Smart Thermostat

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LePhillou said:
My homes is from the 70s, townhouse complex, my neighbours have similar issues with the same rooms. Even if i were to get a high efficiency furnace there's weird stuff that was being done in the 70s lol.

Also a big thing that sucks is the lack of access to the duct dampers (what opens and closes the duct at the source therefore you can get more 'pressure' through certain ducts) but the good news is im redoing my whole basement so i might try to find a way to make them more accessible so i can manually adjust them depending on usage/season.

Another source of discrepancy between the temps in the different rooms' siding that need to be redone by the condo corp, since its a condo townhouse. And once that's done, i'll be redoing the attic's insulation which should result in a more even on the different floors and different rooms.
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I have a home from the late 60's. I went from a mid efficiency to a hi efficiency. The new fan on the furnace makes a big difference even with $h!t duck work we have in our homes. As the new fan can blow a lot more air through. It's not about pressurizing the duck but allowing it to flow. More modern homes have much bigger pipes and takes offs, which we would lack in our poorly designed era homes. Heating was much cheaper back then what did they care about leaks and efficiency, everyone was at home with shorts on :D as it was cheap to do so.
 
nakkers said:
Had this discussion at work around the water cooler.

Someone said the real cost savings is in the furnace blower itself.

Something about a DC motor drawing less electricity when in operation.


As for programable thermostats, it was debated the cost of these smart thermostats don’t really pay for themselves in energy savings over a regular programmed thermostat.

Thoughts?

Just moved into a new place, has a programme thermostat by lux. Seems to do the job but like the idea of controlling things from my phone. Is it more of a novelty than what is already out there?

I haven’t decided. Thus my post.


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not sure if it's still going
but around 10 years ago the ProvGov
had a good rebate program going for heat energy saving home updates

at that time you had to get an efficiency test done first
a leak test and furnace efficiency test

then do the update in my case it was replacing a terrible old elec furnace
basically a large toaster with a noisy fan
installed a 95% propane furnace with the variable speed DC motor

submitted the test paperwork and installation docs for furnace
received 2 rebates, total of $1,500
test cost me $300
was well worth the trouble

was impossible to tell if the DC motor offered any savings
as the new system had replaced the electric unit that made the meter spin like crazy
 
There must be some HVAC folks that can chime in with some first hand knowledge?




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The ECM motors (DC) gain efficiency by easily allowing multiple speeds. Old school furnace fans were on at full speed or off. The vast majority of the heating season my fan never gets to full speed (but leaving it on low helps to even out temp distribution in house).
 
One thing I found very helpful so far as keeping the house at a more moderated temperature was setting the Ecobee to run the furnace fan at least a certain number of minutes ever hour. Here's a screenshot from the Ecobee system monitor page and you can see during the overnight hours that when the fan comes on (I have it set to 15 minutes per hour minimum fan run, so it cycles on for two 7.5m cycles every hour even if there's no demand for heating) the overall temperature of the house shows a small bump every time when the heat is recirculated around the house again.

The grey bars are the fan running and the grey line is the temperature of the house - look at the overnight period and you can clearly see the little resulting bumps where stagnant heat is moved around and it helps prevent the furnace from actually running.

ecobee.jpg


The nice thing about the Ecobee (at least the full version, not sure the cheaper model includes it) is the second sensor that can be programmed to either work in tandem with the main unit, or if you want (IE, a particularly cold bedroom in the winter) to actually be the primary sensor..and that programming can be changed depending on time of day/etc.
 
A GTAM member works (or did work for) Ecobee. Between that and Google abandoning their pledge "Do not be evil", that puts the Ecobee well ahead for me.

A friend had a nest and replaced it with Ecobee. He is much happier with ecobee (primarily due to extra zones/sensors).

As people have discussed, these can be fun toys, but without government meddling to drastically reduce the price, they cost more than they could ever possibly save.
 
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GreyGhost said:
A GTAM member works (or did work for) Ecobee.
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As I mentioned earlier, I got a discount code from a former employee...and come to think of it, it was from that member - I just checked my PM's and I see who it was. I just don't want to post his username and have him hammered with requests, it was a generosity thing at that point in time if I recall correctly.

At the time Enbridge also had a $100 rebate for those who could prove they installed a qualifying thermostat (the Ecobee was included) so between the discount code and this rebate I got a real deal on the thermostat.
 
LiNK666 said:
Thanks all I'll be going with the ecobee
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Hi folks. I’m the former ecobee guy :). I was one of the founders. I left this year to pursue another opportunity but still have my ties to ecobee. If anyone wants a promo code let me know. I would go for the full ecobee4 with Alexa built in. With the promo code it should come to $220 CAD. With the additional $100 enbridge rebate it works out to $120 so not a bad bargain!


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One thing not mentioned so far about the new smart thermostats is the built in "people home" sensor. In addition to your programmed heating schedule, it is also checking to see if anybody's home. If nobody is home, your schedule is automatically override with a system shutoff temp. So furnace drops to some really low temp you can set. I think it works by IR sensor in thermostat plus geofencing your smart phone. All the new smart thermostats can do this.
 
PrivatePilot said:
One thing I found very helpful so far as keeping the house at a more moderated temperature was setting the Ecobee to run the furnace fan at least a certain number of minutes ever hour.

ecobee.jpg
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Good tip! I have to try this. I thought the fan would only be for the summer.

And the NEST software is like crayon drawings compared to your Ecobee screen!

18b1e64f4063a51cd0d4157029fdd1bb.png
 
empty said:
One thing not mentioned so far about the new smart thermostats is the built in "people home" sensor.
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Not really useful in all households. If your thermostat, like ours, is in a room that doesn't see regular traffic, the thermostat will think that there's people not home (and start cooling down the house) when there is actually still people home. Our Ecobee is in our dining room for example and doesn't sense people about 80% of the time even when we're in the living room right next to it. Our kids can also come home and go upstairs to their rooms and the thermostat would never see them as they don't go anywhere near the dining room.

I just have it on a reasonably fixed schedule that fits our life. If we are doing anything unexpected where we will be away when we'd normally be home, or home when we'd normally be away, the smartphone app lets me adjust it anywhere in the world in a few seconds.

And thanks Heshooma for offering the discount codes again. I just didn't want to throw you under the bus if you still didn't have codes available, and I can't remember if you PM'd me privately, or offered publicly previously. ;)
 
Hmm the Eccobee seems pretty advance the circulating fan schedule is something I could really use. I'll have to revisit this and explore the software features of the product. Sucks if I upgrade that I dump something that is relatively new. But at least I can pass it long to a family member etc.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Not really useful in all households. If your thermostat, like ours, is in a room that doesn't see regular traffic, the thermostat will think that there's people not home (and start cooling down the house) when there is actually still people home. Our Ecobee is in our dining room for example and doesn't sense people about 80% of the time even when we're in the living room right next to it. Our kids can also come home and go upstairs to their rooms and the thermostat would never see them as they don't go anywhere near the dining room.

I just have it on a reasonably fixed schedule that fits our life. If we are doing anything unexpected where we will be away when we'd normally be home, or home when we'd normally be away, the smartphone app lets me adjust it anywhere in the world in a few seconds.

And thanks Heshooma for offering the discount codes again. I just didn't want to throw you under the bus if you still didn't have codes available, and I can't remember if you PM'd me privately, or offered publicly previously. ;)
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Thanks for the discretion @PrivatePilot. If I can help out my fellow riders then it’s all good. I’ve been travelling over the holidays, so slow to reply. I’ve replied to all the PM’s I got.


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My friend just got his Ecobee 3 yesterday. I have the Nest E.
I would say the two are similar to the PC and Apple comparison.
Ecobee shows you a lot more info and seems to have more options for you to tweek and play with. Whereas the Nest is packaged to make the user interface as simple as possible. Just set it up and forget about it.
Other than the extra temp. sensor capability of the Ecobee, they both seem to do the same thing.
 
greaserman said:
How hard is it to install a ecobee4?

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Check the Ecobee or Nest site. They both have detailed install instructions.
Typical thermostats are low voltage (24v) so no issue there.

1. Find the power switch at your furnace and turn it off.
2. Open you existing thermostat and take a picture of the wiring. Make sure you can read the labeling on the wire terminal.
3. Disconnect and remove your old thermostat and don't lose the wires into the wall.
4. Usually easier to hook up wires to new Ecobee before mounting unit to the wall. Use the picture you took for reference. Typically 4 wires for AC and furnace. I have 5th wire bc my furnace has dual stage.
5. It comes with a trim plate to cover the paint shadow left by your old unit. Make sure the wires go thru this plate first if your using it.
6. Level everything and screw it onto the wall.
7. Power up furnace.
8. Go thru setup procedures on Ecobee. On the Nest I had to tell it I had a dual stage furnace, wifi pwd, create user account, Celsius/F, location for weather update, etc. I chose to manually enter a heating schedule, or you can let it "learn" your schedule.
Less than 30 min setup.
4059d8d2c582e9af9c99480d0f828509.png
 
Thanks.

Got a ecobee3 at home and like it so I got my dad one. Hooked it up for him and connected extra room SENSORS. He hated it. He's not a tech guy at all at 74 I'm not surprised I guess

So it's for sale if any one is interested pm me. Ecobee3 plus 2 extra room SENSORS 200 bucks obo


Thanks

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