Rant: The $80 'smart' thermostat I installed is making my heating bill worse

I swapped out my old dial unit for a fancy one that promised to learn my schedule and save energy. After a full billing cycle, my gas bill actually went up by about $15 because it keeps kicking the furnace on for short cycles. Has anyone else had this happen and found a fix in the settings?

2 comments

2 Comments

lee_grant972mo ago

That's a real letdown after spending the money on an upgrade. Wade's advice is spot on, those short cycles are just burning gas for no good reason. Taming those smart features is usually the key.

wadea532mo ago

Yeah, the short cycles thing is a killer. Mine was doing the same, basically trying to keep the house at a perfect temp all the time. I went into the advanced settings and turned off the "adaptive recovery" or "early on" feature. That stopped it from firing up the furnace way early to hit the set point by a certain time. Also, I widened the temperature swing from like half a degree to two degrees. It runs less often but for longer.