On Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 12:27:21 PM UTC-4, J.Albert wrote:
On 4/7/18 12:56 AM, mike wrote:
What is it that makes a stable temperature undesirable?

I want the furnace to run only once every few hours.
I'm willing to put up with the temperature swings as a
result of doing so. I realize that may be different from
what most others might want or expect.
But that's what _I_ want.

That still doesn't explain *why* you want it.



That's what I'm doing now.
I turn the thermostat "way up" before bed, let things get
just a little "overly warm".
Then I turn the thermostate "way down" so that the furnace
won't run at all overnight.

Most people do that with a programmable thermostat that automatically
sets it back at a time you set at night and resumes it again at a
time you set for the morning.



Of course, it's on the chilly side in the morning, so I
repeat the process.

If you choose the resume time an hour or so before you get up,
then it's warm. Also, many new Honeywell and many similar thermostats
have adaptive recovery where you just set it for a desired temp
of 70F at 7AM and the thermostat figures out from experience what
time to fire up the heat so that it will be 70F at 7AM.





A good "warm up" in the morning seems to last all the way
into the evening at this time of year.

I'd like to set those "wide swing points" on the thermostat
itself.
But if I can't, I'll just set them manually (I'm retired and
home most of the time).

You might find some thermostat that allows a 6F range between swing
points, but I tend to doubt it, for obvious reasons. And you won't
find it with one that uses cycles, like the HW one that you have,
because they don't have a range that can be set at all. What kind
of thermostat did you have before that allowed this kind of operation?
Where did it go? I've never seen one that could work the way you
describe.