Thermostat Wars

The predominant kind of thermostat war is the one between those who understand the concept of the thermostat and those who don't. It is difficult to believe, but there are still people who don't get it. They would crank the thermostat all the way down when they feel hot and all the way up when they feel cold. I kid you not, several years ago there was a guy who came to the Residential HVAC forum with a question, "how to educate the significant other not to do that". After few days and several dozen messages, the community agreed that the only way to deal with his particular problem was to install a fake thermostat. This case is beyond repair, let's concentrate on the other.

Out of remaining, two kinds can be distilled: those that require marriage counseling and cause HR violations , and those that don't. The latter is the kind I would like to cover in this article.

The final division is the wars between the occupants of different rooms, and, those apparently happening just in the mind of a single person waging the war.

The first kind is actually pretty easy - this is what the zoning systems are for. I mean, the real ones that do allow you to set different temperature for different zones.

As for the last kind... Imagine a situation when there's a person who claims they are absolutely comfortable with a certain temperature - let's say, for the sake of argument, it's 78°F. And indeed, when put into a scientifically controlled environment, they feel just fine. But in real life...

They fiddle with the thermostat all the time. Sometimes they push it up. Sometimes they push it down. Sometimes, they claim the thermostat is not calibrated (it is). When cornered, they are claiming the temperature is not right, and demand a precision thermometer. And you know what?

Most of the time they are right.

The cause for it is trivial from a control systems engineer standpoint, but is carefully hidden in a plain view for the rest of the world.

Almost all thermostats, except the very advanced ones, are based on a very simple concept of a hysteresis. Temperature goes X degrees above the setpoint, cooling on. Temperature goes X degrees below the setpoint, cooling off. Simple?

Not quite.

First of all, not all thermostats (as a matter of fact, very few) will let you change X. According to some claims (google it up if you want), X = 2.5 (I suppose Fahrenheit) for mechanical thermostats, somewhat less for digital. 5°F spread is a lot.

Side note: Rite Temp GPMG8085C (and possibly other Rite Temp thermostats) will let you control hysteresis. Doesn't mean I endorse it, though - it's got its quirks. Doesn't mean I condemn it, either - it's doing a good job comparable to Honeywell RTH7500 for $20 (20%) less.

Then, the situation gets very interesting as temperatures get milder. The closer is the ambient temperature to the setpoint temperature, the more suffering there is (that'll be mornings, afternoons, and the whole mid-seasons). The reason?

Deviations of ambient temperature are sufficient to cause severe discomfort, but are not sufficient to kick the temperature at the thermostat beyond the dead band and thus to force the HVAC unit to actually do something.

Things can become really bad if the house is big enough, and the part of it where the thermostat is is insulated better than other parts - all in all, "mild" is a relative term. A typical case would be a tri-level house somewhere in Arizona.

Which is where and how it all started. Is there an answer? Yes, and it's been already implemented several years ago, but I'm not telling. It would suffice to say that if you want to find out, by this time you know where to look for it.