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nest thermostat?

677 views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  BeachinXJ 
#1 ·
Ladies and gentlemen, my wife and I live in an old home built in the 20s. We have installed a split natural gas heat/central air system. Our heating bills are very high, averaging about 270 (minimum, max we had was 400) a month with it set in maybe 60 degrees in the winter. Cooling is a bit less expensive, 90 $ this past month, air at 80 degrees. We are about to finally insulate the attic I hope, but the Windows are wood frame single pane ones. I saw a film the other day that claims to provide a 95% increase in r factor, winter and summer. What's the thoughts on this? What about a nest? Would that benefit us? I'm wanting to do Windows, but I may be able to do only a few at a time...
 
#2 ·
Have you tried putting the plastic sheeting up on the Windows? We currently live in a rental where the Windows are crappy and have to do this and is has cut a lot off our utility bill,its easy to do and pretty cheap home depot usually carries the stuff near winter not to sure about summer,the film says you can heat it and shrink it tight but we ave tried that in the past and our Windows leak so bad in a spring ind the plastic would pop off the window so we leave it loose and watch it breath.
 
#3 ·
Nest is a waste of funds - it would take more energy getting up/down to temp.

Spend your money on insulation and windows
 
#5 ·
*waste of funds in a poorly sealed house. ... is what I meant. In a normal situation it's cool but there are much cheaper tstats that do the same thing.
 
#6 ·
I understand What you meant Beachin. I have plans to insulate the attic before this winter. The only thing holding me up is that I need to put some standardized crossbeams in the attic. We plan on flooring the loft. Right now it is all different size rough cut stuff. Then going to blow some in. Windows, priority is if funds permit to replace the 5 on the east side of the house first. Then the others can come later. The west side is shaded and stays relatively cool. The east side heats up and warms the whole house.
 
#8 ·
WOW!
The coldest month this winter I didn't spend $120 to heat my house. And only $90 to cool? I did read that right and you are in the deep south..or did I miss something?
Insulate definitely but if the two seasons are so radically different I think it's the system's fault more. A nifty thermostat doesn't make the system work any better! Have you ever had the heat checked? are the burners working right? Is the heat exchanger totally plugged?

If you want to floor the attic, blow insulation up to the current rafters and then run stringers perpindicular on 16" centers. put down plain old rolled fiberglass and deck it over. It will strengthen the ceiling by distributing the load and by running it two ways you reduce the paths for air infiltration. Go with as big of a stringer as you can while still leavingan air gap for the roof and space to get around. 2x4 will work but 2x8s give more room to insulate.

A stopgap for the windows is the heat shrink film It worked well for us up in Rochester NY until we could get new windows. If you want to keep the look of '20s era windows you could go with interior storm windows, they aren't as efficient but that would be the price for authenticity. If you don't care if the house looks period then new double insulated low E are the best bang for the buck!
 
#9 ·
You read it right. We keep the ac set on 80 and the heat on 60. We also heat with a wall mount natural gas heater as well. I wonder about its efficiency... It actually makes sense if you think about it, these houses are easier to cool than heat. And with tongue and groove pine plank ceilings that arent insulated heat Flow goes right through it. I'll make some measurements on the attic and see about the differences. There is going to have to be some hefty spacers to make the stringers work right.
 
#10 ·
Everyone I know who's gotten a Nest absolutely loves it. For me, a regular programmable thermostat works just fine, since I typically have a set schedule during the week. Don't see the reason to pay 3x as much for something with wifi and a motion sensor. The only time I've seen it REALLY make sense was for one of my friends with a dual fuel setup, where the wire sending the temp reading from outdoors to his thermostat was somehow damaged during construction and it was going to cost hundreds of dollars to run a new one through the walls - the latest Nest can use local weather info from the internet to decide when to switch between gas and electric, so just buying the thermostat itself saved him money without even factoring in savings based on adjusting the temp...
 
#11 ·
You can do that with a WiFi enabled stat that's about a third of the cost.

My point is spend money wisely.
 
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