Total Energy News and Insights

It's time to lock down the thermostat In many homes now that the temperature has started to dip the thermostat might have become a point of issue. One person in the home wants the house warmer while someone else wants it colder to save on money. The thing that everyone can agree on is that heating your home while no one is there is a waste of energy and money. Programmable and smart thermostat allow you to set an away temperature. With programmable thermostat you have to manually go in to set the time for each day it's suppose to go to "away". Smart thermostats like the Nest learning thermostat learn over time based on a week or so of manual temperature changes. Other smart thermostats including the Nest will go into "away" mode based on a cellphone gps location. The upside of these is never having to manually change the thermostat. In some cases the thermostat will start the heat the home before someone gets home so it'll warm and comfortable bef...

Smart Thermostats almost always require them. The internet of things is on the rise and one of the easiest and most useful applications of this is the smart thermostat. Popular smart thermostats that come to mind at the Nest, Ecobee, and the Honeywell Lyric most of these and other smart thermostats that come with WiFi. Installing these thermostats can be tricky due to the C-Wire or Common Wire. For thermostat installations you need to have a set of wires that run from your heating and/or cooling system to your thermostat(s). In instances where you just have a boiler or furnace without the ability to cool you see a thermostat with just two wires, red and white. If you have a cooling system with your heating system you'll most commonly find the thermostats using 4 wires. If you add a smart thermostat you're going to need a fifth wire, the c-wire. C-wires help delivery more power to the thermostat to power the Wi-Fi functions. Adding this wire can be difficult as it requ...

Control your Home Comfort with a Programmable Thermostat This past week I bought a wifi thermostat to replace the programmable thermostat that controls the first floor of my home. During installation I found out that currenting wiring is not compatible with my new wifi thermostat. This is going to become a common issue issue as wifi thermostats become cheaper and more common in homes.  The big question is what is the difference between a programmable thermostat and a wifi thermostat and what is the benefit. Programmable thermostats are a great way to help you save on your energy usage and tailor your heating and cooling to your needs.  Most programmable thermostats allow you to schedule a week schedule with 4 time point throughout each day. This allows you to schedule when your heat or cooling will turn on for during the weekdays and the weekends and at what time each day. The best times for the schedule to run would be before you wake up, when you leave for work, before...