As a dad who has 50% custody of his two kids -- one week on, one week off -- I find myself wishing someone made a programmable thermostat that could preheat the house at 5:30 am during the weekday mornings I get up early so I can drive the kids to school; yet was polite enough to preheat an hour later on the weeks I don't have the kids. I get to sleep in longer those weeks. Every thermostat I've looked at so far has a
7-day program. I asked the kid at Home Depot about it and he went to ask the manager and I've not seen him since.
There is probably a programmable thermostat out there with a two week setting. I don't know where to find it either. Otherwise check out
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"You can use any touch-tone telephone to control the Honeywell Telephone Access Module." You could simply set up your computer to automatically place a call to your thermostat once per week. There might also be a computer-controlled system. Try X-10.com and other home automation sites.
I wonder if you might try using two thermostats wired with a toggle switch to choose one or the other. In week 1 you would use Thermostat 1 and in week
I'm suppost to know this and it is late and I can't think too good here but i think your missing something here on the 5-1-1 , 5-2 , and the 7 day thermostats.
the 5-1-1 type will let you pick the temperatures of the week days as a hold to set the temp. on and off at any time. Then you can pick the 2 says of the week end and have different temps at different time.
The 5-2 the same story but you have to have the same temps for each of the 2 weekend days as set points.
The 7 day is suppose to let you pick what temp.s you want on and off any day in the week or week end. you can turn it off on monday or set it different and on friday set a different temp and times off and on. You can pick out any day and do different things totally with each day. I can't think of anything you can't do with a true 7 day thermostat.
Now Honeywell make a fair thermostat that can do just about everything you want and more. It's a TH832U1006 Touch Screen Universal and is at this page
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{2EB2F178-20ED-44EO-97FB-CCFB4218DD64}#ProductSpecification this one will do nicely for you can set the temp any where you want it or time and also set the Humitity or % RH of your home.
Now let me tell you a little secret here. Home Depot Don't sell the good stuff for the manufactor will not sell to them for the public to send it back for warranty when the burn it up or just can't figure out how to install it. Your going to have to buy it throught a hvac service company or maybe a friend who works at a hvac supply house. Lows and Home Depot just don't sell the good stuff. Also a true 7 day or a 5-1-1 or a 5-2 should do what you want if it is the good stuff and not a over stock item the manufactor has on hand and can't sell enougfh of them.
WEEK 1 Program: M-F heat house by 6 am. Weekend, do nothing. WEEK 2 Program: M-F heat house by 7:30 am. Weekend, do nothing. Then alternate Week 1 and Week 2 programs.
I could take a 5/2 or 7-day thermo and change the programming every weekend, I reckon, but was hoping for a 5/2/5/2 or 14-day programmable.
Thanks for the tip Lowe's/HD re finding the good thermostats. I've always figured that neither of these big box retail giants sell the best brands or models of anything.
On 12/11/2004 12:41 PM US(ET), Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott took fingers to keys, and typed the following:
They do sell the best brands of many things, it's just that the 'associates' are not familiar with the products. Unless there is a thermostat that can handle both weeks, perhaps with a memory chip that can be accessed to change from one weekly schedule to another, your best bet would be as someone else suggested, two thermostats side by side and connected to each other in parallel. One for one week and the other for the next week. Just turn off the one you don't want for that particular week.
You might be able to look at 'commercial' thermostats and find one that can program 30 days (calendar type). If you do find one, it'll be expensive. I've seen calendar timers [electronic] that can program events, but they're either on or off. Not temperature setback.
Heat the house for an hour and a half extra in the morning? Easy for /you/ to say! I am a light sleeper and easily woken up in the morning -- something I wish didn't happen. I envy folks who can slumber on and on in the morning, undisturbed by helicopters and cannon fire. Unlike me - the sound of the furnace firing up wakes me, AND a house warm enough for wandering around in, wearing pajamas is too warm (to me) for sleeping.
Ok! I did not see a problem as our family's schedule changes daily, but the stat stays the same in regards to the program. Your best bet maybe to wire in two thermostats, and enable/disable them with a switch. Greg
You could also switch your thermostat into and out of daylight savings time every week. The DST button shifts the whole schedule by an hour. Of course, then it will show the wrong time half of the time, and you will have to reset the clock rather than use the DST button when the DST shift really comes. This still isn't automatic, but might get you closer to what you want. Not a very good solution, but I think you'll have a hard time finding a 2 week thermostat.
In alt.home.repair on Fri, 10 Dec 2004 17:41:52 -0800 "Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" posted:
Buy a second thermostat and a double throw multi?-pole switch so you can switch from one to the other easily.
Don't disconnect the positive or ground when you do the switching, so that the clock will stay accurate (and it won't run down the back-up battery, iiuc).
Maybe you only have to switch one or two wires, the one(s) that actually tell the furnace and AC when to turn on and off.
I have a different but related question. Twenty years ago, when I first looked for a setback thermostat, I think I found one with a NEXT button. But now I can't find one. Does anyone know a make and model like what I want:
That would solve everything for me. I'd set it for one good temp for when I was sleeping or away, and one good temp for when I was home and awake. If I came home earlier than normal, I'd push NEXT and it would go to the "next" temperature in the cycle. It would go early, and it would stay there until the end time of the next stage. (The end of the current stage (when I got home) would have no effect because when I pressed NEXT, I moved it to the Next stage. If I went to bed early or got up early, I'd do the same thing. It wouldn't affect the timing for the rest of the day, I wouldn't have to adjust temperatures one degree at a time, and I wouldn't have to remember what to do when.
Meirman
If emailing, please let me know whether or not you are posting the same letter. Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.
In alt.home.repair on Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:59:30 -0800 "Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" posted:
I agree with you. You wouldn't have asked the question in the first place if you were satisfied with one set of times.
But I still want to comment on this. One of the reasons we are the mercy of OPEC and other oil producing countries is that most of us these days are willing to heat the house to where it is comfortable just wearing pajamas. Why in the movies from the 50's and before, and maybe after, do the characters put their robe on as soon as they get up. It's not just modesty, especially when they are the only one who is living there. It's because it was normal to wear a robe to keep warm.
It was normal, in the winter, for people, when they weren't wearing pajamas and robes, to wear sweaters in their homes over their shirts.
That way the thermostat could easily be kept at 68, and even lower.
And it's not just the oil crisis and the way this dominates our foreigh policy (in the USA). It's that so many people, not necessarily you or anyone here, talk about how hard it is to make ends meet these days when many of them are spending much more money on things people lived without 50, 40, 30, and even 20 years ago.
There are more broadcast TV stations than ever but I met someone a couple weeks ago who hasn't been able to pay all her bills but is still paying 75 dollars a month for cable. That's 900 dollars a year. And my friend tells me most people pay a lot more. Etc. Blah, blah, blah.
Meirman
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In alt.home.repair on Sat, 11 Dec 2004 15:41:14 -0800 "Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" posted:
You guys could get the whole world on dodecatuple daylight savings time, and then they'd all be sleeping in the day time. We could just walk into stores and take anything we need.
Meirman
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After listening to Gary , Zepher, Grego, and others here about the two thermostat set up. I used a Robert Shaw electronic 365 day clock timer that will turn one thing off and turn on another one on. then vise versa. You can program it for the whole year and even made changes during holiday time and then go back to setting of the switching system. You could use this clock to switch between the 2 programiable thermostats like the 5/2 or 7 day type and set each thermostat for that weeks activity. Now your looking at about $300.00+ for the clock and two thermostats. I think the clocks run about $150+ .
There is something wrong here for I'm thinking of the feed back through the other dead thermostat when it tring to close connection for it to run with the
24 volt voltage also. The 24 volts will try to back up through the off themostat unless he could turn it off when the other one was the master.
Take a look at the home automation stuff, like X10 variants and the like. I think the timing controllers are more flexible than the typical 'stat, and I'll bet they make a control module that replaces the 'stat. Might be too expensive for you, but worth a look.
With using two stats, depending on the stat you may get by switching the red only. If that fails a mutiple pole double pole switch would not be hard to find. Typical home stat you would only need to switch the Y, G, and W wires. Heat pump is probably out of the question! Two stats would probably be the simple cheap way to go, depending on his system. If money is no object, well then that is another story! Endless options in controls, at least untill the money runs out! Greg
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