HVAC specialist Derek Cole explains why dropping your thermostat more than 1-2 degrees when you get home won't cool faster. Thermal mass in walls and furniture keeps the house at its set temperature, so big setbacks just waste energy. Keep shades closed on hot days and avoid running the dryer during peak heat instead.
Most of the ones we go to or the phone calls we get are kind of in that realm where it's 2, 3, 4, 5 o'clock in the day and they're trying to pull the unit down to 74, 72. They just got home and it's 96, 100 degrees outside. It's not going to happen because everything in that home is that temperature you had it set. That's kind of why I'm against I'm against setting it back too much when you're going to work, but the problem is, you know, you get home at 5 o'clock or 5:30 and everybody tries to bring it down to the temperature they want. Well, it's been sitting all day at 78 degrees, it's going to be hard for it to get to 75 when it's the hottest part of the day at 4 or 5 o'clock, right? So that's why I'm, you know, I wouldn't set it more than probably 1 or 2 degrees off of what you want, just because it's gonna be hard for that to compensate for what you're wanting when you get home, if that makes sense. Because everything in the home— so you set your temperature to 78, you come home at 5 o'clock, you want it to be 75. Okay, everything in the home, the desk, the furniture, the walls, everything is 78 degrees. So now everything has to be 75 degrees. It's not going to work that fast. It might change 1 degree every hour, uh, just because it's so hot outside, so far behind, that it's going to take a while to compensate, to bring back up temperature. Now, when the sun goes down and it cools off a little bit, it'll do it, you know, fairly quickly. But usually that's not the case. So I don't think you're having a problem there. Again, I would always recommend getting your unit maintenanced twice a year, make sure you're ready to go, you're good to go. And if If the unit has a good temperature split, meaning the temperature— and this is something you can measure at home— the temperature out of the grill and the temperature going into the return is 15 degrees. That's kind of a good rule. If it's a 15-degree difference, then you're good to go. The problem is that when it's really hot outside, you're pulling in, you know, 85, 80, 85-degree air possibly back to the return. To cool back down to get back out. So some simple things to remember, I've seen this before too, front doors, shades, all that stuff on these really hot days needs to be closed. You need to help the system out as much as you can. I got home, when I was at home Sunday after church, I said we need to do some laundry. I said, "Dope, we cannot run the dryer at 1 PM." when it's 96 degrees, you know, we're going to add heat to the home. So that's something you don't want to do.
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