each room and provides control over individual room temperatures by directing airflow to where it’s needed.
“Thermometer 20oC” by Sam Cat is licensed under CC BY 2.0
“IGLOO_MG_9854” by Derek Thomas is licensed under CC BY 2.0
“sixty seven” by kamasikaja is licensed under CC BY 2.0
