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When the $370 bill arrived a month later, I realized that the rule of thumb for my two-bedroom house, built in the 1960s with insulation in mind, was terrible. When the house reached 68 degrees, it couldn’t maintain that temperature for long, so the oven was turned back on after about 20 minutes.
All this is to say that saving energy with technology requires some independent thinking. While leaving the thermostat at 68 all day makes sense for small apartments in well-insulated buildings, this is general advice that many homes probably won’t benefit from, said Ben Brown, product manager for Google’s Nest thermostat.
Instead, ask yourself some questions. What is the size of your house? What do you know about insulation? How long will it take for it to warm up a few degrees? And most importantly, at what temperature would you and your family feel comfortable?
Back in November, I decided to make the Nest work better with my home this winter. After messing around with Nest’s settings and examining my energy costs every day for a month, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the best schedule for my home:
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6:30: When it’s time to get out of bed, raise the temperature to 66.
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08:00: Set the temperature to 60 so that the temperature drops continuously throughout the day. It did cool the house a bit, but it was bearable to wear a sweater.
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8:00 pm: When it gets cold at night (and after PG&E’s peak pricing period), raise the temperature to 66.
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23:00: Set the temperature to 57 for bedtime.
During this experiment, the Nest thermostat also gave a “warning” warning that my oven was turning on and off every few minutes, which meant something was wrong. I hired an HVAC professional who diagnosed and fixed the problem: The gas pressure was too high causing the furnace to overheat and shut down automatically.
This solution combined with the programmed heating schedule has resulted in a significant reduction in my bills.
2. ‘Vampire energy’ is an exaggerated problem.
After finishing my experiment with gas in December, I turned my attention to electricity. The results were less remarkable.
I tested smart plugs from TP-Link, which offers a smartphone app to program light switches and devices to turn on and off on a schedule. I’ve also fitted devices that frequently use so-called vampire energy and suck power even when not in use. It contained a large speaker, a laptop charger, and a phone charger; for this i have programmed the plugs to stay on only when i have the possibility to use it.
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