What Temperature Should You Set Your Thermostat to When on Vacation

Planning on getting out of the house and on vacation in the near future? If so, good for you, and congratulations! It’s one of the best things about this season, after all. But before you decide to roll out, we’d like to ask what you plan on doing about your HVAC system. More specifically, your thermostat. Do you plan to change its settings at all? If not, you might be missing out on some big savings!

Why Not Turn Off Your AC Completely?

It’s a tempting thought! But you’d probably come up with one of a few answers after considering it for a moment. The problem is that killing the AC might save you some cash on cooling your home while you’re away, but it would negatively impact quite a few other things, including:

• Temperature-sensitive possessions. You could easily expect a day in the 90s or higher while you’re gone, and that’s going to be some bad news for stuff at home. Electronics, pictures, microfiche, documents, wood, and even more are all going to suffer and possibly become useless if left to the high heat, and even worse, high humidity.
• Pets and plants. If your kitties or puppers intend to sit this vacation out, they’d probably appreciate a home that isn’t attempting to bake them. Not to mention how sensitive plants can be—the heat can quickly kill them.
• Minimal savings. While you’re away and the system is off, sure, it won’t eat up any energy. It’s getting back where you’re going to end up losing out. Why? Because cooling a home back down to 70 degrees from 90 degrees or higher is going to take a lot of time—and a boatload of power. Your cooling system is going to eat electricity like a monster for an entire day or more to get things back to normal, which is going to negate all of those savings and worse.

Is There a “Best” Temperature Range?

Not exactly. Mostly it’s about keeping it at a reasonable temp while you’re gone, and where that needs to be is going to depend on what kind of things you have in your home—again, pets, plants, materials, etc. A fair enough range is around 75-77 degrees, where it’s high enough that you’re saving energy, but not so high that your home suffers.

Another easy option is to just add a couple of degrees to your usual. Do you like keeping things at 70? Go for 73. Prefer 72? 75 for you, etc. However, there is an easier, more cost-effective option than all of this “maybe” stuff.

Finding Your Best Temperature Option with Top Tech

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to take the guessing out of the whole thing? Something that could police your thermostat while you were gone, and maybe even something that helped you save energy all year long? Well, guess what? There is!

One of our favorite pieces of modern HVAC tech that has come about in recent years is the advent of programmable and wi-fi thermostats. These beauties offer easily programmable routines, wi-fi availability and remote controlling, monthly energy reports, and more. They can even learn your preferences and comfort settings, helping you to streamline your HVAC use all throughout the year. The result is lower bills, more comfort, and more surety. Can it get much better? Not yet!

Thermostat Installation in Northern Virginia

For more information about installing and using a programmable thermostat in your Fairfax area home, contact the professionals at HVAC Unlimited Heating & Air Conditioning. We are proud to serve the counties of  Prince William, Fairfax and Loudoun with quality HVAC inspection, maintenance and installation.