What are the differences between traditional and digital thermostats? What are the advantages of smart thermostats? How and where should a thermostat be properly installed to achieve maximum energy savings?
For those with their own central heating system and boiler, regardless of the energy source used, there’s always a quest to save additional energy. Besides good wall insulation and quality joinery, reducing costs can also be achieved by paying more attention to the “production” of thermal energy. Those who have more modern gas or pellet boilers with electric control can significantly save by using higher-quality thermostats.
Advantages of Digital Thermostats
To begin with, replacing a classic mechanical thermostat with a digital one is not a bad idea. Mechanical thermostats with bimetallic strips have been used for decades and are very reliable and durable, but the problem is that they are relatively imprecise. They react to changes in room temperature sometimes within a range of few degrees.
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This means that there needs to be such a significant change in room air temperature for them to react and turn on or off the heating. In practice, this means that the room will already feel noticeably cold when the thermostat activates the boiler, or it will be too hot when the thermostat turns off the heating. In addition to reducing comfort, these temperature fluctuations will also increase the energy consumption of whatever energy source you use for heating, whether it’s electricity, gas, or pellets.
The solution is to replace the mechanical thermostat with a digital one. Digital thermostats are much more sensitive to temperature changes and more precise, reacting to temperature changes within a range of 0.2 degrees. This way, a constant temperature will be easier to maintain in the room, without unnecessary fluctuations when it becomes too hot in the apartment, meaning unnecessary energy consumption.
Installing a digital thermostat can achieve maximum savings only if you place it in the right spot. If it’s a thermostat that communicates wirelessly with the boiler via WiFi, you can choose its position without additional work and change its position as needed. Ideally, the thermostat should be placed at 1.5 meters (aprox. 60 inch) above the floor in a location with the most constant temperature.
This means that the thermostat should be in the living room where it won’t be exposed to direct sunlight at any given time. Also, it should be placed as far away as possible from windows and doors, where it could be directly exposed to cold air.
What Do Smart Thermostats Enable?
The next level of savings that can be achieved is by installing a so-called smart thermostat. These are thermostats that offer a much greater number of settings. With them, you can program the time in advance, so the thermostat can independently turn off the heating or lower the temperature, for example, at ten in the evening, only to activate the heating around six thirty in the morning, so that you are greeted with a pleasant temperature when you wake up at seven.
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Also, heating can be reduced while you’re at work, only to be turned back on before your return. True, digital thermostats had the programming function many years before the appearance of smart thermostats.
One of the main advantages of smart thermostats is that they connect to the internet. This means that you can manage the heating system via the application without access to the thermostat itself. Not only from bed but also from work, or even when traveling, hundreds of kilometers away from home.
Moreover, smart thermostats, by connecting to the internet, can monitor the weather forecast, so they can activate the heating earlier or later according to those data to achieve the desired temperature. All these are nuances whose benefits may not be so obvious in practice, but over a longer period of time, they certainly bring savings, especially since the price of these devices is very affordable today.
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