How to conserve heat with the thermostat

[Merry]

Well, we have an older house with an old thermostat. It can be set either on auto or on which means the fan is left running constantly. My dh ran into an older guy at a hardware store who told him that it's more efficient to leave the fan on constantly than on auto as the heat would be evenly distributed throughout the house that way. More gas would be burned if the thermostat is always turning on or off depending on the temperature if it's left on auto. Is there any expert who can confirm this guy's advice?

[klmama]

I don't know about the gas usage, but running the fan constantly will increase electrical usage. Just something to think about as you consider your options.

[SonshineLearner]

Think wood stove:-) I hated the idea, but it warms your bones, and your house walls and floor. We can use about 2.5-3 cords of wood each year and not do any other heat. (And that's our old house with no proper insulation.

Carrie:-)

[Gwen in TX]

A programmable thermostat saves you money BIG TIME. You set it to go down at night (for sleeping). You pop it right before you walk out the door for a couple of hours to lower the temp 10 degrees while you are gone. You can set it to come back on for your arrival home.

 

We have ours set to go down about 1/2 hour before bed, to come back up a 1/2 hour before we get up to shower. We turn it down when we are leaving for church, or grocery shopping, etc, and set it to come back on when we know we are coming home. Saves huge amount of money.

[Ria]

Think wood stove:-) I hated the idea, but it warms your bones, and your house walls and floor. We can use about 2.5-3 cords of wood each year and not do any other heat. (And that's our old house with no proper insulation.

Carrie:-)

 

Or, here in PA, think coal stove! :) We turn our hot air heat on briefly in the morning just to take the worst of the chill off upstairs. The rest of the day and at night we strictly run the coal stove. It keeps the downstairs quite warm.

 

Ria

[LaxMom]

I think it would depend on your ductwork. Running fans does equalize the heat in the house, so the rooms would be more uniformly warm... but, if you're running a heat-pump fan, you're recirculating the air, sucking it through the returns, through the heat pump and blowing it back through the vents. So, if the duct work from your returns run through an unheated crawlspace, you would be cooling the air on its way back to the heat pump. While the heating mechanism is running, that's fine, but if only the fan is on, it would be constantly cooling off the house.

 

There are probably more efficient ways of distributing and conserving heat - ceiling fans on the winter setting, little doorway-corner fans that blow heat around, closing vents (and doors!) in unused rooms... Though I am a big fan of hte programable thermostat! (And they are REALLY easy to install.)

[gardening momma]

My dh ran into an older guy at a hardware store who told him that it's more efficient to leave the fan on constantly than on auto as the heat would be evenly distributed throughout the house that way. More gas would be burned if the thermostat is always turning on or off depending on the temperature if it's left on auto. Is there any expert who can confirm this guy's advice?

That is exactly what we were told when we had a new furnace and thermostat installed last winter.

[gardening momma]

A programmable thermostat saves you money BIG TIME. You set it to go down at night (for sleeping). You pop it right before you walk out the door for a couple of hours to lower the temp 10 degrees while you are gone. You can set it to come back on for your arrival home.

Ours is programmable, but the issue here isn't the temperature it's set at, it's whether or not to have the fan on or set at auto. We have our temperature set lower in the evenings, and we can set it lower for particular days when we know we're always out of the house for a few hours (like Sunday mornings for church). But our fan is always on.

[E_Edgerton]

We live in an old house too. We like it pretty brisk. But, what we did this year was purchase an EdenPure electric heater. We put it in the main living area. We keep the thermostat set at about 58-60 degrees, but run the EdenPure almost constantly. It keeps the house cozy, the gas bill low, and in the first month it paid for half of itself in the savings in our gas bill. Our electric bill only barely increased, I am talking a couple of dollars. So, I really recommend it. It is not hot to the touch, its safe, and very efficient. So, I can't really answer your question about auto vs. on, but getting something to supplement or in our case almost replace your gas heater, I recommend the EdenPure.:)

[Merry]

I'll leave the fan on. It has been on and it does feel more comfortable here with the even temperature and I'll check into a new programmable thermostat. Thanks!