We get a lot of calls from home owners who have stars in their eyes for solar arrays, geo thermal heat/cooling, or other fancy expensive “green” gadgets.
Here is a device that costs around $100 or less that can save you thousands of dollars in energy bills. Better yet, you can buy one at the home center and even install this yourself.
These are programable thermostats. A programable thermostat allows you to program various temperature settings into it, so you only use the fuel you need to be comfortable when you need it.
The thermostat on the left handles whole house/zone heating and cooling. You can see, its set for 57 degrees. Thats our “away” setting for the house. This thermostat, combined with some new insulation and the low settings when we were sleeping or away from home saved us well over 20% in heating costs last winter.
The thermostat on the right is for the electric radiant heat in our foyer area. This can be an efficient way to heat a room but it has to be planned for before renovation.
Call us if you need a hand.