Nest - overall costs - realistically - does it work well or not? Featured

Any decent thermostat can do that. The advantage of Nest is you can program changes for bed time, come home time, etc.

Getting the same temperature in each room is a matter of balance with the baseboard radiators. If one room is much warmer, just close down the baffle a bit.

Changing out the thermostat won't save any money. If the boiler is very old a new more efficient one may save money long term. When I switched it took about 7 years for full payback. The original was a 1978 model and I put in an Energy Kinetics System 2000 and cut oil use about 38%. At today's oil prices payback would be faster.

I went with these, mainly because they display the outdoor air temp as reported by the local airport.

Any decent programmable thermostat will have programmable periods and temperatures. The advantage of the Nest is that it figures out how to do the setbacks based on a motion sensor, manual changes that you make, etc. With a regular programmable one you have to enter the time periods and temperatures yourself. I've never had a Nest, I prefer to tell the thermostat what I want it to do. In the early days, Nest had a lot of problems, complaints about the things doing annoying things. I've used Honeywell Vision Pro models and like them a lot. Another feature to consider is wifi, so that you can make changes from your phone. If I was putting in a new one, I would definitely at least consider that. It's good if you are away, have the thermostat set back, but are coming home early or don't know when you are coming back, etc. So, when you are an hour away you can use your phone to tell the thermostat to resume normal temperature.

I think any decent-sized dog would love to snatch this thing out of the air and chew it to pieces. Pets can have very expensive tastes at times.

On Thu, 12 Jan 2023 10:48:04 -0500, Neil posted for all of us to digest...

Sorry, you have a boiler. Furnaces heat air, boilers heat water.

Nest thermostats do not get good reviews from professionals, they malfunction a lot more than regular ones. Do you have 3 wires to the thermostats? Nest needs a third common wire for power. Do you have AC?

For your use my crystal ball says buy pro model Honeywell (Resdio?) and be done. Do you want programmable? You can splurge and get Wifi programmable ones.

When you install them make certain the power is off to the boiler. It's only two wires but if the touch when installing you could blow the box in the cellar that controls them... Also don't lose the wires down the wall.