Thermostat Settings to Maximize Energy Savings

It seems like the costs of energy are always on the rise, so it’s important to look for opportunities to reduce energy consumption in your home in smart ways to cut costs while still maintaining the comfort level you want. This is particularly relevant to home heating and cooling, as furnaces and air conditioners can be two of the most energy-hungry appliances in a typical home. Tweaking your thermostat settings and optimizing its programming can really help to keep your energy bills low & maintain comfort in your living spaces.

There are all kinds of simple ways to cut back on the energy usage in your home and save money on monthly bills. Changing out all the lightbulbs in your house to use high-efficiency CFL or LED bulbs can really reduce electricity consumption, as can installing home appliances with excellent Energy Star ratings. Capturing water in rain barrels and using this as a water source for plants and gardens can bring your total water bill down, too. However, perhaps one of the most effective ways to keep energy bills down is to take advantage of the controls available in your home thermostat.

Your home furnace plays a critical role in making your home comfortable, and ensuring that it’s operating according to the most efficient and practical schedule will help your home stay that way at the lowest cost. The same goes for your air conditioner unit. During those hot and humid days of the summer, a central AC unit is the best way to make your living spaces much more comfortable. However, it’s easy to get carried away with the temperature settings and end up with a home that might be cooler than it needs to be in the summer and warmer than it needs to be in the winter.

Recommended Temperature Settings for Winter & Summer

This can be a contentious issue for some people who are adamant that their personal temperature preference is the ‘best’ choice. We’re not here to tell anyone that they are right or wrong in that regard, we’re simply going to talk about Energy Star’s statistically optimum temperature ranges for the average home that balance comfort with energy consumption. At the end of the day, whether you prefer things a degree or two warmer or cooler than these benchmarks, the rest of our tips on programming your thermostat will still provide energy cost savings for you.

According to Energy Star, for the summer months the ideal temperature range for homes is between 21°-25°c (70°-78°F). Depending on the area of the country you live in, you may experience higher levels of humidity than other locations. This can significantly affect the comfort level in your home, as the same temperature can ‘feel’ very different when the humidity increases or decreases. People who live in areas with higher humidity may want to stick to the lower end of this temperature range, whereas very dry locations can often get away with temperatures that are a little warmer and still feel very comfortable.

In the winter, Energy Star recommends keeping your target temperature around 20°-21°c (68°-70°F). It’s easy enough to grab a sweater if you’re feeling a little bit chilly, and this temperature target works really well to provide a comfortable home in the winter without running the furnace constantly and churning through energy and natural gas. Humidity can also have an impact in the wintertime, so making use of a humidifier during the dry winter months can increase the comfort in your living spaces.

If you’re aiming to reduce your energy costs even more, Energy Star suggests that a summer temperature target of 25°c (78°F) will significantly cut back on the energy consumption of your air conditioner. Similarly, a winter temperature target range of 15°-20°c (60°-68°F) reduces the energy consumption of your home furnace in a big way. Some estimates state that lowering the temperature in the wintertime by just a single degree can cut down on furnace energy usage by as much as 5%.

Now, even with these general benchmarks, you’re still going to want to have the temperature in your home change for a variety of reasons. Let’s explore these reasons and discuss how you can set your thermostat programming accordingly.

Scheduling Tips for Home Heating & Cooling Thermostat Programs

Programmable thermostats offer plenty of control to dial the temperature in your home up or down throughout the day depending on who is home and what level of comfort is required. Ideally, a thermostat program automatically adjusts the temperature down as the day progresses and the outside environment gets warmer, and dials it back up when it gets cooler. However, most people can save more money on energy bills by using a more strategic weekly plan for their thermostat programming.

For Work & School Days – Working parents and kids in school are gone for most of the day, so it’s wise to have your thermostat programming set to run the furnace/AC unit less frequently when there’s no one home. Simply set the thermostat to a few degrees warmer in the summer/cooler in the winter starting about 30-60 minutes before everyone leaves the house for the day for better energy conservation. Then, set it back to your preferred temperature about 30-60 minutes before people start arriving back home. Week after week, month after month, these hours of reduced HVAC activity can really add up to a significant savings, with no noticeable impact on home comfort.

For Comfortable Sleeping – At nighttime, our bodies are naturally more comfortable if the ambient temperature is a bit cooler while we’re trying to sleep. You can save energy and be more comfortable at night by having the thermostat turn down a couple of degrees about an hour before bedtime, and then go back to normal at your usual wake-up time. During the hottest days of the summer, you may want to have the AC unit set to keep the house a bit cooler than you’d normally have it during the day. While this means you may use a little more energy on those particular days, it can be well worth it to have good quality sleep when the weather is the most hot and humid.

For Infants & Young Children – While most adults are fairly adaptable to minor temperature changes, infants and some small children are far less tolerant. To help mitigate this until the child grows and becomes more comfortable with different temperature ranges, you might want to keep the target temperature range a bit narrower. For example, instead of keeping things between 21°-25°c (70°-78°F) in the summer, you will probably want to tighten that range up to 20°-23°c (68°-74°F) for optimum comfort for infants.

For Pets & Houseplants – Although pets like cats and dogs are usually just fine with the same temperature ranges as people, there are some pets that are far less adaptable to warmer or colder temperatures. Aquarium fish, for example, can be very sensitive to temperatures if they are not kept in a climate-controlled tank. These types of considerations are something you would need to research carefully to avoid potential problems with temperature-sensitive pets like aquarium fish, reptiles, or insects. Also, some houseplants can dry out much faster if the average temperature is even a few degrees warmer. In most cases, this simply means you have to water them a bit more, but it’s certainly something you should be aware of if you have some houseplants that aren’t quite as robust as others.

For Vacations & Away-from-Home Periods – Much like how you can save on energy during the work day/school day when no one is home, you should make adjustments to your thermostat settings when you go on vacation as well. There’s no need to stick to the regular home heating and cooling schedule when you’re not even there! In cases like these, simply set the thermostat to remain a little warmer in the summer and a little cooler in the winter. In moderate seasons like the spring and the fall, you may even be able to shut your HVAC system off entirely while you’re gone. Just be sure not to do this in the extremes of summer or winter, as there may be problems that could arise if the house gets too warm or too cold. For example, during extreme cold snaps it’s not unheard of for interior water pipes to freeze, which can result in major damage to the property if a pipe breaks.

Optimize Your Thermostat for Maximum Energy Savings

With simple tips like this, you can tweak your thermostat with smart programming that will save you on energy bills all year long. After all, why spend more than you have to when you can take those hard-earned dollars and spend them on something a lot more fun! We hope that you’ve found this article helpful, and have already started thinking about how you can update your thermostat program for better home comfort and lower energy costs. Thanks for stopping by, and please check out our other home comfort and furnace filter articles and resources for more great advice!