Skip recommends small thermostat setbacks of 3 to 5 degrees to avoid overworking your HVAC system. For empty homes, keep it around 78°F to let the air conditioner dehumidify and prevent mildew. Large setbacks or switching modes can strain the system and trigger breakdowns.
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I was thinking about talking about the, you know, the five Secrets PDF that's out. So I want to talk about thermostat, sitting your thermostat. So we get a lot of questions about, you know, what should I set my thermostat should, you know, away home, how far should I set those points away? So, I mean, we're, we haven't really talked too much about it, but we're. Where do you stand on sitting your thermostat when you're not home, like you're going to work and when you come back, what's your opinion on what should happen?
Well, I typically wouldn't recommend going any more than about 4 or 5 degrees off from where you got it set. Just a few degrees, nothing major. So if it's, if you're comfortable at 72, 75, I'd go 77, 78, 79. Somewhere in there in the summertime, in the wintertime, same way, both directions down south and up or down, depending on where. I wouldn't go any more than 5 degrees. Your unit is having to overcome a lot more, especially in summertime humidity. In the hotter times of the year that we've got right now where we're heading into right now where we've got a lot of humidity, that unit has to do a lot of latent cooling. And for those that don't understand what latent cooling is, that's simple word of that is dehumidification. We're having to dehumidify a lot before we can change the actual sensible temperature, which is what you read on the thermostat. And if we raise that any more than that and the humidity in the house is getting higher and higher, that units having to overcome that humidity before it overcomes the temperature. And a lot of times you'll find that unit, your temperature start going backwards instead of upwards because it can't overcome the heat, it's just continuous heat. And it can't dehumidify fast enough to get the sensible down to where you start changing the temperature to get back where it's at. So you have a lot to play into. Especially in this area in the south with the humidity, it puts a toll on that system and you really want to keep it within 3 to 4, 5 degrees is the most I would ever want to say anybody change the temperature up or down.
Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. Because especially when they get home at, you know, 5, 36, you know, you come off the hardest part of the day and you're trying to you know, yank it down to get comfortable. And then if you start cooking dinner or adding heat to the house because you're cooking dinner or drying clothes, this is going to make everything stacking up.
Yeah. Not only, not only are you, are you coming in and cooking dinner, but exactly what you're saying. You got everybody coming in so the doors opening and closing and opening and closing and opening and closing. Adding more heat to the unit is not overcoming just the what's in the house, but as you'll load, your people load and everything you're doing inside.
Yeah. And for those of you watching, I gave Skip zero notice, except when I send them a request and said, is there any way you can ask yourself to be. I get, I mean, I don't know how it works. So we were talking about temperatures and your thermostat and how far you should sit at back on your con compared to what you wanted. When you come home, especially this time of year, going to work, you know, you're coming home 5 o', clock, 6pm cooking dinner, people are coming in and out of the doors. And obviously you don't want to sit at temperature too much away from where you want it because now you're trying to overcome everything that's in the house, opening the door and you're trying to overcome that. You're coming off of the hardest, hottest part of the day and that's going to be a challenge. So, you know, skips, skip saying 4 or 5 degrees, I would definitely agree with that. And I guess question from military Skip, they asked me, what should I set the temperature in that empty house. Nobody's home. They're trying to sell the house. Is it fine if I sit at 85? Where do you stand on that?
I would say no empty house, nothing there. 85. In summertime, especially hardwood flooring and stuff, you got a lot of stuff. You got to think about keeping that unit running to where it can dehumidify and keep that wood dry. You don't have warpage of the floors. You don't have, you know, things like that growing in closets where humidity is. The air is not moving a lot. We're not running the temperature a lot or the air conditioning lot to get the dehumidification. You can get some mildew and some things like that to grow in closets and warpage of the floors because of humidity. You really typically don't want to see that. I would say summertime 78, 80 degrees would be the highest that I'd want to see it. 78 probably would be my limit, but I'm not going to tell anybody no to 80, but somewhere in that area that way you can properly dehumidify and keep that thing dry to where you don't have to worry about those nasties.
Yeah, it's something a lot of folks don't think about in this part of the country is the humidity. Humidification, dehumidification for the AC unit, that's something very important because it's is very rare. But to see a unit around here that doesn't have any type of growth in it because of humidity and it being wet and damp, that's kind of odd to see.
We see a lot. I've visited a lot of homes over the years that I've been doing heating in there. Now people coming out and say I'm remodeling a home. I just bought a home. Come look at it and see what you think about air conditioning. You walk in, it's been closed up for months and it smells like mildew, it smells like growth. You can see it growing. They've done more damage with not running air conditioning and caused more problems. More cost for them to repair by trying to save a little bit on electric bill where they would have benefited from letting it run, you know, semi conditioning and at least today got it sold and got it fixed.
Yeah, and, and people don't believe this, but when the first gets hot or first he gets cold. A lot of our breakdown calls or demand calls are because folks have the thermostat sit on the opposite mode what they want. That's not a problem this time of year because it's been so hot for so long. But setting the thermostat back is a problem because we get those phone calls at, you know, 6, 30, 7 o' clock at night. My unit's not keeping up. Well, you've had it sit on, you know, 80 degrees all day and come home, you want to be 74. And it's hard for it to, to reset a set point. So that's what we're, we're talking about right now with, with Women's Skipper is joining me on this live. And we're talking about a good idea for set points because it's, it's a real problem. You know, he's saying 78 and I agree with that. 78 is as high as you want to go on the thermostat, especially this time of year because you're fighting a couple things. You're fighting humidity, you're fighting the heat. And when you get home from work at 6 at night, you're fighting the fact that you have to get dinner ready or people are coming out of the house. So, you know, you want to give yourself a head start instead of working behind.
That's right.
Yeah, dude. Thanks for joining me. I know no notice, but I knew you had something to say on this and I wanted to see your thoughts on the thermostat settings.
