That article made me change my thermostat settings quite a bit. HVAC is the biggest component of my electric bill.
I was using about 15,000 kWh per year (averaged from 2013-2015). HVAC changes have gradually brought that down between 2016-2019. This year, it will be under 10,000 kWh. Best thing is that interior comfort levels have increased.
The major HVAC changes (from 2016-2018) were - finding and eliminating leaks in ducting, adding an in-duct blower for a duct long-run, and sealing window leaks, adding some attic insulation, and configuring the thermostat to favor longer runs. In 2019, I replaced my old R22 AC unit with a R410A 2-stage heat pump, mainly because R22 was getting really expensive.
Thanks for the article.
Our electric company sends out a reminder every month about how much energy we consume as compared to our neighbors. When I first started working on "the problem" we used more than 3 times as much as the average neighbor and something like 4 times more than the most efficient neighbor. (I have been actively hunting those most efficient ones and thought I got a good shot off the other day ).
About three years in, we are still slightly more than twice as "bad" as the average neighbor but we are getting there.
@waynespringer79 Would you mind sharing how you have RM set up for heating. I have just finished adding some temp sensors (much less than 38) but not sure how to do this other than turning heat on and off. I am somewhat concerned that if something went wrong with HE and the heat was off, I could end up with a cold house.
Thanks
I shared this concern, however so far it's been running solid now for over a month and hasn't messed up once. My "ventilation schedule" rule however sometimes gets out of whack. But that's not that big of an issue.
First I have a wood burning fireplace as my main source of heating and the propane hvac heater is more of my backup for when the fireplace is cooled overnight. Therefore I have a "Ventilation Schedule" that circulates my HVAC fan blower to help circulate heat from the fireplace and to filter the air. This only runs when outside temp is below 50 (which the temp must be below to have a fire going and not be to hot in the house)
Then I have the Thermostat Scheduler for operating the Propane Furnace and the Central A/C, based upon outside weather station temp, House Average Temp (changing is the trigger), and House Average Humidity (for A/C operations only at the moment)
Basicly, the House Average Temp reading is essentially "my thermostat", my actual Zen thermostat is basicly only a "switch" telling the heater/a-c/fan to turn on and off.
After thinking about the conern for a bit, I still have the Thermostat to actually be a thermostat if the hub fails. It just operates at much lower setpoints than what I would normally have it set for if I were using it traditionally, so that Rule Machine can control the operations.
So if the hub were to fail you would just revert back to the conventional way of operating your thermostat.
Many thanks Sir. This will help a lot as I develop my own system. Having relied on a Smart Thermostat for several years and an automatic setback thermostat for the 25 years prior to that, adopting a totally dumb thermostat is feels a little scary. So far it hasn't been as smooth as I would have liked but your RM example and pointers will make it much easier. Many thanks again.
I haven't done any direct programming of the Thermostat yet. I will do that to make sure I have a reasonable minimum and maximum for both heat and cool.
Was that ever answered definitively if Pearl supports the Auto mode? According to what I've read in other places, it does not. It still looks like the same model that they are selling now, two years later.
Really good info in this thread on the swing value impacts, as I'm also looking at choices between Centralite, GoControl, and Honeywell.
I would not recommend the Centralite pearl. When the temp gets too low, it reports a temp of like 200 degrees to the Hubitat, and it won't turn on. I put one in my garage and it was worthless, even after rma'ing it twice.
Imagine that you leave on vacation and your power goes out... Your furnace might not turn back on if the temp dropped too far. Centralite was completely unhelpful on this issue.
This is the one I use. There were some issues initially, but it has been rock-solid using the Zen Thermostat driver. It costs more, and you may be able to find it less expensive elsewhere. Some sites had it at an even higher price though.
I am wanting to replace my Ecobee 5 with a decent stat as I HATE the cloud integration!
What app do you use to control your Zen? I need similar functionality for home/away switching using geofencing, but want to get away from cloud control of the Ecobees.
Does the Zen display heat/cool/fan modes? How about time?
I know it is not a programmable stat and relies on the hub for total control, but wanted to know about mode indications.
What temp sensors do you use? What is their update rate? The reason I ask is if the update rate is long, there will be under/overshoot of the control.
I have an Ecobee 5 with 5 remote sensors doing the control, and with their long update rate I see fairly large temperature swings when my system is operating.
I am considering the Zen/Centralite/GoControl/Honeywell T6 as replacements.
I use zigbee Konke Temperature/Humidity sensors. The update frequency is decent - they report temperature very 10 minutes; however the event log only contains changed temperatures. Here are the event logs from two of my 12 sensors:
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