Talk to me about thermostats

[Pinoikoi]

So our house is 1 year old. It has the traditional type thermostats in it with the little nob at the bottom that you push right or left. Our old house had a digital thermostat so I could push the button up to 72 (or whatever) and it would keep the house at that temp unless I was leaving and set it back down again.

My bff has a "programmable" thermostat that she says she can program it so it heats up the house right before she is set to arrive and it turns the heat back down when she leaves for work.

So how much do these kinds of things cost? Could I install one myself or would I have to hire an electrician to install them? I think the more "exact" nature of a digital deal would help me lower costs in the house, but I am not sure at what point it saves me money.. Who sells these things? We have Ace hardware, Lowe's, and Home Depot here. Or would it come from an electronics store? I really have no idea.

Also, our house has three thermostats. One in the garage (pretty much kept as low as it can go), one downstairs (kitchen/living room area), and upstairs (bedrooms, bathrooms). In case that matters.

[Dar]

You could get one at any of the three stores you mentioned. They start at around $25, IIRC. If you're somewhat handy you could install it yourself - you have to disconnect and reconnect a couple of wires and possibly drill a couple of holes.

[sunnysandiegan]

I saw a nice one recently at Costco for less than $30.

We replaced ours in about 20 minutes. It only took that long because our house is so old that any time you do one home improvement project, it leads to at least two more. In this case, fixing wires and touch-up paint were required.

ETA: I wouldn't bother replacing the garage thermostat since you just leave it as low as possible. I would replace both of the others at the same time or, if money is tight, then replace the one you find yourself manually changing the most often first.

[Ola_]

Yup, any hardware store will have them. Sounds like each of those three areas have their own heating circuit, and I agree to replace the ones where you change the temperature most often first. DH did ours, the instructions tell you which wire is which, and even have little stickers to put on the wires so you don't mix them up (at least ours had that). The only thing we had to power off was the main furnace switch in the basement.

The options for programmable thermostat are basically to have
- 5-2 settings (one setting for Mon-Fri, and a second setting for Sat-Sun)
- 5-1-1 settings (one setting for Mon-Fri, a second setting for Sat, and a third for Sun)
- 7 day settings (7 different settings, one for each day Mon-Sun)

We got the 5-2 because our routine on weekdays/weekends is fairly similar each day. On days when it's different (we stay home from work or something) we just manually use the +/- arrows to change the temp. Ours has 4 points set for each day: for the temp you want in the morning, when you leave the house for the day, when you come home in the afternoon/evening, and when you go to bed. Each of those has a time and a temperature, so for example ours starts to heat in the morning 15 min before our alarm goes off - I love that feature!

Ours also has a "hold" button which is basically to keep it at a set temperature until you un-hold it. Useful for going on vacation and stuff when you don't want to have to re-program all the settings.

[JamieCatheryn]

Check to see if your energy company has any special offers for programmable thermostats. Our energy company had a deal going where they give you one and install it so long as if they need to they can use it to remotely shut off your AC for a little while on summer afternoons when demand is too high. Though I'm not sure if they ever actually do that, I haven't noticed.