"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:22:30 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:



The point is that what you're talking about is insignificant in most
homes.
That's what the DOE statement is all about: cycling of the heat mass
overwhelms the effect of the insulation, until the temperature is reduced
and stabilized for a while. Otherwise, all you're doing is cycling the
heat
retention of the thermal mass, with relatively much less actual savings as
the temperature drops in the house.

Furnaces cycle anyway, and often at about the same cyclic rate almost
independent of temperature or heat load. To meet higher heat load
(higher indoor temp or lower outdoor temp) they just have a higher
percentage of "on" time each cycle. Even the venerable Honeywell
"round" (T-87), which has been around for over 50 years, did and does
a surprisingly good job of this by virtue of it's anticipator --
which almost nobody outside of their engineering org really completely
understood.


Whether or not the savings on the energy bill is noticable is another
question depending on how much the setback was for how long.

I wonder how much the DOE spent on a study to address what would be an
easy test question in thermodynamics 101.

Probably enough to know that you learned your thermodynamics with a
calculator and a vacuum jar, rather than a house. g

They'd be wrong about that too. During my 33 years with Honeywell I
worked with engineers and scientists worldwide,including those from
their homes and buildings divisions.

I was invited by DOE just last week to serve as a technical reviewer
for buildings programs. (I'm not going to do it.) I was also on the
Technical Advisory Board for DOE's Brookhaven National Labs back in
the late 90's.

I've seen those studies for years, Don, starting with a book I read in the
'70s, titled something like _Low-cost, Energy-efficient Shelter_. What the
DOE says is widely known.

It is indeed, and it's known in the technical community to be wrong.

I've lost track of what you're saying is "right" or "wrong." It's a fact
that your savings are much lower than many would expect when you simply let
the temperature drop to some particular temperature and then start heating
the house up again, as you would if you turned the furnace off when you left
in the morning and then turned it back on when you got home.

It's another fact that the savings become significant when the lowest inside
temperature prevails for most of the cycle time, whether it's because the
house has reached outside temperature or because you simply set the
thermostat down to some temperature above outside temperature.

Physics was my best subject, too, Don. I'm aware of the physics involved.
There even was a time when I could do the equations without batting an eye.
Now, I let my thumbs rule. d8-) The question concerns whether the saving is
enough to make it worthwhile, not whether you can calculate the exponential
decay and the integrated temperature differential and show some numerical
value for the savings. Again, it's much less than most people expect.

--
Ed Huntress