Allison over at Queercents just posted about Programmable thermostats. As autumn is settling here and our ski season is now officially open, this is a wonderfully timely topic.I love our programmable thermostat. Installing ours was one of the first things I did when we bought our house. I don’t remember what I paid but I know it wasn’t over $50 and was quite possibly closer to $30. And it was a cinch to install.
I hate being cold. I bundle up in wool socks, wool undershirts, wool sweaters, and sheepskin slippers. Often I wear a wool hat all day long, too. Inside. When I’m too cold I get cranky and you know what they say, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” But, as much as I hate being cold, I also hate huge utilities bills.
Our thermostat allows for 4 different time/temperatures settings 7 days a week. Theoretically, I could have four different temperature changes every day of the week.
At first I tried setting the temp down to 65 at night but the family said it was too cold so now it’s set at 67 degrees while we sleep. The temperature gets cranked up to 71 degrees at 6:30am each weekday for the hour that The Daughter and The Son are up and getting ready for school/work. It then drops down to 69 and stays there for the better part of the day. The thermostat brings the temperature back up to 70 in the late afternoon and evening before dropping automatically down to our nighttime temperature setting.
Since I work at home and homeschool The Son, I don’t drop the daytime temperature down as low as people with empty houses can. But because the unit is so easy to program, it’s a snap to make adjustments to the temp whenever our schedule changes. Last year The Son had one class on Tuesday, rehearsal later that evening, and class all day on Friday. In addition, his cello lessons took us out of the house for several hours on Thursday. This year he’s in class all day on Tuesday, at rehearsal on Wednesday, lessons on Thursday, and only one class on Friday.
Because the thermostat is a 7-day programmable unit, I can set a later warm-up time for Saturday and yet another time for Sunday. Since we’re usually home on Saturday, I keep the house warm but drop the temperature down on Sunday while we’re at church.
As you can see, we don’t have huge temperature differences programmed but I figure that every little bit helps, right?
A side benefit: Dropping the temp at night is a great way to give myself a curfew — if I stay up too late the heat goes off and I get chilly. The only way to get warm again is to snuggle up under the down comforter with The Husband 
I just love that all of these temperature adjustments happen automatically. No more fighting over the thermostat and NO ONE is allowed to manually adjust it without a quorum 
