most efficient way to set thermostat?

we have a new burnham gas boiler and a programmable thermostat and our house is four floors plus basement. what’s the most efficent way to program the thermostat? is it better to have it at a constant temp or is it better to turn in down lower and turn it on manually when the house feels too cool? we have a child home during the day so turning it off during the day is not an option. thanks in advance!

slvillager

in Heating 13 years and 6 months ago

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biggles | 13 years and 6 months ago

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that working time is the biggest savings with a programmable,and with the baby you have to do a constant run from waking up to returning at 68F-70F..4 story maybe even higher to catch all the rooms.so that leaves you with the “sleep setting” 11PM while everybody is under the covers maybe 65F or even to 60F

bobjohn | 13 years and 6 months ago

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It pretty easy physics behind it: your house looses more hear when difference between inside and outside temperature is bigger. So it is more economical to let temperature to drop and them come back up. Let say you wake up at 7am and go to bed at 11PM. I would set thermostat for 70F from 6AM till 11PM and at 62F between 11PM and 6AM.

pigthree | 13 years and 6 months ago

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heat with wood 😉

Master Plvmber | 13 years and 6 months ago

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I hate this conversation, but i have to ask: Do you have steam or hot water heat?

stevecym | 13 years and 6 months ago

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Keep the house as cold as possible as you have a lot of space that you do not have to heat.  Put electric heaters in the rooms you use and turn those on only in that room whilst you are there.  For instance, when i am in my office and no one is in the house but me, I leave the thermo on 54 and turn on the an electric heater next to me to heat just this room.  When we have a house full of people, we turn the heat on to heat all of the rooms.  It is much cheaper to use electric heat to heat one or two rooms than to use oil or gas to heat the entire house. Now, on the weekends and evenings, we have the system set to kick up to about 66 at about 7 am and drop back a little about noon, figuring we will go out.  if we are still home, we manually bump it up as you suggest.  in the evenings, every evening, the system is set to go up about 68 at 4 PM and remain there until about 8 PM.  if we feel cold after 8, we manually push it. Steve

daveinbedstuy | 13 years and 6 months ago

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I guess it’s different when you’re home all day and especially when you have a child.  Normally one would program it lower during the day when you are at ork and have it warm up around 5:00 to 11:00 when you are home and then lower when you are asleep (I set it to 66 then) and then up again in the morning (6:00-8:00).  What you can do witht hem is just use the “High’ and “Low” buttons usually on the fron the ratchet it down when you leave for a few hours.   Unless you have a set schedule though, programming doesn’t help much.  At least you have gas which is less costly than oil.