Has anyone ever seen a heat / AC thermost where you set the temperature you want for heat or cool, and the thermosts automatically switches between heat and cool depening oon outdoor temperature?
I have some elderly friends who are having a tough time....
I think the ultimate solution will be assisted living but they are fighting that.
temperature you want for heat or cool, and the thermosts automatically
switches between heat and cool depening oon outdoor temperature?
There is some commentary here about auto change over thermostats:
I've heard of it.
I don't blame therm. There is a service in many places where someone drops in every so often to see how things are going. Maybe every day, maybe less often. Maybe he cooks or brings one good meal a day. It's paid for or free, depending on where you are and how much money they have. It's a heck of a lot cheaper for all concerned than assisted living.
OTOH, assisted living provides 3 hot meals a day and the chance to meet people one's own age and some places have lectures, classes, courtesy bus to the shopping center. One had a wood-working shop, about as nice as the 7th grade woodshop. One of them had guaranteed admission when the time comes to the nursing home associated with it, in a city where it can be hard to get into a very good nursing home. But the big problem is, Where do keep your baby grand piano, your bicycle, your other bicycle, your floor jack, your ramps, your inflatable boat, your small floor jack, your three large cartons of receivng tubes, your carton of motors, carton of relays, carton of clocks, carton of AC connectors, box of adapters, pieces of dowel rod of every popular size,
12 cans of partly used spray paint, 15 kinds of glue, your 22 volume set of radio service manuals covering 1930 to 1944. (I forget their title but they're famous. They were the predecessor to Sams, whose daughter I went to high school with), your vcr, your spare vcr because you know most vcrs are ready to break, your spare spare vcr for when the second on one breaks. (speaking of brakes) your brake tools for redoing disk brakes, and drum brakes if you ever get the 69 Buick Riviera Convertble you've always wanted, your Victrola that your mother bought new in 1921, your Hallicrrafter shortwave that your cousin Lou bought new in 1944, your room heater that your mother bought new because you were born in January.And this just scratches the surface.
The thermostats they took out of my church last year did just that. Honeywell, and not sure what model. They can also choose from occupied or not occupied.
At church we wet occupied for 69-72 degrees F, and
64-79F for not occupied. They would heat or cool, as needed.Close match, found on web.
Honeywell RH7400 (I think that's the model): auto-switching is not the default (IIRC) but an option somewhere. We don't have ours set to autoswitch because there's a non-automated control in our system that has to be changed from Summer to Winter to enable the humidifier.
Perce
The Honeywell VisionPro will do that. It's an option on the install menu. You should check the manual for the particular model to make sure it includes it, not sure if they all do.
Personally, I wouldn't want it as it's likely it's going to use more energy. I don't want mine kicking on to cool if it's set to 74 and it happens to go to 77 during a spring day.
I actually like it when mine does that. It reminds me to change the filter and clean the compressor coils for the season. (I do change the settings between winter and summer, though. I lower the heat setting during the colling season and raise the cool setting in the heating season so the system doesn't often do both in the same day).
If anything, having it change by itself would seem to me to be less likely to remind you to do cleaning than if you change it from Heat to AC manually.
I lower the heat
But if the thermostat is making it's own call on when to switch there is no heating season, no cooling season. It switches on it's own. And if you do what you just said, with auto switchover, it gets worse. Let's say you have manual changeover. So, it's spring and you have it set to 77, AC mode, it's a mild day and it's 72 right now in the house. It won't go on. If you have it set for auto changeover, it will go on and fire up the furnace to get it to 77.
Properly programmed, it would not, but I don't know if such a device exists. It should be set that AC will not go on if the outside temperature is less than 80, heat will not go on if outdoor temp is above 68. Of course, you need an outdoor probe to do it right.
Then there is humidity control. Many years ago my father was the plant manager for a printing plant. A few days a year is would be very humid so they would run both the heat and AC at the same time. That 65 degree air at 100% humidity would raise hell with the paper.
Programmable 'stats do that. Like heat to 75 cool to 70 for am example. Set the mode to auto. Depending on room temp. it will either cool or heat. You can have digital or analog type.
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