Derek Cole explains why big thermostat swings waste energy: your walls and furniture hold heat, forcing the HVAC to run for hours to recover. He recommends modest 1-2°F setbacks or using a smart thermostat to pre-cool before you arrive home instead of dramatic drops like 60°F.
Have you ever wondered, is it better to set my thermostat at home on one temperature, or is it better to set it back when I'm away and then change it when I get home? If you ever wondered that, you're not alone. Look, Energy Star recommends you to set your thermostat back when you're not at home. Let me tell you what practically makes sense. You need to be comfortable. So when you're not at home, when you're gone, when you're away, and it's 100 degrees outside, or it's 95, 98 degrees outside, if you set your thermostat for 78 while you're gone, and then it is hot, and then when you get home at 5 or 5:30 try to bring it down to 72 or 74. From those temperatures, it's going to take a while. It's going to take a while to get to that level. It's going to take a long time for it to come down because you're coming off the hottest part of the day and now you're wanting it to be comfortable at home. What I do What a lot of people do, what I would do, is maybe a few degrees if that's what you want to do, and then make sure you get a smart thermostat or a Wi-Fi thermostat even, and set and bring that temperature down before you get home. That way when you do get home, you're not experiencing those temperatures and not being comfortable, and it's 5:30 or 6 PM and and your house has been sitting at 78 all day, and the walls and the furniture and everything is 78. So now the whole home has to cool off to make you more comfortable. I mean, if you're coming home and pulling down to 75 and the unit's constantly running until dark to get from 78 to 75, where you could have left it on 75 most of the day? Is it more energy efficient? I mean, yeah, it's hard for me to believe that is going to be the case if you're having to run for hours and hours and hours to get to a comfortable temperature after leaving your home. So either set it back only a few degrees, like 1 or 2, and then pull it down before you get home, or use a schedule to pull it down before you get home, or keep it at one temperature. Keep it at one— you want it to be 75 all the time, well, just keep it at 75 and leave it alone. It is up to you. What are you comfortable doing? The worst thing you can do this time of year when it's hot, when it's miserable, is keep playing with temperature in that thermostat. You keep bumping down to 68, keep bumping down to 70, 67, 60, whatever, whatever. Stop playing with the thermostat. Keep it one constant temperature all year long, all season long, and see what that does. I saved— I've saved $25 by being uncomfortable in my house when I get home, and I'm not comfortable until 7 PM, or I spent $25 more and when I got home at 5:30, I was comfortable, the house felt good, I was in a good mood, everything's fine. So was that $25 worth being comfortable every day when you get home. That's the choice you have to make. So instead of living in mystery and not really knowing, test it. If you want to test it, see what's more efficient. What I do in my house is I have a set temperature when I go to bed. When I get up, it's going to set back a few degrees while I'm gone. It's going to start pulling down before I get home. That way, by the time I get home, it is at the temperature. And then before I go to bed, comes down again, comes down again before I go to bed, before I'm comfortable. That way it's not just yanking it down and having to run all day, because we're in the house from like, what, 6 to 10 before you go to sleep. It doesn't need to be the same temperature as when I go to sleep, but it— I do want to be comfortable. I do want to be comfortable. So how much is it costing you to save a few degrees? Is it costing you a little bit? Costing you a lot? Is it kind of staying the same? You need to know that for yourself so you can make a better decision on what needs to happen at your house. Look, you work hard all day. The last thing you want to do is come home to an uncomfortable house. So are you saving money, and how much money are you saving by playing with that thermostat? Or does it make more sense to keep to one temperature?
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