Jason E. Andersen

Last week I had to deal with some homeownership crises. We had to get our roof redone and, at the same time, our air conditioning went out which resulted in us having to replace both the air conditioner and furnace. It was a really tough week on our bank account.

All that aside, I did learn a lot about heating and cooling systems, how they work, and maximizing their efficiency. We ended up going with a high-efficiency system that should be leaps and bounds better than our previous 2002-era system. Specifically, we got a Rheem brand 96% efficiency 2-stage variable speed furnace with a 2-ton 16 SEER air conditioner, for those of you that care about that (which very well could be none of you). We also got a very fancy Nest smart thermostat. Speaking of thermostats…

Bonus Fun Fact: The recommended energy-saving settings for your thermostat are 78 degrees or higher for cooling and 70 degrees or lower for heating. These settings allow you to stay in that sweet spot of efficiency, keeping you comfortable while saving you on energy usage. Of course, comfort is pretty subjective. If you do choose to set your thermostat lower or higher (respectively) than those settings, you should know that your system may labor to keep up and your utility bills will reflect that.

If you’re lucky enough to have a programmable thermostat, you can put it to work for you to get additional savings. While you’re at work during the day, for example, you don’t need the air conditioner keeping your house as cool as if you were there. You can set your thermostat 5-8 degrees warmer when cooling and lower when heating while you’re away. Doing so can save up to 15% on your utility bills.

Having a smart thermostat takes it a step further. I can only speak to our individual unit and that’s only for the short time we’ve had it. It can be programmed like a regular programmable thermostat, but it can also learn your household patterns and adjust accordingly (it has a built-in motion sensor to detect when people are home). The Nest is a Google product, so we also have ours linked to our phones, so it knows when we’re home and away. It can set the thermostat automatically up or down depending on the pattern it learns. It’s kind of big-brothery but also pretty neat.