Low Tech Thermostat

[Tom Bender]

Our house has gas heat and runs about $600/year so no big savings are available by reducing gas consumption a few percent.

Wife and I keep different hours and have different comfort levels so,,,,,we have declared a truce in the thermostat war and settled on a single setting all year.

The t-stat died last week so I replaced it with a basic nonprogrammable Heat/Cool unit. It has no LCD display and no batteries, just a lever to be moved left and right and Heat/Cool and Fan On/Auto switches. $22

[Ron Citerone]

I love you man! After 7 months os high tech hvac problems my son in laws contractor put in an old school thermostat. Problem solved. That was my suggestion when they first had the recurring issues, but what the heck does an old geezer father know.

[Jim Becker]

I've never used a setback on a thermostat in many decades...working from home meant that the house was always occupied, so a steady 74ºF in the summer and 68ºF in the winter is what it was set to and never changed.

[Doug Garson]

Sounds like an overly complicated thermostat:confused: heat and cool? :eek: We have simple thermostats that just show temperature and set point, no LCD display, just need to remember to wind it up once a week. :p

[John K Jordan]

...
The t-stat died last week so I replaced it with a basic nonprogrammable Heat/Cool unit. It has no LCD display and no batteries, just a lever to be moved left and right and Heat/Cool and Fan On/Auto switches. $22

Anyone looking for an old mechanical thermostat might be able to get one (or more) from an HVAC company. The guy that put in my heat pumps had a box of old thermostats, working, but removed when people wanted new electronic ones. He said due to the mercury inside by law he has to pay a service to remove the mercury and dispose of them. He was glad to give me some. (I've made occasional use of the mercury switches.)

JKJ

[Curt Harms]

When we first moved into this house in 1995, it had a mercury thermostat. We used it for a winter or two then replaced it with an electronic model. Temperature regulation seemed much more even with the electronic version. We didn't get one of the all-singing all-dancing models, just a basic electronic thermostat.

[Lee DeRaud]

When we first moved into this house in 1995, it had a mercury thermostat. We used it for a winter or two then replaced it with an electronic model. Temperature regulation seemed much more even with the electronic version. We didn't get one of the all-singing all-dancing models, just a basic electronic thermostat.Yup, and it's not like they're expensive: took me about 30-seconds to find one below that $22 threshold.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-Week-Programmable-Thermostat-with-Digital-Display-RTH221B/203539508

[Lisa Starr]

We've had great luck with the Honeywell Round T-stats. In our case, heat only, 1 per zone. The LED lets you set the temperature precisely (68 on the 1st floor, 66 on the second) and forget it. They just work.

[Frank Pratt]

A good electronic thermostat is so much better than the mechanical ones. No over or under shoot and if I set my temp to change to 20* at 6:00, then it's exactly 20* at 6:00. We have ours programmed for 15* at night, 20* at 5:30 so I don't have to get up & shower in a cold house, then back to 18 because my wife is home all day & likes it cool. 18* is to low for me to be comfortable, so at 4:00 it goes up to 20* until bed time. The program function isn't just about saving energy, which it does, but about comfort. I'd not want to go back to a basic thermostat.

[Jim Koepke]

Our thermostat has a ribbon coil inside that expands in warm weather and contracts in cold weather. It makes contact with the slider with the arrow on it to point at the temp gauge on the face of the control.

Other than that we use a wood stove for the cheap heat.

jtk

[Steve Wurster]

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, apparently.

I first had a programmable thermostat back in probably 2004. That one would "learn" how quickly your house heated or cooled, and adjust the time it actually turned on based on that information. If I set the A/C to be 76 degrees at 4:00 PM, then it would turn on sometime before that; as a result, the temperature in the house was already 76 when I got home from work at 4:00 PM. I want to say that one also had a vacation mode option, but I don't remember. I moved out of that house in 2005 and into my now-wife's townhouse, and she had one of those Honeywell Rounds. Sure, it worked, but lack of smart options made me a little sad.

When we moved into our current house in 2007 it came with two programmable thermostats (we have 2 zones / units), but they were just okay. Their vacation option was just a "hold" button, and they did not have any learning options. They were also a pain to program. I replaced them about 4 years ago.

I now run with true "smart" thermostats that, yes, are connected to the Internet. I can see and adjust the temperature from anywhere using my phone. Setting up a vacation mode is very easy. They came with little sensors that you can place in another room to get the reading in that room, and you can optionally use that reading and the one from the thermostat itself to have it determine when to turn the heat or A/C on. They remind me when to change the filters. Their screen shows the inside and outside temperatures at a glance, along with the time. They do have learning capabilities, but we found they actually perform better with that off (i.e. we just set the next time/temperature combo to be a little bit earlier than truly needed, and that seems to work best for our comforts). I can look back in history and see when they turned on and off, along with what the inside and outside temperatures were over that course of time. And so on. I'm never going back to regular-style thermostats.

[Kev Williams]

We do 3 settings, asleep, wake up, and awake:

7am to 8am, 73°
8am to 2am, 69°
2am to 7am, 62°

for YEARS now...

[Bill Dufour]

When we bought or current house it came with. smart internet thermostat that had programed times already set. We could turn it off/on manually and raise lower the set point but no way to override the schedule or change it at all until we got wifi working after a month or so of moving. I do like it now. turn the ac to 85 when we go out and turn it to 79 10 minutes before we get home.
Bill D

[Tom Bender]

The old programmable stat had an LCD display that was hard to read and the buttons had tiny (get your readers on) labels. There was twice a year time resetting and it lost it's memory a couple times a year, requiring a long and fussy reprogramming. Not going back to that.

I can't imagine resetting the temp when i'm not at home. Suppose I got it wrong.

[Jim Becker]

The thermostat here in our new place appears to have a lot of bells and whistles, including WiFi access, but I haven't taken the time to look into the details. It's set at one temp summer and one temp winter, so there isn't much incentive to set it up for device access to-date. :) It does have a large, easy to read display, however, not like the tiny ones at the old house.

[Brian Elfert]

I fail to understand how switching from a digital thermostat to a mechanical one would make an HVAC system suddenly work better. I would think that a new digital thermostat would have fixed the problem too. I have a Honeywell WI-FI thermostat, but I only installed it because I got it free from my electric utility. Yes, they will control my thermostat on peak usage days, but I can override it. I already had the radio control system that would shut off the outdoor unit on peak days.

I used to stay in a log cabin at a Boy Scout camp that did not regulate the heat properly. The temperature would swing up to five degrees. It had a mechanical thermostat with a spring, but no mercury. I was tempted to get an inexpensive digital thermostat and replace the thermostat to see if that fixed the issue. The furnace was newer and a volunteer HVAC serviced it once a year so it stayed in good shape.

[Bill Dufour]

Problem with these fancy wifi thermosats is they use a custom ap for online use. This is supported by the company and allows mobile access, programming etc. When the company goes out of business or sells out to another company the ap support will disappear and you have to buy a new thermostat if you want to change the settings.
Bill D.

I understand Home depot had system that they no longer sell or support online.

[Steve Wurster]

Problem with these fancy wifi thermosats is they use a custom ap for online use. This is supported by the company and allows mobile access, programming etc. When the company goes out of business or sells out to another company the ap support will disappear and you have to buy a new thermostat if you want to change the settings.


That's true with pretty much all Internet of Things devices. Even devices from Amazon and Google could become completely obsolete and unsupported by the parent company. The hope is that if any of the smaller companies are in danger of going out of business, one of the larger companies will buy them up and continue to support the existing hardware (at least for some length of time).

All that being said, I can completely program my thermostats without using the app on my phone or visiting the company's website. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can do all of that without even connecting the thermostat to the internet at all (although its ability to tell time might get hindered by that). The same cannot be said for my smart switches and smart plugs however; those can only be controlled by an app.

[Kev Williams]

No one needs to look any farther than their history of computer and cellphone purchases to realize EVERYTHING tech gets put out to pasture in short order. Can't make money keeping old stuff running, gotta replace everything so you can 'move forward'...

I'm dealing with this crap more and more every day trying to keep Microsoft-sabotaged computers working that are necessary to run my older machines that work perfectly (and I refuse to replace)...
:mad:

[Frank Pratt]

My Honeywell thermostat is fully functional without any kind of wireless access. I would not buy a thermostat that required a smart phone or other wireless access for full functionality.

[Lee DeRaud]

My Honeywell thermostat is fully functional without any kind of wireless access. I would not buy a thermostat that required a smart phone or other wireless access for full functionality.Yup. The only function that doesn't work is (obviously) the remote control. There have been maybe two times when it might have been useful, to pre-cool the house when we were coming home from vacation to temps that had unexpectedly jumped into triple digits.

[Stan Calow]

We've had a non-wifi programmable for many years, but gave up programming. Now I just set it to one temp and raise and lower manually as necessary. It was too frustrating to re-program 7 days for hot and cold every year when the batteries needed changing. And our schedules became too unpredictable. Don't want any more crap on the phone.

[Lee DeRaud]

It was too frustrating to re-program 7 days for hot and cold every year when the batteries needed changing.Ok, you're the second person to mention "changing the battery". What's up with that?

Every programmable thermostat I've ever had runs off the 24V feed from the furnace. The most I've ever had to do after a power failure was reset the day and time; the current one (Honeywell) Honeywell doesn't even need that. And there is no battery, at least not one I can replace...maybe just a tiny one to keep the time chip running.

[Steve Wurster]

Ok, you're the second person to mention "changing the battery". What's up with that?

Every programmable thermostat I've ever had runs off the 24V feed from the furnace. The most I've ever had to do after a power failure was reset the day and time; the current one (Honeywell) Honeywell doesn't even need that. And there is no battery, at least not one I can replace...maybe just a tiny one to keep the time chip running.

The thermostats that were in the house when we moved in back in 2007 were battery operated. When I went to install the new ones a few years back I had to check to see if the HVAC units had a power line / hookup available to feed the new thermostats. It was there for both, just not connected on the HVAC side; easy fix.

[Frank Pratt]

Ok, you're the second person to mention "changing the battery". What's up with that?

Every programmable thermostat I've ever had runs off the 24V feed from the furnace. The most I've ever had to do after a power failure was reset the day and time; the current one (Honeywell) Honeywell doesn't even need that. And there is no battery, at least not one I can replace...maybe just a tiny one to keep the time chip running.

Some Honeywell stats us a battery to retain programming in the event of a power failure and some use a super capacitor. The one I have has an interface module at the furnace & uses just 2 wires to communicate with the thermostat, which controls multistage heating, cooling and fan function.

[Frank Pratt]

Yup. The only function that doesn't work is (obviously) the remote control. There have been maybe two times when it might have been useful, to pre-cool the house when we were coming home from vacation to temps that had unexpectedly jumped into triple digits.

I rarely use the remote function for the house stat, but frequently use it to raise the shop temperature. I'll turn up the temperature when I leave work if I'm going to using the shop when I get home. That's a feature I really like.

Another useful feature is the desktop remote control that we use in the media room in the basement. It can be used to change temperature settings & choose whether to use the the thermostat or remote sensor for control.

[Curt Harms]

I'd have second thoughts about having much in the way of IoT (internet of things) devices. There are security concerns about networked devices; the software/firmware is seldom/never updated, at least not automatically or easily. If there is a security exploit discovered after the device is sold, it's likely to remain there for the life of the device. Some years ago there was an exploit that used networked printers as a 'back door' into peoples' networks. That was eventually patched and networked printers now have passwords. Will the same after-sale support be there for wifi thermostats or wifi lights or networked whatever? I'm pretty sure not. Those with the requisite skills can minimize their exposure to such risks. I don't have those skills and I'll bet most others don't either.

[Rod Sheridan]

Like Frank we use a simple programmable thermostat.

21:00 to 06:00 set at 16C

06:00 to 09:00 set at 20C

09:00 to 16:00 set at 16C

16:00 to 21:00 set at 20C

Works great…..Rod

[Steve Demuth]

The Mitsubishi mini-split that we heat our guest house with comes with a remote (looks like a TV remote control) thermostat controller. It is so badly designed that even the most simple changes require me to get out the manual. And it's battery powered and forgets everything when the batteries die. What a disaster. I don't understand why industrial designers can't design devices that make the ordinary things everyone needs to do simple and accessible, but they can't. I wish that machine could be wired to a simple wall thermostat.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

The programmable t-stats that came with the house, do well and for central PA , a heating bill less than $600 is unheard of.

But lo tech? When I lived in Arlington VA, I lived in an old Sears house on South 8th street. A plumber built the house during the late 1920's. It had a gravity flow natural gas hot water heating system that required no circulator. The water flowed by rising through the pipes from the boiler and the cool water sank from the radiators back again. In addition, the thermostat in the Dining room was mechanical, connected to the boiler below by a long solid metal rod. When the power went out during blizzards, our heat continued to work just fine with no electricity. Apparently installing such a system would be a real trick for todays plumbers.

[Ron Citerone]

The programmable t-stats that came with the house, do well and for central PA , a heating bill less than $600 is unheard of.

But lo tech? When I lived in Arlington VA, I lived in an old Sears house on South 8th street. A plumber built the house during the late 1920's. It had a gravity flow natural gas hot water heating system that required no circulator. The water flowed by rising through the pipes from the boiler and the cool water sank from the radiators back again. In addition, the thermostat in the Dining room was mechanical, connected to the boiler below by a long solid metal rod. When the power went out during blizzards, our heat continued to work just fine with no electricity. Apparently installing such a system would be a real trick for todays plumbers.

The original gas heater in my house, Circa 1955, had a pilot and a "millivolt" system. It had a blower motor. When the electric went out, the pilot made enough electric via the thermocouple to open the gas valve and we had gravity feed heat during a blackout. The older technician who serviced it said parts were getting hard to find and tehnicians who could work on it were mostly retired. When he retired he suggested that I start looking for a newer heater, which I did. For all the hoopla about efficiency at the time, the new unit only saved 10% in gas. Here in SE PA, it would take a long time to recoup the price of the new unit.