A programmable thermostat can save bundles when it comes to ever increasing winter heating bills. In fact, as energy costs seem be on an endless uptrend, homeowners everywhere are being forced to attack their energy usage where it counts, resulting not only in money saved, but also an increasingly greener place to live.
Last January, my local utility company more than doubled their rates. The energy costs had been locked artificially low by a state-mandated 10 year rate freeze, but as soon as the freeze expired, the rates skyrocketed. This rate hike was really an eye opener, as my heating bill for the blustery month approached $500.
The very first thing my wife and I did was purchase and install a Honeywell programmable thermostat for our home. If you visit your local home center, you’ll find all kinds of automatic programmable thermostats in a whole range of prices. I’d recommend stepping up to the best model your budget will allow– after all, you’ll probably recoup your costs with the money saved in just the first couple months.
Installing the programmable thermostat was a breeze. For most standard household heating and air conditioning systems, there are just four color coded wires to be removed from the old thermostat and attached to the new unit. When I installed mine, I did go ahead and shut off the power not only at my home’s main breaker, but also at the breaker on the outside of my furnace just to be safe.
But the best part came once I powered everything back up and programmed the thermostat. I set it to maintain a cool 58 degrees during the daytime hours when nobody is home and kick up to 70 a half hour before we get home in the evening. Then at night, it goes back down to 58 while we sleep and once again, back to 70 about thirty minutes before we normally get up in the morning.
I can honestly say we’re not chilly at night, being tucked in under the blankets and in the morning when we wake up, we never even knew we had turned the temp way down. Same goes when we’re away at work during the day. Believe me, the money saved really adds up too!