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Air conditioning is an important aspect of modern life. It keeps us comfortable, productive and safe throughout the hot and humid months. Cooling also consumes significant electricity and can be one of your biggest summer expenses. Your thermostat is essential to achieving a balance between comfort and affordable costs. Let’s explore how you should clean, calibrate, set and regulate it for optimal cooling.
Schedule a Seasonal Tune-Up
You should set up a cooling tune-up in spring before you ever need to turn on your air conditioner. There are many excellent reasons to do this, and your thermostat is one of them. During a tune-up, our technician will clean the thermostat, check the temperature reading and calibrate as needed.
Clean the Thermostat
Dust and other particles can build up under the faceplate over time and affect the temperature reading. Remove the faceplate. If the buildup is substantial, you can use compressed air. Often, a soft brush is enough to remove the dust. Clean the contact points and, if applicable, any coils.
Verify the Temperature
After reassembling the thermostat, it’s time to verify the temperature reading. To do this, you’ll need at least one thermometer. Either a digital or glass thermometer will be fine. You can also use multiple thermometers for additional data points. Set the thermometer as close to your thermostat as possible. Leave it alone for at least 20 minutes. After the time has passed, compare the readings. If the difference is 3 degrees or fewer, the thermostat is reading within acceptable parameters.
Calibrate the Thermostat
How you calibrate your thermostat will depend on the type you have. If you have a manual thermostat, it will have either an adjustment screw or a lever under the faceplate. To raise the temperature reading, turn the screw clockwise or move the lever up. To lower the temperature setting, turn the screw counterclockwise or move the lever down. In either case, do this in small increments. Wait each time, and then come back and check. You can continue doing this until you’ve reached an acceptable difference.
Most digital thermostats have a calibration mode. Check the owner’s manual for how to enter it. The display will then provide you an up and down arrow or something similar in order to adjust temperature. For units that lack a calibration mode, you can perform a factory reset instead. If the temperature difference is still too big after the reset, you’ll likely need to replace the thermostat.
Manual, Programmable and Smart Thermostats
A consistent temperature setting throughout the day and night generally won’t achieve optimal cooling. A manual thermostat will let you increase and decrease the setting as needed. That said, manual units are prone to inefficiencies and human error. The Department of Energy (DOE) encourages all households to invest in a programmable thermostat. It will let you set a schedule through which it adjusts automatically. That can avoid cooling you don’t need and significantly reduce your daily electricity costs.
A smart thermostat is a programmable thermostat with Wi-Fi capabilities. That allows you to monitor and control the unit remotely, and it can push alerts and other notifications to you. Modern smart thermostats often have numerous additional advanced features. Many support energy monitoring and reporting. Others also support “feels like” temperature settings. This lets you set your ideal temperature within the context of relative humidity (RH) rather than what it is technically.
Your Optimal Summertime Temperature
The optimal summer temperature while you’re home and awake is 78 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the DOE. It has found this setting to achieve the best balance between safe comfort and energy efficiency. Many people will find that setting a bit too toasty to their liking. The key is to find the highest setting that makes you comfortable.
If you don’t have pets, you can increase the temperature safely to as high as 85 degrees while you’re away. You should raise the temperature while you’re sleeping as well. Use ceiling and other fans to help you stay comfortable. Have your programmable or smart thermostat raised to as high as 82 degrees an hour after your bedtime. You can have the system set to return to normal an hour before you wake.
The DOE estimates that a 7-10-degree difference for at least eight hours will lower your annual cooling costs up to 10%. Most households can save even more than that. They can do this for at least six hours during the day and at least four hours at night. The more you can do it, the more you can save.
Take Advantage of Profiles
Many programmable and smart thermostats offer profiles. These allow you to have a range of schedules. Some households will need a weekday and a weekend schedule. Others will need a different profile for every day of the week. Many units also support a vacation mode. This lets you easily override the other profiles and keep your home at 85 degrees or whatever you’ve set until you return. Hold is another way you can override the profiles and put the thermostat in either a home or an away mode.
Enable Geofencing
Geofencing is a feature through which a smart thermostat can override profiles automatically based on GPS. It takes some setup. You need to turn it on, and everyone in the household will need to pair their phone with the thermostat. The effort is well worth it. On the days you leave or return early, the system will adapt with no additional input from you.
Enable Smart Setback
Setback is the adjustment of temperature based on whether you’re home or away, awake or asleep. It takes more energy to return to a temperature than it does to maintain it. For this reason, many smart thermostats have smart setback. This feature allows the thermostat to monitor energy consumption during these periods and to adjust automatically in order to minimize it.
Other Considerations
Where in your home you install your thermostat can make a big difference. Ideally, it should be centrally located, and you should avoid exterior walls, hallways and direct sunlight. Otherwise, the temperature reading will never be as accurate as you’d like, and the cooling will be less than optimal. One option is to move the thermostat to a better location. Another is to upgrade your thermostat to a system that supports multiple wireless temperature sensors. This approach makes the location of the primary unit unimportant.
Do You Need Your Thermostat Calibrated?
If you need your thermostat calibrated, cleaned or upgraded, Atticman Heating and Air Conditioning, Insulation is here to help. Our HVAC company provides these services in Sacramento and throughout the nearby areas. Our technicians also install, maintain and repair furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioners and ductless mini-splits. We install, replace and repair ductwork. Our company performs home energy audits and specializes in insulation, whole-house fans and tank and tankless water heaters. You should also check out our Cool Club, which can save you money while keeping your HVAC equipment serviced on schedule. Book your appointment online, or call us with questions about the services and products we offer.
