06 Nov Opinion: Thermostat Settings and Why ?
I have found that the general market around thermostats is dominated by American companies, and is tied to a history of older natural draft appliances in homes. I say this as thermostats come preset with several “periods” already pre-programmed, including timed modes of “wake, away, return, and sleep”. These time periods are established to set your thermostat a few degrees lower during the away and sleep periods.
With an older single stage furnace burning a lot of fuel and providing 70% efficiency at the very best, perhaps setting it back during those times will save you a bit of fuel and electricity. However, with today’s new 95% or higher efficiency furnaces and boilers and their ability to use two or more heating stages coupled with variable speed blowers, we can heat our homes very efficiently and more importantly maintain those comfortable temperatures with a “set and forget” mentality.
Once the home is up to temperature and has established a certain amount of latent heat in the walls, floors, furniture, kids, and dog, our new appliances can more efficiently maintain a constant setting 24 hours a day. It becomes more expensive to recover that heat than it does to maintain it.
FortisBC had some information on there website related to “set and forget” vs “recovery” heating, sharing the same thoughts. In my own personal home I have experimented with, and found, that YES it is cheaper for me to use a “set and forget” method and just pick a single temperature for the heating season.