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Tony[_19_] Tony[_19_] is offline
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Default Turn thermostat down or leave steady?

RickH wrote:
On Oct 29, 11:20 am, IGot2P wrote:
RickH wrote:
On Oct 29, 7:29 am, Frank wrote:
On Oct 29, 8:22 am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
Please forgive me while I troll for a moment.....
Is it energy saving to turn the thermostat down, when
leaving the house? I mean, the furnace has to run to catch
up when I get home. I have a way of looking at the matter.
I'll explain my point of view after the argument is
underway.
--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
Yes, you save energy turning it down. In balance less heat is lost.
No, it takes too long to re-heat the boiler and all the water in the
pipes, radiators, and floor tubing. It is always best to set it once
and leave it there all winter. Too much energy is lost when all that
water is asked to re-heat all the surfaces again. For example when I
feel the return manifold from the coils under my concrete slab after
the slab was allowed to cool, the return water is ice cold, all that
energy to reheat the slab. No, bad asvice, best to keep it warm and
leave it there, saves tons of energy.

I hope that you were just kidding because obviously you are wrong! Just
think for a minute.....if you were going to be gone for three months
don't you think you would save energy if you turned your thermostat
down? Well, the same would be true for a few hours, just not to the same
extent.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Yes, if I turned it down and left it there for a week or longer maybe.

But downturning for any period under a couple days and all the mass
you've spent heating once, now you have to re-heat over again. (my
system has several thousand feet of water tubing under both house
floor and garage slab zoned).

It might be different if you have forced air heat, but for water heat
(via radiators or radiant tube) every installer tells you "set it once
and forget it, the idea is to store heat".


I believe in your situation it will still save energy. The reason they
tell you to "set it and forget it" is for comfort. Due to the large
mass of your system it will have a much slower recovery time, but that
does not mean it will take more energy, it's just slower. Or you could
turn it down hours before leaving and have it turn on hours before
arriving home again. That should help with the comfort.