Save Energy With A Programmable Thermostat

Programmable thermostats are quite possibly your single biggest tool to conserve energy and to reduce your utility expense each month.  In addition to those marvelous benefits of saving energy and money, programmable thermostats offer a number of additional perks.

Benefits of Programmable Thermostats

Lux Products' Model TX9000TS Touch Screen Thermostat. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

* Typically, you will save about $150 each year on your heating and cooling bill, and you can save more depending on how you program your thermostat.

* Programmable thermostats are more earth friendly because they don’t contain any mercury. 

* When you use a programmable thermostat, you will use less energy to heat or cool your home and therefore you’ll reduce your carbon footprint – fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

* For homeowners who work outside the home during the day and have a different schedule on the weekend, a programmable thermostat can offer many benefits.  On the other hand, if you are home throughout the day, seven days a week, then a programmable thermostat will offer more limited benefits.

* Programmable thermostats remove the work from heating and cooling your home.  Once you've programmed your thermostat, you can adopt a hands-off approach and know you’re going to be comfortable while saving money and energy – it’s extremely convenient and efficient.

* Programmable thermostats can be programmed differently for each day of the week.  This is wonderfully convenient if you work from home two days a week and would like it to be warmer or cooler at that time.  On the days when you’re out of the home during the day you can set your thermostat lower during the winter and higher during the summer to save more money. 

You don’t need the temperature to be 70 during the winter if you’re not home; you can let it drop to 65 or even cooler and then set your thermostat to warm up your home when you’re scheduled to arrive. 

* Programmable thermostats have override features, which allow you to modify your program temporarily.  This is convenient if for example, you don’t go into work as you would normally and you wish to warm or cool the house to a more temperate level than if you weren’t at home.  You simply set the temperature you want it to be and it will stay there until your next scheduled temperature change.

A residential electronic thermostat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If, for example, you have your thermostat scheduled to warm the house from 63 degrees at 9am to 68 at 5pm then your override will hold until 5pm at which point it will switch to the new program.

Many programmable thermostats also offer a hold feature that allows you to simply set the temperature and keep it there until you change it.  This might be used if you’re going on vacation and don’t need your home’s temperature to fluctuate.  If you’re taking a vacation during the winter, for example, you can simply hold your home’s temperature at 55 degrees Fahrenheit and know that your pipes won’t freeze and you won’t be wasting energy and money while you’re gone.

Programmable thermostats are great for saving money on your heating and cooling bills and they’re extremely earth friendly.  In addition to those two primary benefits, programmable thermostats provide a convenience unrivaled by standard thermostats which require you to adjust them each time you wish to change the temperature in your home.