A thermostat is one of those things in your home that you put upon the wall, program according to your routine, and forget about – except for on the occasion when you feel the need to adjust the temperature. It quietly keeps doing its job requiring minimum attention until you notice something wrong. That is in the scenario when your thermostat has stopped working or is overheating or not heating properly.
However, other than these times when the problem is quite noticeable, your thermostat may still not be functioning efficiently, resulting in greater energy consumption and increased spendings on energy bills. You may not even notice it, and your thermostat might be slow-burning a hole in your pocket.
These days, programmable smart wireless thermostats are pretty efficient at doing their job. However, you should still pay a lot of attention but pay a little bit of attention to your thermostat and HVAC to avoid long-term inefficiency and expenditure on energy.
Heating makes up the greatest expenditure in most households. Therefore efficiency is an essential factor that you should pay attention to with regards to your thermostat. It is, after all, the best way to ensure both faster heating and money saved on energy bills, two things that you would prefer. So let's talk about efficiency and how you can ascertain whether your thermostat is working efficiently. For this, you need to look out for –
Low energy bills over time
A less efficient heating system will have to work harder to create heat, resulting in more energy consumption and higher bills. If your thermostat is working inefficiently, it will generally cost you more. You might want to keep an eye on your energy bills to know.
If your thermostat is giving you no increase in energy bills and you can notice a consistent pattern, you can take that as a sign that your thermostat is working efficiently. However, your energy bills will have some ups and downs from month to month as energy consumption usually varies. But if the overall trends show no increase in your energy consumption, you're good. A comparison with your past bills can also help. They can tell you how much it should cost to heat the spaces. If your bills are in a similar range, then it should be fine. However, note if you've upgraded from an old HVAC system or technology, your current wireless thermostat should be cheaper than that.
A good AFUE rating
Every furnace comes with an AFUE percentage or Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency rating from the manufacturer. You'd find this printed on the furnace along with the product detail information. It's a rating for thermal efficiency for heaters and boilers, a ratio of useful energy output to energy input expressed in percentage. Hence, it tells you how much heat is successfully used to heat spaces. For instance, a 90% rating means the furnace outputs 90% of useful heating to the energy input (the rest may be wasted heat).
A higher AFUE percentage means higher efficiency. So if your furnace has a 90% or above AFUE, it is highly efficient. If you have a 70-80% rating, you can upgrade to the latest technology and smart wireless thermostat systems that are more energy-efficient in heating and saving you costs.
Age of your thermostat
Every machinery experiences wear and tear as it is used and becomes less efficient over time. So if your thermostat is a couple of years old, it could be less efficient at its job. It would help if you considered upgrading to a new one to save an inefficient thermostat's raised long-term energy expenditure.
There are also a couple of tests you can do to check if your thermostat is functioning efficiently, like changing the temperature to see if your thermostat starts up and checking the temperature with a thermometer to match it with the display. If your thermostat doesn't start up or there's a difference in reading, something may be wrong with it that shall require repair. Besides this, if you notice any problem signs with your thermostat, you should get it checked by a repair person right away.
If your system is not functioning efficiently due to one of the reasons mentioned above, you should consider switching to a new thermostat. An old thermostat that may have undergone considerable wear and tear can significantly reduce the efficiency of your home heating, and it may be time to invest in a new one.
Tado° Wireless Thermostats are the latest technology of smart thermostats that are programmable and energy-saving – approved by the Energy Saving Trust, that you can add to your existing heating system and give it an efficiency boost. Apart from being environment-friendly and compatible with any system, it can help make your home a smart home by giving you greater control over heating and cooling systems.
Learn more about the Tado° Wireless Thermostat and make your home an energy-efficient home.
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