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steam heat- thermastat settings. keep constant?

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lynne_4
lynne_4 Member Posts: 1
in THE MAIN WALL
We have a steam heat system that is heating 2,000 sf. We have abnormally large heating bills and will be doing some of the steps you offer in your book. Eg. last year while renovating the space that this steam system heats we used 1150 therms of gas, this is keeping the system at 55° and turning it to 35° at night to avoid plaster freezing. The apartment that we live in using forced hot air used only 450 therms of gas, while staying rather comfortable all the time.

In addition to some of the other things to look at with the steam system, I was wondering if it is more efficient to leave the thermostat set to a certain temperature say 67° or to have is cycle the way you would a forced air system, up and down from night to day?
Thanks!

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  • Gary Segal
    Gary Segal Member Posts: 37
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    constant thermostat or not

    Lynne, I am not a contractor, so there are probably more qualified responses out there. In our house (with 2 pipe steam), we do use a setback thermostat and I believe it does help save fuel.
    However, to cut to the chase I think you could experiment (if your thermostat has a usage timer) running both ways.
    The losses that occur if you set back come from needing to heat up all the steam carrying pipes. Our house is reasonably well insulated, so even if we keep the thermostat steady, the boiler runs infrequently - we almost always start with cold pipes. So in our case keeping a steady high temperature would definitely consume more energy.
    Now, if you keep the thermostat steady and high, your house will be losing more heat through the walls. It takes more boiler cycles to make up for that heat loss.
    The next question would be how you warm the house back up. Bringing the temperature up in one big step may not be the most efficient way. We are trying an adaptive recovery thermostat set at one cycle per hour to slowly bring the temperature up without having the boiler running in short heat up shut down cycles due to pressure cycling. It is too early to see whether it will provide us further savings.

    Good luck,
    Gary
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