Too Hot or Too Cold - Help Me Find "Just Right"
April 4, 2018 7:32 AM Subscribe
For ten years, one of my favorite features of my apartment is the fact that I have my own thermostat. However - it sometimes can get too warm, and I'm only just now realizing that it may be because I'm not properly using it. Help?
This is the kind of thermostat I have. The clock thing on it has never shown the right time, and I didn't know that it was a thing that you could adjust anyway; i always thought thermostats worked by sensing the temperature alone (i.e., you tell it what temperature you want it to be, it checks the existing temperature, and if it gets too cold it turns up the heat until it warms back up). So I have always just adjusted the temperature thing on top to tell it that I want the house to be at like 68 degrees.
But I've started to think it is using the clock mechanism as well. I woke up at about 5:30 this morning because the radiators were on; the bedrooms are lined on three walls with heating registers, and they get a good deal warmer than the rest of the house. It didn't feel like it was all that cold, but the heat was on anyway. My new roommate has said that he has noticed it getting pretty warm in his room overnight as well.
I don't have the manual, and my awesome super hasn't really been able to explain this thing well to me. So exactly what do I do to calm the thermostat down so it doesn't toast us at 5 am?
This is the kind of thermostat I have. The clock thing on it has never shown the right time, and I didn't know that it was a thing that you could adjust anyway; i always thought thermostats worked by sensing the temperature alone (i.e., you tell it what temperature you want it to be, it checks the existing temperature, and if it gets too cold it turns up the heat until it warms back up). So I have always just adjusted the temperature thing on top to tell it that I want the house to be at like 68 degrees.
But I've started to think it is using the clock mechanism as well. I woke up at about 5:30 this morning because the radiators were on; the bedrooms are lined on three walls with heating registers, and they get a good deal warmer than the rest of the house. It didn't feel like it was all that cold, but the heat was on anyway. My new roommate has said that he has noticed it getting pretty warm in his room overnight as well.
I don't have the manual, and my awesome super hasn't really been able to explain this thing well to me. So exactly what do I do to calm the thermostat down so it doesn't toast us at 5 am?
The page you link to says this:
For heating, the left (blue) lever sets the lower temperature when the clock hits a blue pin, and the right (red) lever sets the temperature for when the clock has a red pin. The red and blue program pins are inserted into the clock, switching the furnace on or off to heat the house to its setting.
The way you thought a thermostat works is for manual use. The way this one works is that the pins turn the thermostat on/off depending on the time. So you do need to adjust the clock correctly. Or, if you can't do that, figure out how the time on the thermostat corresponds to Real Time and adjust accordingly.
I can't really see the red and blue pins referred to in the description above in the picture, but perhaps you can in real life? Our timer has little plastic bits that you push in for like 5 min blocks you want the heat on.
On preview: hurrah! Mefi comes through.
posted by like_neon at 7:59 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
For heating, the left (blue) lever sets the lower temperature when the clock hits a blue pin, and the right (red) lever sets the temperature for when the clock has a red pin. The red and blue program pins are inserted into the clock, switching the furnace on or off to heat the house to its setting.
The way you thought a thermostat works is for manual use. The way this one works is that the pins turn the thermostat on/off depending on the time. So you do need to adjust the clock correctly. Or, if you can't do that, figure out how the time on the thermostat corresponds to Real Time and adjust accordingly.
I can't really see the red and blue pins referred to in the description above in the picture, but perhaps you can in real life? Our timer has little plastic bits that you push in for like 5 min blocks you want the heat on.
On preview: hurrah! Mefi comes through.
posted by like_neon at 7:59 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Hi - I've found that manual, but the depiction on the "setting the clock" page doesn't look quite right (the wheel that the picture says is the 'time indicator arrow" is at the top right side of the clock on my thing, rather than the bottom right side like in the picture).
Everything else about this looks right, though; am I just overthinking it?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:00 AM on April 4, 2018
Everything else about this looks right, though; am I just overthinking it?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:00 AM on April 4, 2018
I think you could be overthinking it as long as it works the same? The manual has several models listed, so they may vary in cosmetic but superficial ways.
posted by like_neon at 8:02 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by like_neon at 8:02 AM on April 4, 2018
That's an antique. A modern electronic programmable thermostat costs about $40 (or a few hundred for the new fancy wifi enabled ones) and takes about 15 minutes to install. If your heat is included in rent, a sensible landlord would be willing to replace it, as the energy savings will more easily offset the cost. Or you could offer to purchase it.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:12 AM on April 4, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:12 AM on April 4, 2018 [7 favorites]
Also, that antique almost certainly contains mercury switches. So, if you do replace it (which you should), please dispose of it responsibly.
posted by meinvt at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by meinvt at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2018
A modern electronic programmable thermostat costs about $40 (or a few hundred for the new fancy wifi enabled ones) and takes about 15 minutes to install.
This.
In the Chicago area, Com Ed sells the programmable thermostats at a substantial discount and/or with an instant rebate. It's worth checking to see if your utility does as well.
If you get a basic programmable thermostat (the $40 kind), you'll want capability for at least four different settings (which may be labeled as "waking up", "while the house is empty", "evening", "overnight") and probably a way to set separate weekday and weekend settings. Those features let you customize the programming to suit your lifestyle. Any bells and whistles beyond that are just bells and whistles.
posted by DrGail at 9:05 AM on April 4, 2018
This.
In the Chicago area, Com Ed sells the programmable thermostats at a substantial discount and/or with an instant rebate. It's worth checking to see if your utility does as well.
If you get a basic programmable thermostat (the $40 kind), you'll want capability for at least four different settings (which may be labeled as "waking up", "while the house is empty", "evening", "overnight") and probably a way to set separate weekday and weekend settings. Those features let you customize the programming to suit your lifestyle. Any bells and whistles beyond that are just bells and whistles.
posted by DrGail at 9:05 AM on April 4, 2018
Response by poster: ....Can someone link me to the $40 thermostats? I also looked into that option but was only finding like $100-and-up varieties.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:08 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:08 AM on April 4, 2018
We had one of those Honeywells in my vacation-rental apartment until last year, they work foreeevvver. It probably was set to click on at 5 am because some previous tenant had to be up for work at an ungodly hour. Despite some cosmetic differences, the mechanism should work just like the example in the manual.
Why replace it if it works? In a rental? Huh? If I owned/managed a rental, I would not want tenants faffing about replacing thermostats on their own. It also may be against the terms of your lease.
posted by desuetude at 9:17 AM on April 4, 2018
Why replace it if it works? In a rental? Huh? If I owned/managed a rental, I would not want tenants faffing about replacing thermostats on their own. It also may be against the terms of your lease.
posted by desuetude at 9:17 AM on April 4, 2018
(Not that replacing a thermostat is difficult. I've done it, I am aware that it does not require any specialized technical expertise. It could, however, muddy up who is responsible in case there is a problem with the heat.)
posted by desuetude at 9:26 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by desuetude at 9:26 AM on April 4, 2018
If you do replace it, aim for a model big enough to cover the whole area where the old one was mounted. It will save you some hole-filling and painting.
posted by jon1270 at 9:43 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by jon1270 at 9:43 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
You mention radiators and registers. Are you having more problems controlling the rooms heated by radiators or the rooms heated with forced air? Are both of these systems sharing a thermostat? Forced air and radiant systems can require very different parameter settings from their thermostats. For example, my steam radiator house doesn't heat evenly unless I set it to run one long cycle per hour as opposed to six short cycles like a forced air system would.
posted by TrialByMedia at 9:51 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by TrialByMedia at 9:51 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I....am using "radiator" and "register" interchangeably, to be honest, and am probably wrong with both. I just did an image search for both and neither one matches what we have.
What we have (in the entire apartment) looks like a long rectangular thing that runs along the bottom of the wall for the entire length of most walls. I always grew up calling that a "radiator" but my super called it a "register".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2018
What we have (in the entire apartment) looks like a long rectangular thing that runs along the bottom of the wall for the entire length of most walls. I always grew up calling that a "radiator" but my super called it a "register".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2018
Can you take a picture of it?
posted by TrialByMedia at 10:35 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by TrialByMedia at 10:35 AM on April 4, 2018
Response by poster: Ah! I have baseboard-style things like this. And they run all along two walls in one bedroom and along three walls in the other, and since bedrooms are smaller than the other rooms, there's just more heating-per-footage.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:36 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:36 AM on April 4, 2018
That sounds like baseboard heat of some sort, most likely electric or hot water, though depending on where exactly you live it could be something else. What really matters here is the difference between forced air and not forced air and it's unlikely to be the former given your description.
Personally, for a system like that I'd rather have a decent manual thermostat than any regular "smart" thermostat. The really expensive ones are smart enough to learn that there is a lot of inertia inherent in the system and turn it on sufficiently early to be warm when you want it to be, not an hour later.
posted by wierdo at 10:37 AM on April 4, 2018
Personally, for a system like that I'd rather have a decent manual thermostat than any regular "smart" thermostat. The really expensive ones are smart enough to learn that there is a lot of inertia inherent in the system and turn it on sufficiently early to be warm when you want it to be, not an hour later.
posted by wierdo at 10:37 AM on April 4, 2018
Less expensive Honeywells work great. If you wanted to splash out on an expensive "smart" model, utility companies have rebate programs.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:42 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:42 AM on April 4, 2018
Those are probably hot water or maybe electric. You can probably be successful by getting a programmable thermostat and figuring out how to do a temperature setback for nighttime hours.
posted by TrialByMedia at 10:43 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by TrialByMedia at 10:43 AM on April 4, 2018
Have you taken the cover off and looked to see where the pins are installed on the clock?
posted by tman99 at 10:47 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tman99 at 10:47 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
When you're shopping, learn the lesson that I recently learned when shopping for a thermostat: know the difference between a low-voltage thermostat and a line-voltage one. Low voltage just has some low power and signal wires, while line-voltage uses the full 120V of your house power.
Yours is low-voltage; avoid anything labelled line voltage. Low is the most common sort, particularly for whole unit thermostats; line voltage thermostats are more typical for one-thermostat-per-heater, such as in-wall heaters.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:51 AM on April 4, 2018
Yours is low-voltage; avoid anything labelled line voltage. Low is the most common sort, particularly for whole unit thermostats; line voltage thermostats are more typical for one-thermostat-per-heater, such as in-wall heaters.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:51 AM on April 4, 2018
Response by poster: I think for the time being I'm going to try resetting the clock rather than replacing the thermostat. The landlord is already splashing out on replacing all my windows (a thing that he honestly should have done a few years ago), and between better windows and a properly-set clock, that...may make a difference. If that still doesn't seem to help I'll call the super about maybe replacing it rather than my trying to muck about.
Will report back when I'm home and have tried setting the thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:55 AM on April 4, 2018
Will report back when I'm home and have tried setting the thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:55 AM on April 4, 2018
Also bear in mind that the only information the thermostat has about the temperature of your house is the temperature right where it is at. If that's some distance from your bedrooms, and especially if your bedroom doors are closed, there's really nothing to stop heroic quantities of heat being dumped in the bedrooms until the room where the thermostat is comes up to the set temperature.
If the house temperature is actually OK but the bedrooms are consistently too warm as the heating gets going and you're completely certain that the baseboard units have hot water running through them rather than their own heating elements and you can't find any valves on the baseboard units that would let you choke their water flow some, you can calm them down by just blanketing them for part of their length. You can use actual blankets for this.
Do not under any circumstances do that to any radiator that has an electric element inside the actual heater. A blanketed section of a hot water radiator can't get any hotter than the hottest non-blanketed section on the same water loop, but a blanketed electric element can get hot enough to start fires.
posted by flabdablet at 11:47 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
If the house temperature is actually OK but the bedrooms are consistently too warm as the heating gets going and you're completely certain that the baseboard units have hot water running through them rather than their own heating elements and you can't find any valves on the baseboard units that would let you choke their water flow some, you can calm them down by just blanketing them for part of their length. You can use actual blankets for this.
Do not under any circumstances do that to any radiator that has an electric element inside the actual heater. A blanketed section of a hot water radiator can't get any hotter than the hottest non-blanketed section on the same water loop, but a blanketed electric element can get hot enough to start fires.
posted by flabdablet at 11:47 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: As others have said, if the bedroom doors are closed, the temperature in the bedrooms will have no effect on the thermostat; if it's cool in the room with the thermostat, the heat will stay on until it reaches the right temperature.
However, the hydronic baseboard heaters have a moving part - the airfoil damper, a thin louvered piece of metal running their length - that can be used to regulate the heat. If you turn it so the gaps are narrow, you reduce the air flow through the radiator vanes and therefore the amount of heat that gets transferred to the air as it cycles through the radiator. (There will still be some heat flow, from conduction and radiation, but less.) So if you want it to stay cozy in other rooms without making the bedrooms too hot, make sure the dampers are open in the other rooms and partially closed in the bedrooms. Adjust until you're satisfied.
posted by brianogilvie at 12:15 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
However, the hydronic baseboard heaters have a moving part - the airfoil damper, a thin louvered piece of metal running their length - that can be used to regulate the heat. If you turn it so the gaps are narrow, you reduce the air flow through the radiator vanes and therefore the amount of heat that gets transferred to the air as it cycles through the radiator. (There will still be some heat flow, from conduction and radiation, but less.) So if you want it to stay cozy in other rooms without making the bedrooms too hot, make sure the dampers are open in the other rooms and partially closed in the bedrooms. Adjust until you're satisfied.
posted by brianogilvie at 12:15 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: However, the hydronic baseboard heaters have a moving part - the airfoil damper, a thin louvered piece of metal running their length - that can be used to regulate the heat. If you turn it so the gaps are narrow, you reduce the air flow through the radiator vanes and therefore the amount of heat that gets transferred to the air as it cycles through the radiator.
....!....
Is there some sort of picture you could link me to showing where I would find such a thing and what it would look like?....that sounds really promising.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:23 PM on April 4, 2018
....!....
Is there some sort of picture you could link me to showing where I would find such a thing and what it would look like?....that sounds really promising.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:23 PM on April 4, 2018
This video from This Old House shows the baseboard mechanism and the damper is around 0:21.
posted by papayaninja at 12:37 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by papayaninja at 12:37 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you prefer a diagram to a video, it's the part labeled #5 on the first image on this page.
posted by brianogilvie at 2:28 PM on April 4, 2018
posted by brianogilvie at 2:28 PM on April 4, 2018
It pivots, though if it hasn't been used lately, it might be sticky.
posted by brianogilvie at 2:28 PM on April 4, 2018
posted by brianogilvie at 2:28 PM on April 4, 2018
Response by poster: Welp: I just tried futzing with the baseboard covers in my room, but then remembered that the super just painted them all (they were seriously dirty, and he did that when he painted my room) and the covers are kinda stuck. But - I was able to set the clock on the thermostat so it has the right time. I also - for the first time actually separated the hot and cold setting bar/switch/thingies at the top so that one was at a maximum temperature, and the other was lower; right now, I have 65 as the maximum temp, and like 60 as the cool temp. I'll see what that does.
I'm not entirely sure whether I am setting the thing right using the clock just yet, but I had a brain-breaky day at work today and am going to try again tomorrow.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 PM on April 4, 2018
I'm not entirely sure whether I am setting the thing right using the clock just yet, but I had a brain-breaky day at work today and am going to try again tomorrow.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 PM on April 4, 2018
Response by poster: It was indeed cold in my room last night (almost uncomfortably so). But - I discovered that the top pane of one of my windows was actually open by about an inch, so it may also have been because of that. So I will just monitor things over the next few days.
But the heat didn't inexplicably come on at 5 am again, so that's something, I think...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:45 AM on April 5, 2018
But the heat didn't inexplicably come on at 5 am again, so that's something, I think...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:45 AM on April 5, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zamboni at 7:57 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]