by MHeath22

Created on: August 14, 2010

HOW TO CUT AIR CONDITIONING COSTS WITH A PROGRAMMABLE THERMOSTAT

Two years ago we built a house in central Arkansas.  The summers in central Arkansas can be brutal with temperatures at or above 100F and heat indices of 115F to 120F.  The humidity can hit you in the face like a hot rag.  The bottom line is that we needed a system that could run an air conditioner and not run our electric bill sky high.  One definite answer was the programmable thermostat.  The following are 10 solid thoughts, ways and reasons to use one:

1)  You can go expensive or you can go cheap and still reap benefits.  I believe that the more you pay the more you get and we actually paid a little more for ours.  I will go over what ours will do and then if you can find one that is cheaper and that does the same thing, then buy it.  I think they are getting cheaper every day.

2)  Our programmable thermostat or PT has many different settings.  It can turn the AC on when we want it to, it can turn it off when we want it to and this all can be done at different, multiple times of the day.  It even has a "smart" control on it in which it can make our AC "catch up" and get our house cooled faster if it needs too based upon usage, temperature and other factors.  There are a ton of other options but I will leave that for another discussion.  Basically if you can get one to make your AC come on and off at multiple times during the day and night, then I think you have the best functions that you need.

3) We basically have the following settings:  A)  an overnight temp,  B)  a wake-up-and-get-ready-for-work temp,  C)  a while-we-are-gone temp, D)  a coming-home temp, E)  a sit-at-home-in-the-evening temp then finally, F)  back to the overnight (sleeping) temp.

4)  In the morning you can have your PT set to come on to the temp you like to wake up to.  We like to save money so we have ours set at the warmest, yet coolest recommended setting which is about 78F to 79F.  We set our PT @ 78F and to activate 30 minutes before we wake up so the house feels cool when we wake up and get ready for work.  The PT will have no problem cooling the house down to the desired temp because it is generally cooler in the morning, thus not having to work as hard. 

5)  Our PT is then programmed to re-set at the time we usually leave the house.  We set our PT up to 81F or 83F

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