Hello, this is Dale – Champion Home Services’s social media manager. I did something the other day that a lot of people probably do without even thinking about. I left for the weekend (knowing temperatures were going to be around freezing at night and in the 40s or 50s during the day) and turned off my heater. So when I got home a few days later, it was 51 degrees inside. My heater then had to run essentially non-stop for an hour and 15 minutes to get my place back up to a comfortable temperature. After my experience, I want to tell you how you can prepare your thermostat while you’re not home.
Most experts, including Champion Home Services’s engineer, advise against turning off your heater or air conditioning system when you leave – even if it’s just for your day at work. Unless it’s beautiful outside and “open window weather”, it’s better to leave the heat or AC on and turn the thermostat down or up depending on the season. In my situation, I would have been better off turning the thermostat down to 63 degrees (or somewhere in that vicinity). That way my heater would turn on every great once in a while and keep the chill out of the air – meaning I would have been more comfortable when I walked in the door. Also, it’s much better from an efficiency standpoint to have the heater run a few minutes every hour or so than for it to run for more than an hour straight to get rid of the cold air.
In the summer, this is even more important because you have to factor in humidity. Turning off your AC when you leave for work or when you leave for a couple of days means your home or apartment will warm up and also trap humid air inside. Turning the thermostat up to 82 or 83 while you’re gone will help control that.
After reading all that, it’s easy to see why more and more people are turning to programmable thermostats for their San Antonio air conditioning and heating systems. Programmable thermostats do the work for you. They turn the thermostat up when you leave during the summer and turn it down when you leave during the winter. They’ll also have the home comfortable for you when you get back.
Here’s a video with more information on programmable thermostats.
