We recently moved into a home with a natural gas fired furnace, air conditioning and a 'White Rogers' thermostat. The temperature displayed on the thermostat is off about 8 degrees Fahrenheit. I have some basic skills but not *really* handy. Is there some adjustment that is necessary to the thermostat that I would probably be able to perform?
Thanks in advance.
Manual thermostats can often be 'tweaked' by rotating the entire thermostat a slight amount (a few degrees). If electronic, Go to this site and see if you can locate a 'Owners Manual' ?
Even better, go to this link, click on your Tstat and get operating instructions:
It's a mechanical type. I will take the cover off tomorrow in the daylight and try to get the model number. The unit is probably decades old. Do you think the manual would actually have troubleshooting tips such as when the temperature is off by 8 degrees?
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Mechanical thermostat? Don't bother fixing it. Get a programmable electronic one & save big money.
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Hi, If I were you, I'd replace that old 'stat with programmabl digital one and for get about it once programmed to your needs. Honeywell Vision Pro series is very good 'stats.
Someone once told me that in his opinion, there was a point of negative return. For example, in the winter, if you turn down the temperature *too* low at night, the cost of warming the house to the daytime temperature would exceed the savings that you obtained at night.
Comments?
If no LCD readout and buttons, it's mechanical. When you remove the cover, check how the base is screwed to the wall. Likely a screw at the top and a screw at the bottom and the screw at the bottom may go thru an 'oblong' hole rather than round. If so, loosen the top and bottom screws slightly and rotate the base slightly in one direction. If that improves the accuracy, good. If it makes it worse, rotate the base in the opposite direction. Does that improve accuracy?
What this is all about is that mech Tstats are supposed to be installed perfectly level and if not, accuracy can be off for some mechanical Tstats.
Hi, That is not so. All the testing done shows 5 to 15% energy savings. Many digital 'stats have some intelligence. It does not work in linear mode.
Most electronic ones keep the house temperature much more stable than an old mechanical one so even if you don't want to program it it is worth switching.
Follow the instructions when changing it out. Specifically mark the wires with labels indicating what they were attached to on the old thermostat so you can hook them up to the new one.
Someone once told me that in his opinion, there was a point of negative return. For example, in the winter, if you turn down the temperature *too* low at night, the cost of warming the house to the daytime temperature would exceed the savings that you obtained at night.
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what makes you think it is the WR thermostat that is wrong?
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Hi, Just to be sure turn the power off to the furnace when working on 'ststs.
WRONG!
Its always better to turn heat down, sincve the builkdings lower temp loses heat slower.
before i was married the home lived most of its time at 50 degrees to save gas since i was rarely home.
Agree: Not sure where that theory or perhaps 'myth' comes from? That is the idea that because house has been cooler for the past eight to ten hours over night it somehow takes MORE heat to bring it back up to your day time temperature!
There are a lot of variables of courses but while people seem to accept that if they go away for several weeks (in say the winter) and turn down the thermostat real low the furnace will use less oil/gas while they are away. Sure enough the house will be really cool, even chilly when they return and turn up to the 'normal' setting but once it has warmed back up, once, they will be back to their normal daily heating cycle and consumption will be based on outside temperatures, wind heat loss and how well the structure is insulated.
In fact it could be argued that the furnace operating in the morning to bring house back up to day temp. will be operating more efficiently that in a constant cutting in and out mode?
Maybe the thought is based on the old fashioned idea of allowing the stove to be damped down, or even allowed to go out during the night and then getting up in the morning, stoking it and opening up the draft to get a 'roaring' fire to heat the house up again?
I have a White Rogers and there is an adjustment that allows you to compensate for a difference between the display and the set temperature readouts. I believe that the max adjustment is about 3 or 4 degrees. Have you used an accurate thermometer to determine the actual temperature at the thermostat location? New batteries? MLD
We recently moved into a home with a natural gas fired furnace, air
To be honest, I never knew that mechanical thermostats could have batteries. As I said in original post, we recently moved into this post. One day last week, the stat read about 72 degrees and I was *really* uncomfortable. I placed two digit thermomoters (separately) on top of the stat and they each displayed about 80-81 degress.
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It is the opinion of one of my brother-in-laws.
If we take an 'extreme' example of comparing during a cold winter:
Will the actual cost of energy be less with #2? Wear and tear on the furnace,etc would be a separate issue.
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