Green Tip: Check the Thermostat Setting

Back home in the frigid Midwest, we noticed the furnace cycling on and off quite frequently: about every five minutes, to be exact. That's not normal for most furnaces, even when it's really cold outside. Frequent cycling wastes fuel and causes wear and tear on the burner, so we did a bit of investigative manual-reading.

Most thermostats need you to change a setting that indicates what kind of furnace you have. Getting into the setting mode on this thermostat was no easy task; if you don't have the manual at your disposal, the manufacturer's website or some tactical Google searching will probably tell you the right sequence of buttons to push.

This particular thermostat, a Honeywell, had no fewer than five settings, including one at the top of the list for "gas," and another, further down the list for "gas, more than 90% efficient." It was set for "gas, standard efficiency."

So back to Google we went, to discover that the furnace in question, a Trane XE 90, is indeed more than 90% efficient. (If you can easily see your furnace, a white plastic exhaust pipe or chimney is a sure sign of this.) We changed the setting, and presto: the furnace no longer cycles on and off constantly, and the house seems more comfortable and less drafty.

While you're at it, change the furnace filter, too; you'll get cleaner air in the house and help increase efficiency a bit because the air can flow more easily.

while you're checking the thermostat on your furnace, i would recommend checking your water heater as well.

I'm a young guy (read as doesn't know much about home related repairs, setting etc) and live in a newer apartment and when my dad came to visit he was running the hot water and almost got burned. he said it was way too hot so we ran some hot water, dropped a meat thermometer in and it was reading like 135-140 degrees. A bit hotter then what we really need. Average hot water temp i think he said is like 125.

So he showed me how to take the 2 covers off for the thermostat settings (make sure to turn the power off, you don't want to get a jolt if it's electric) and how to adjust it. i won't say exactly how to do it, because like i said, i'm not that good with this stuff, and i don't want to say something wrong, a quick google should help.

so now our temperature of the water is at a good place and the water heater is running a lot lot less, which is a really good thing. Plus inside one of the covers for the water heater, he had info about other temperatures of water and apparently water at my temp, if fully hot, will give you 2nd burns in like 5-10 seconds or something like that... just what i need, right.

posted by jmorey on January 5th 2008 at 4:16pm
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