Programmable Thermostats

Your Path to Energy Savings
By Sharon Anderson, Special to The Ithaca Journal
November 15, 2010

Looking for a really easy no-cost way to save on your heating bills? Turn down the thermostat when you leave home or go to sleep.  It is less expensive to reheat a cooler house than it is to keep the heat at a higher temperature 24 hours a day.

For each 8-hour period you reduce the temperature by one degree you will save 1 percent of your fuel costs. This means if you reduce your thermostat setting by 5 degrees every night while you are sleeping you will save 5 percent.

Save money while you sleep and still wake up to a warm house with a programmable thermostat.  You program the temperature settings you want for different times of the day. Program the thermostat to a higher temperature an hour or so before you wake up and program it to a lower temperature at the time you typically leave for work. It can be set to warm the house again before you typically return home and set to a lower temperature before bedtime. Many thermostats have separate weekend and weekday settings and it is easy to temporarily adjust the settings if your schedule changes for one day.

You can save more by selecting a temperature just one degree lower than you normally would. For each 24-hour period you reduce the temperature by one degree you will save 3 percent of your heating bill. Set it back five degrees and you will save 15 percent. That's likely to be more than $200. Be careful when setting the thermostat below 60 degrees to avoid pipes freezing on outlying colder walls of the house.

Learn more about programmable thermostats and other low-cost ways to save at Cooperative Extension's Save Energy Save Dollars workshops.

Last Updated: May 25, 2011