Save Money and Sleep Better — Turn Down the Temperature in Your Home

This winter — and year round really — you can save energy in your South Texas home while sleeping better, too, and all it requires is proper operation of your programmable thermostat. Or absent a programmable model, you can save energy and money by getting into the habit of adjusting your old-school manual thermostat at regular intervals for optimum efficiency and comfort.

The basic idea behind effective use of thermostats is to make sure they’re turning the heat down when nobody’s home during the day (or whenever), and also at night during the winter when the household is sleeping.

Following is a sample programming schedule for saving energy in the winter:

Evening hours

The temperature should be set to your home’s regular comfort level while the household is likely at its liveliest with occupants engaged in regular evening activities. This typically is somewhere between 66 and 78, depending on the season and occupants’ preferences.

Nighttime hours

In the winter, the thermostat should be set several degrees lower than the comfort level, since people often prefer sleeping in a cooler room. They can pull blankets up around themselves to stay snug and warm.

Morning

Program the thermostat to return to a comfortable awake-time temperature a half hour before you intend to wake up. If your household clears out for work or school relatively quickly, you might consider skipping this step. It does take excess energy to heat up a home for only a short period of time.

Daytime hours (on work or school days)

This is when you can really save energy with our thermostat. Turn down the heat by as much as 12 degrees while everybody’s out of the house. In our mild winter climate in South Texas, this means your heating system probably won’t kick on all day, since outside temperatures usually don’t get very cold here during the day. Program the system to return to a comfortable temperature shortly before home occupants are expected to arrive home.

For more helpful advice on comfortable and energy-saving thermostat settings for your Coastal Bend home, please contact us at CCAC, Inc.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Corpus Christi, Texas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 361-678-2495.

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