Home Improvement Thread

[DCFan]

i have had a nest 3rd gen thermostat in 2 homes now.

Aren't you the bon vivant! 

[DCFan]

Have no idea if it saves money but does seem to learn your habits.

It's google. Those bastards are better spies than the CIA.

[UMDNats]

The auto-home/away is really nice and if your schedule is not consistent it's even better. I imagine that's the biggest way it saves money; people can program their thermostat to match their schedule fairly easy (thought it's a pain - Nest is easier to program manually too), but if anything changes, it's a hassle to alter on the go. So if you're home all day today, but tomorrow you're gone from 9-12 and 3-4, it auto-shuts off those 4 hours rather than sitting on a 9-5 schedule.

Honestly as a retiree investing in a Google Home Mini (like $20 tops) is worth doing so you can tell the thermostat to change to certain temps as desired. I imagine not everyone likes to use their phone for everything so just being able to speak it into existence is nice. I don't use the voice commands for the temp often (don't need to) but having voice commands is nice in a pinch.

[1995hoo]

....

- learns your habits and where you like it. after a month in my new house it knows i keep it cold at night so auto-sets to 67 degrees, re-sets to 70 by 8 am roughly

....

  Cold? If our thermostat were set at 67° at night, I'd find it unbearably hot and I'd be unable to sleep. Ours goes to 58° from 10 PM to 7:30 the following morning on weekdays (until 8:30 on weekends, and I adjust it manually for holidays). To be clear, the temperature in the house doesn't drop all the way to 58°, but by setting it that low, it ensures the system won't be blowing hot air on all but the very coldest nights. The hot air blowing is what wakes me up. I like sleeping in a colder room under nice warm covers.

Our thermostat is a Carrier smart thermostat, BTW. We don't use the app to adjust it as often as I might have expected when we got it. I expected I'd use that when we travel so I could adjust it when we're on our way home, but it has a "Vacation" mode where you set the start and end dates and times and what you want it to do while you're gone; it then resumes the regular schedule at the designated end time. So that eliminates some of the need to use the app. Not all, though—for example, in June 2019 when my father was dying we came home from Toronto two days early, so when we stopped for dinner in Bedford, Pennsylvania, I used the app to turn on the AC at home so it would be comfortable for sleeping when we got home. The other thing ours does is that it sends me an e-mail if someone adjusts the thermostat. This used to be really useful because until they updated the software, if you adjusted it manually it would hold the newly-set temperature for four hours and then go back to the program unless you specified a different setting. Back then neither my wife nor I were normally home on weekdays, so I had the heat set to 60° during the day (AC set to 78°) because why heat or cool the house if nobody was home? So my wife would be home for some reason and adjust the heat and forget to change the duration and then she'd complain about being cold, so I quickly learned that when the thermostat sent me an e-mail, I should check the app to see what she did and then adjust the setting so she wouldn't complain!

[UMDNats]

Are you a white walker? 58 is so cold.

Our master bedroom is upstairs and the heat/AC really doesn't fill the room at all so we rely on a space heater to keep it warm mostly. I would guess it ends up around 65 most winter nights and downstairs is 67 or so. 58 (and letting it get to 62-63) would be brutal for me when I get up to feed the dogs breakfast.

[DCFan]

68/76 here.   

[1995hoo]

Overall I think this is how ours is set:

Heat: 69° during the day and the evening, 58° overnight, 60° if nobody is home (rare since I worked from home even prior to the pandemic)
AC: 76° during the day, 74° in the evening, 73° overnight, 78° if nobody is home

In both cases, "if nobody is home" means for longer than just a few hours. I typically don't override if we both go to the grocery store or similar, for instance, because it's not long enough to make a difference, but if, say, we were to go to the golf course, or we were to go out to visit our favorite winery, I'll adjust it so as not to waste money heating or cooling the house when nobody's home.

[DCFan]

Duke is in the process here of going neighborhood by neighborhood and replacing the electric meter with what they call a smart meter. The old one they'd need someone to drive the streets. The meters could then be read while they were in the car. The new meters can be read back in their office. (goodbye meter readers).  They will be able to tell when there's an outage and give the consumer access via an app to get daily readouts on usage and compare your usage to others in the hood.

[Five Banners]

Duke is in the process here of going neighborhood by neighborhood and replacing the electric meter with what they call a smart meter. The old one they'd need someone to drive the streets. The meters could then be read while they were in the car. The new meters can be read back in their office. (goodbye meter readers).  They will be able to tell when there's an outage and give the consumer access via an app to get daily readouts on usage and compare your usage to others in the hood.

https://abc11.com/duke-energy-smart-meters-carolina/4383939/

[imref]

Duke is in the process here of going neighborhood by neighborhood and replacing the electric meter with what they call a smart meter. The old one they'd need someone to drive the streets. The meters could then be read while they were in the car. The new meters can be read back in their office. (goodbye meter readers).  They will be able to tell when there's an outage and give the consumer access via an app to get daily readouts on usage and compare your usage to others in the hood.

Years ago I did some work with a utility that was converting its customer base over to smart meters.  It was a mess.  They discovered very quickly that it was much easier to remotely shut off service to those who couldn't pay. Before the smart meters, a shut-off required a truck-roll. So once they started the mass turnoffs, their call center quickly became overwhelmed.  Our job was to help them quickly expand capacity.  The regulatory authorities quickly imposed turnoff limits.

[DCFan]

https://abc11.com/duke-energy-smart-meters-carolina/4383939/

The radiation concern is a big topic of discussion here on nextdoor. Some are refusing installation because they read where some people are claiming that their bills went up after the install.  But once they find out that their installation refusal will cost them $170 and then $14.99 a month thereafter (unless you can get a medical waiver from a doctor) they're quickly calling Duke to get the installer back. 

[HalfSmokes]

the big downside to nest is that they aren't compatible with newer multi stage systems. They'll work, but nowhere near as well as a comparable thermostat.

[DCFan]

the big downside to nest is that they aren't compatible with newer multi stage systems. They'll work, but nowhere near as well as a comparable thermostat.

Their blurb in Amazon says it's compatible with 85% of the systems out there.

[Natsinpwc]

the big downside to nest is that they aren't compatible with newer multi stage systems. They'll work, but nowhere near as well as a comparable thermostat.

Also they have chips installed in them by the deep state to control your thoughts.

[UMDNats]

You can check your compatibility with Nest really easily:

https://store.google.com/us/widget/compatibility/thermostat?hl=en-US&GoogleNest

[tomterp]

68/76 here.   

I hear old folks have poor circulation and need warmer temps.

We are 61/68.  Like hoo we have the Carrier Infinity system.  However, this doesn't anticipate temperature needs, rather it strives for a target at the preset time.  So for example, I have the Sleep cycle (61) starting at 8:30, so at that point the temperature begins to drift down from 68.   Thinking about starting the drop sooner, it's a trial and error.

One nuisance, I has the ability to sense motion and if it finds none, it assumes you are "Away" and holds at that temperature.  I had to turn that off because I was coming down at the crack of 9:30 to find the house 61 still and no hear on until I walked past the unit.

[DCFan]

I hear old folks have poor circulation and need warmer temps.

We are 61/68.  Like hoo we have the Carrier Infinity system.  However, this doesn't anticipate temperature needs, rather it strives for a target at the preset time.  So for example, I have the Sleep cycle (61) starting at 8:30, so at that point the temperature begins to drift down from 68.   Thinking about starting the drop sooner, it's a trial and error.

One nuisance, I has the ability to sense motion and if it finds none, it assumes you are "Away" and holds at that temperature.  I had to turn that off because I was coming down at the crack of 9:30 to find the house 61 still and no hear on until I walked past the unit.

I realized afterwards that I wasn't clear enough with my initial post.  I keep it at 68 in the winter and 76 in the summer without any changes for day or night. And we're not thermostat fiddlers saying, it's too cold let's bump it up or it's too hot let's bump it down all day long. The only changes we do are when traveling and then we'll raise or lower it to account for no one being in the house.

[HalfSmokes]

I realized afterwards that I wasn't clear enough with my initial post.  I keep it at 68 in the winter and 76 in the summer without any changes for day or night. And we're not thermostat fiddlers saying, it's too cold let's bump it up or it's too hot let's bump it down all day long. The only changes we do are when traveling and then we'll raise or lower it to account for no one being in the house.

A nest would be a royal pain in the ass for you. even if you set it, it sometimes will try to be 'smart'

[DCFan]

A nest would be a royal pain in the ass for you. even if you set it, it sometimes will try to be 'smart'

I was wondering what all those optional sensors you can place all around the house would be like. But I do like the wifi aspect where you can adjust it while away and that it will sense when no one is there and adjust the temp by itself.  While the Duke email only mentioned the Nest when you go to the Duke Store website where they have all kinds of energy saving gizmos for sale they offer other thermostats besides the Nest. Ecobee, Emerson, and other Nests. Lots to think about.

[HalfSmokes]

The sensors just let you decide to heat to the basement's temperature as opposed to the upstairs

[tomterp]

I realized afterwards that I wasn't clear enough with my initial post.  I keep it at 68 in the winter and 76 in the summer without any changes for day or night. And we're not thermostat fiddlers saying, it's too cold let's bump it up or it's too hot let's bump it down all day long. The only changes we do are when traveling and then we'll raise or lower it to account for no one being in the house.

Pretty close to what we did before we started screwing around with the new programmable one (our old one died).  We had 67/77 steady state for heat/AC

[1995hoo]

I hear old folks have poor circulation and need warmer temps.

We are 61/68.  Like hoo we have the Carrier Infinity system.  However, this doesn't anticipate temperature needs, rather it strives for a target at the preset time.  So for example, I have the Sleep cycle (61) starting at 8:30, so at that point the temperature begins to drift down from 68.   Thinking about starting the drop sooner, it's a trial and error.

One nuisance, I has the ability to sense motion and if it finds none, it assumes you are "Away" and holds at that temperature.  I had to turn that off because I was coming down at the crack of 9:30 to find the house 61 still and no hear on until I walked past the unit.

Ours doesn't have the motion sensor function.

I had a programmable thermostat installed within the first week of my moving to this house 19 years ago. The previous homeowner didn't have one and I thought it was frustrating not to have one when nobody was home most of the day. The unit I had then was a lot less sophisticated than the current Carrier Infinity one. Now that I telecommute, it's probably less essential than it was back then, but I would never change back to a non-programmable one. In particular, I like having it adjust the temperature to reach it by a designated time—I can't imagine keeping the overnight temperature for sleeping at the same level as the daytime temperature.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

funny.  my system is really old (electric).  The old coil couldn't really keep up with the winter.  Eventually replaced the coil and the fan over a few winters.  I keep the heat pretty much at 68 until we get a hard cold snap, then I'll reset to 66.  Condo rules pretty much prohibit anything colder.  A/C I'll run at 78 (again probably about as high as the condo rules allow), but will let it drift into the low 80s if I know it'll be cooler at night (say, September) and just flip off the A/C.   OTOH, my brother in NH keeps his place 65 during the day and 61 at night in the heat, and has no A/C.

[DCFan]

We just invested in an expensive water filtration/RO system from Kinetico.  You always take for granted that the USA has clean drinking water coming out of the tap and when you live in a place that doesn't have that.... 

[DCFan]

We just invested in an expensive water filtration/RO system from Kinetico.  You always take for granted that the USA has clean drinking water coming out of the tap and when you live in a place that doesn't have that.... 

https://wtop.com/business-finance/2021/01/dupont-chemours-reach-agreement-over-forever-chemicals/

This is what the issue is in Wilmington. A Dupont/Chemours plant up the Cape Fear River in Fayettevile has been spewing this crap into the river and ground resulting in tainted water for us.