Smart thermostats can help you both save money on your energy bills and reduce your carbon footprint. They’re programmable, and they learn as they go. That means that they will become accustomed to your temperature patterns as you switch back and forth from different temperature settings. If there are any issues make sure to contact an air condition team or HVAC professional.
How it Works
Let’s say that you leave for work around 7 a.m. each day and return at roughly 5 p.m. Further, let’s say that you prefer your home to be at 70 F when you are there. To save money and energy, you might program your thermostat to make it 70 F when you get up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready. Then, you can set it to go down to 60 F from 7 a.m. until about 4:30 p.m. You can then program it to go up to 70 F again so that it’s at that temperature when you get home. To save while you sleep, you can set it lower and use blankets to stay warm during the night. That alone will produce substantial savings over the lifetime of your smart thermostat. It works in reverse when it’s hot during the summer.
As far as learning your patterns goes, let’s say that you need it a little cooler in the house on a few days a month. So, you set it to 68 F on three or four days. Your smart thermostat will learn those switches and begin to adjust its programming accordingly. Of course, you can always override the programming or the adjustments manually.
Solar-Powered HVAC Systems
To lower your carbon footprint further, you can rely on the sun to power your HVAC. Many of these HVAC systems are hybrids, which means that they can connect to your traditional power for heating and cooling at night or when the sky is overcast. Other such systems have only solar power as an option. Solar-only options work best in temperate climates because temperature extremes can overtax them.
Rather than a ducted system, most solar-powered HVAC units are ductless mini-splits. These don’t use as much power as central air conditioning or traditional furnaces. They also work best in small homes that don’t need as many rooms temperature controlled at once. Generally, solar panels produce from 250 to 400 watts of power per hour. Most ductless mini-splits run at about 500-750 watts per hour. That means that you need roughly two solar panels per mini-split. A big house could need as many as 20 solar panels just to run the climate control, and that’s the amount necessary in a temperate climate.
Zoning
Using ductless mini-splits is a great way to heat and/or cool your home. As an example, let’s say that you have a small home with a kitchen, two bedrooms, a living room, a den, and a bathroom. If you consider each room its own zone, then you can have us install a mini-split in each room. Each mini-split will come with its own thermostat, so you can control the temperature in all of your rooms separately. With that kind of flexibility, you can make it comfortable in the living room, kitchen, den, and bathroom during the day and in the bedrooms at night. If each of the thermostats is programmable, you can have them turn off and on at the times you want and truly save both energy and money.