Energy Star eliminated programmable thermostats?

JohnNY · December 2011

In this article, the paragraph that starts, "Half of your home's energy...." states that Energy Star program has eliminated programmable thermostats as a category.

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/technology/personaltech/nest-learning-thermostat-sets-a-standard-david-pogue.html?_r=2">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/technology/personaltech/nest-learning-thermostat-sets-a-standard-david-pogue.html?_r=2</a>

When did that happen? Any press announcements on this?

Thanks,

JohnNY

Jean-David Beyer · December 2011

Setback useful?

I have a really neat programmable thermostat. It is a Honeywell CT3600. It is so programmable that I can set 4 different temperatures for each of 7 days. If I were a show-off, I could have 28 different temperatures a week! Not only that, I can enable "Smart Response" so it starts recovery from setback in advance of the desired time so that it has recoverd from setback at the time indicated. It also has a neat feature for vacations. I can make it run at a constant (presumably low) temperature for a given number of days (up to 255 days, I think) and then resume the regular program. It also will give the number of hours it was calling for heat today, yesterday, and the time since it was last reset. I reset mine September 1.

Now does thing actually save me any money? No. It controls my largest heating zone that is a radiant slab at grade. After frustrating myself with it for about a year, I have set it to run a constant 69F all the time. To summarize, you cannot run setback on such a system. If you change the temperature, it takes about 24 hours for the system to stabilize.

Furthermore, the Smart Response is not smart enough to turn on the heat more than about 90 minutes before the new temperature is needed, so if I want to increase the temperature from 65F to 69F at 6AM, it will not start until 4:30. Actually it would need to start no later than 10 PM, and that might not be soon enough.

I have another building that is unused most of the week, and it has no water pipes in one zone. So we set that back to 42F for 6 days and heat it to 65F on the seventh day. It has a White-Rodgers programmable thermostat. It takes about 8 hours to recover from that setback on cold days. Forced hot air system. That thermostat will not start recovery until about 90 minutes before either. So in the very cases where smart recovery might save the most, it does not work.

In my house I do have a zone heated by baseboard. I currently set it down from 69F to 65F at night. Because the outdoor reset is very close to the steady state load, it takes 2 to 4 hours to recover from the setback. I may reduce the amount of setback there, or give it up entirely. It does not look as though it saves much money.

KnaveP · December 2011

Misleading

The way words mislead. It was removed as a CATEGORY. I think it is now under Heating and Cooling with heating and cooling being the category. But programmable thermostats are not going off the energy STAR program anytime soon. What is amazing is the number of places that David Pogue's article shows up. Monkey see monkey doo doo kind of mentality.

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=TH

http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/Page-Sections/Residential/Energy-Efficient-and-ENERGY-STAR-Products/Power-Management/Programmable-Thermostats.aspx?sc_database=web

http://www.energysavers.gov/pdfs/energy_savers.pdf

The PDF has a December 2011 date.

Paul48 · December 2011

vacation

I need a 255 day vacation! Any seconds? LOL

KnaveP · December 2011

I agree with you

But you will need a NEST thermometer to cover those vacation days.

Energy Star eliminated programmable thermostats?

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