Improve Your Home With A Programmable Thermostat
Before the first beads of sweat fall this summer, think smart and think cool. Atlanta summers can be sweltering hot: causing you to spend more money and more time figuring out how to reduce your air conditioning expenses. Consider adding a programmable thermostat into your home heating and cooling system, and you’ll feel the difference.
Staying cool while you’re at home is important. It’s the essential time to run your air conditioner but why allow it to run while you’re at work or away on a vacation? Heating or cooling a home that no one is occupying means that you’re wasting money.
How Does A Programmable Thermostat Work?
What if you could tell your home when to stay cool and when not to stay cool? A programmable thermostat can do that. Tell your thermostat to cut off 30 minutes before you leave for work and set it to start cooling before you even walk out of your office. Those seven or eight hours while you’re away making money, you’ll be saving energy.
Control at Your Fingertips
In today’s digital world, being in control is within our grasp. With a few quick touches from your wall device, mobile phone or tablet, you can turn on and off your thermostat and adjust temperatures conveniently and quickly.
Companies such as Emerson, use mobile technology to give you the flexibility to manipulate your thermostat from any location. Their Sensi programmable thermostat comes equipped with an mobile app. Like many others, you monitor temperature and humidity levels as well as heating and cooling schedules.
Adjust the settings when you’re away or if the weather suddenly changes.
Protecting Your Wallet
On average, most homeowners spend around $1,000 a year to heat and cool their homes. Being in control of your thermostat could cut as much as $200 a year from your energy bill. That savings pays for your programmable thermostat itself.
When you know what you’re spending, you’re more cautious with how you’re spending it. Newer thermostat models allow you to track your energy usage; showing you how much money you’ve already spent managing the temperature of your home.
How to Pick the Right Thermostat
There are hundreds of thermostats out there so which is the right one to choose? Programmable thermostats can range from $40 to over $300, and have a wide range of functions from digital displays, touchpad programming, voice-activated programming and more.
Although the selection of features vary, here’s a way to narrow the selection down between three different models:
7-day model
This model is best for families that have very hectic and changeable schedules. This model lets you be flexible and set a different program for every single day of the week.
5+2-day model
This model allows you to set a program for the five weekdays and a different one for the two-weekend days. It’s a more set program that still can be flexible.
5-1-1 model
This is slightly more flexible than the 5+2 model and allows you to program the two-weekend days differently.
The decision of which one to buy may be difficult, but in the end, you’ll appreciate the money saved.