Nick Pine wrote:
RP wrote:

Russell Coleman wrote:


I have a heat pump with aux heat for which I bought a programmable
thermostat. The RTH7400D to be exact

What is the recommendation on setting the temp difference between wake and
sleep times so that I am not going to make the system work to hard and not
get the energy savings that I bought the prog. thermostat for in the first
place?


Switch off the strip heaters if any and turn off the heat at night and
set the thermostat timer ahead to make the house comfy when you get up.


The programmable-stat isn't going to magically save you any money vs a
non-programmable stat.


There's no magic: reducing the indoor-outdoor temp diff at night makes
less heat flow. That's Newton's (1642-1727) Law of Cooling.


IOW, you may find yourself frequently overriding the schedule on your
programmable stat,


Or opening all the house windows in wintertime.


...defeating its true purpose, which BTW isn't what you claimed it was above.


How can he be wrong about his true purpose? :-)


...that I bought the prog. thermostat for in the first place?


... unless you aren't home, then the only way that you are going to save
money with *any* stat is to live uncomfortably in your own house.


Nonsense. He can be perfectly comfy sleeping under a quilt in a 40 F bedroom.

Nick

From that angle one could simply turn the unit off, t-stat no longer a
factor

hvacrmedic