As your trusted Richmond AC contractor, we get asked a lot about thermostats. Everyone seems to hate theirs, and not many people understand how to use them to get better energy savings. The trick is knowing that there are four types of thermostats out there, and that each offers a different take on saving energy. Here’s what you need to know.
7-Day Thermostats
If you want to save the most energy and customize your house’s temperature to every single situation of your life, a seven-day thermostat is the best option. These allow you to program the thermostat to different temperatures and patterns for every day of the week. If you don’t work a standard Monday through Friday schedule, or your weekends don’t always mean two days at home, this is the best way to save energy. You can customize every day’s temperature based on where you’ll be and what you’ll need.
5/1/1 Thermostat
This type of thermostat lets you create three programs: One for the five workdays, and one for each weekend day. This is great if you work Monday through Friday, but your weekend days don’t look exactly the same. If you are often gone all day Sunday for church activities, for example, you may want to keep your energy bills lower by letting the home stay a bit cooler or warmer than you prefer when you are home.
5/2 Thermostat
The next type is a very common type of thermostat, which allows you to create one program for weekdays, and one program for weekends. If your life follows a pretty normal routine of being gone one weekdays and home on weekends, this will work for you. However, the energy savings will be a bit lower than they would with the previous two types simply due to less flexibility. Unless you will be manually changing the temperature to suit your needs, you’ll be cooling or heating your house the same way every weekend or weekday.
Standard Thermostat
The standard thermostat lets you create a single program that is repeated every day. This really won’t save you much in the way of energy because the home will always be heated or cooled regardless of your need in each moment.
Now that you know how your thermostat programming can help you save energy, you can get started cutting your energy costs this year. Contact your AC contractor in Richmond by calling us at Green Air, Inc. if you have any other questions!
