We didn’t think thermostats mattered either.
Until we learned they control about 50% of our energy bill.
As much as the refrigerator, lighting, TVs, computers, and stereos combined. In fact, 10% of all U.S. energy is controlled by thermostats. That’s the equivalent of 1.7 billion barrels of oil per year. But in most homes the thermostat is an unassuming beige box. It doesn’t matter if it’s a manual or complicated programmable thermostat,
we do with it what we’ve always done: get up, walk over to it, and change the temperature. Every few hours. Every day. 1,500 times a year.
We still try to save energy, of course. We turn down the thermostat when we can, we don’t set it too high or low. But we’re human. We forget. Until we see our energy bills.
Source: 2007 Buildings Energy Data Book, Table 4.2.1
Figures are from the ACEEE.
So how much energy are we wasting?
A lot, it turns out. The EPA says a properly programmed thermostat can cut 20% off your heating and cooling bill. But to program it right, we have to give the thermostat an exact schedule: lower the temperature at 8 AM, turn it up when we get home, lower it again when everyone’s in bed. The problem is, our lives don’t go according to schedule: we leave for the weekend, go out to dinner, stay up till 1 AM. Programming a
thermostat right is almost impossible.
According to one study, 90% of programmable thermostats are rarely or never programmed. The EPA even took away their Energy Star rating. So we started looking for an alternative.
