Tips on setting thermostat to reduce heat bills on rehabs.

[Adam Craig]

Now that I have 6-10 Gas utility accounts at any given time from rehabs or vacancy, I am trying to be more economical with the heat settings this winter.

Turning the heat off is not an option on most because water in the pipes. Most of my knucklehead contractors always forget to turn it down at night so I am going to program the thermostat on each house. A couple questions about setting thermostats...

1. A regular programmable thermostat will do the trick right? No sense in spending big bucks on NEST or similar brands I assume?

2. Does it make sense to crank it way down at night - saw 40* ? I have heard in the past that it will require much more energy to catch back up during the day.

[Account Closed]

@Adam Craig

The laws of physics say that warming it from 50*-60* takes the exact same amount of energy as 40*-50*. It’s the delta that affects it (assuming the makeup of the material is consistent in both cases). Increasing the temp by 20* takes exactly 2x the energy (in this case, by burning a volume of gas) as increasing by 10*.

What you’ll find is that exterior temp matters significantly. The temp difference between inside and outside will put load on your heating system based off your R value thermal efficiency. Pay attention to things like light gaps around doors, the framing of the door itself (pop trim off and spray foam or similar) and all that jazz.

Good news is, if you turn it down to 40* at night in the fall say from 7pm-7am, it likely won’t even cool off that low so your furnace will get a 12hr break. But again, you’d require energy to run the delta to 60* if that was your daytime setting.

I spent a decade teaching advanced physics, this is kinda my jam.