swolpow’s Recent Comments

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  Would also like some hard data

  Thanks everyone for trying to answer this question.  I think I agree with jwebb and would also like some more data.  I've checked out some of the sites folks have mentioned and they all address the issue of turning back the heat a moderate amount for long periods of time - which everyone seems to agree is better, and for which there seems to be corroborating data.  The question still remains whether it's proven to be better to turn back the heat drastically and/or for short periods of time.  The fact that the house loses heat faster when the inside-outside temp difference is greater makes sense to me.  So, that would be a point in favor of setting the temp back any time.  But I'd still love to see some more actual numbers.  Maybe there aren't any!  I don't know much about heaters - I some type of oil-fired forced hot water system.  It cycles on and off when reheating the house (on for maybe 3 min, off for maybe 10 min).  On very very cold windy days it can take 6-7 hours to reheat the house if it's at 50 in the morning.  Although I usually don't find the cold very troublesome, it would be nice to know that it's resulting in significant savings. On Umbra on turning down the heat posted 12 months ago 21 Responses

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  Still confused

  Dear Umbra, Thanks for the clarification on my question.  The only problem is perhaps my question wasn't clear enough!  Folks seem to know that setting the temp down somewhat overnight is good.  But it seems to me that you CAN set it down so much that you negate any savings.  If I understand you correctly, the only savings occur when the temp has stabilized at a lower than usual value.  There are no overall savings during the dropping period because these are wiped out by the reheating period.  

  For example, let's say my house is 68 and I leave for two hours.  Let's say the house loses one degree every half hour.  So, if I set it to 60, it will fall to 64 and then rise to 68 again when I come home and turn it up.  It will never reach (and stabilize at) 60. This, if I'm understanding correctly, results in NO savings and NO loss: 4 degree drop, 4 degree rise.  And, it would be more comfortable to just leave it at 68 rather than having to wait for the house to warm up again from 64.  On the other hand if I set it to 67 when I leave it will take 1/2 hour to drop to 67, then it will save a bit (the difference between heating to 67 and heating to 68) for an hour and a half .  So, in the first case I save nothing and in the second case I save a little bit and I'm warmer.  Is that right?  

  If so, then it matters how low you set the temp.  You need to make sure that it will stabilize at some lower temperature for some length of time, otherwise there is no net savings.  

  Same question when I turn the heat down to 50 at night.  In the shoulder seasons it's often only 54 or 56 in the morning - in other words it's still in the dropping phase and has not stabilized.  This suggests that I would have saved more setting it to 60, which it would have actually reached at some point during the night.

  Someone please clarify!!! This has been bugging me for years.
  Thanks,
  Sarah   On Umbra on turning down the heat posted 12 months ago 21 Responses