Easiest way to save energy, and by extension money is to adjust the thermostat. This saves in heat costs during the winter months and cooling costs in the summer. Most importantly this method requires zero initial investment, and tracking the subsequent savings is incredibly simple, assuming you can use excel or a spreadsheet program. I'll cover a simple analysis method in a subsequent post, and put the base excel sheet I use for tracking my usage, and improvement projects up here for anyone to use. But here I wanted to talk about the thermostat controls.
Most thermostats used in houses today have programming options, various cycles, remote sense options(beneficial) and even Internet/smart home ready. Personally I dislike most of the features, because it removes the person from the loop, normally a good thing, but not for energy savings and optimization. Now a more advanced user will get a lot out of the remote sense and Internet/smart home systems, but a novice will run into more problems than it is truly worth due to the higher costs of secondary sensors, systems and programming. I'm even anti-programming because again it removes the person from the energy loop, and thus mitigates a critical feedback loop.
Why is that feedback loop important? Because it forces you to make a conscious decision every day to adjust the temperature as you see fit. This puts energy usage on your mind, do you really need to keep your house at 65 during the day so you can wear jeans indoors while the temperature outside is over 90? Is it really that hard to wear socks in the winter? Or even use blankets, yes if you are a millionaire(or billionaire) it doesn't but for the average homeowner these little decisions will pay dividends by reducing your costs. By putting the thermostat control into your mind, you are paying attention to what you are doing, taking responsibility in what happens, and not just having a system take care of it for you, which is more important than just about anything when it comes to putting your own house on an energy program/budget.
more to come, most importantly how to do a quick analysis in a few days....
Most thermostats used in houses today have programming options, various cycles, remote sense options(beneficial) and even Internet/smart home ready. Personally I dislike most of the features, because it removes the person from the loop, normally a good thing, but not for energy savings and optimization. Now a more advanced user will get a lot out of the remote sense and Internet/smart home systems, but a novice will run into more problems than it is truly worth due to the higher costs of secondary sensors, systems and programming. I'm even anti-programming because again it removes the person from the energy loop, and thus mitigates a critical feedback loop.
Why is that feedback loop important? Because it forces you to make a conscious decision every day to adjust the temperature as you see fit. This puts energy usage on your mind, do you really need to keep your house at 65 during the day so you can wear jeans indoors while the temperature outside is over 90? Is it really that hard to wear socks in the winter? Or even use blankets, yes if you are a millionaire(or billionaire) it doesn't but for the average homeowner these little decisions will pay dividends by reducing your costs. By putting the thermostat control into your mind, you are paying attention to what you are doing, taking responsibility in what happens, and not just having a system take care of it for you, which is more important than just about anything when it comes to putting your own house on an energy program/budget.
more to come, most importantly how to do a quick analysis in a few days....
