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What Do Different Thermostat Modes/Settings Mean?

Having the luxury of a centralized air conditioning system can ensure that your family stays nice and cool during the hot summer months. However, it’s essential to take some time and fully understand what all of these settings on your thermostat mean. This will allow you to set it in an optimal manner for both your family’s comfort and your energy savings.

Temperature

Probably the most crucial setting on your entire thermostat is the temperature setting. This setting allows you to pick the exact temperature you want your house to be at any given time throughout the day. Most experts recommend setting your thermostat to 78 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months. When you set your thermostat to 78 degrees, anytime the temperature in your home reads above that, your air conditioning system will kick on to cool your home down.

Cool vs. Heat

There are two main functions that your thermostat has. These are the cool function and the heat function. As you’ve likely guessed, the cool setting is for air conditioning, and the heat setting is for warming up your home. While these settings are fairly straightforward, it’s important that you understand where they are on your thermostat.

It’s not uncommon when you go to switch from the winter to the summer to forget to switch your thermostat to the cool function. If you’re having issues with getting cold air out of your system when you first start it for the summer season, make sure that you check to ensure that you switch from the heat function to the cool function.

Contrary to what most homeowners think, the heating and air conditioning system can run without being on either the heat or the cool function. Your system can simply run the fan to help circulate the air throughout your home. This is important when you want to remove things like a stagnant air smell from certain rooms that don’t get very much traffic.

Auto vs. On

Two functions that tend to confuse most homeowners are the “auto” setting and the “on” setting. While at first glance, you may think that you want to set your system to the “on” position, that’s not typically the case. When you set your thermostat to the “on” setting, it will run consistently all day, every day, until you change the function.

Most people don’t realize that the “on” function doesn’t utilize the temperature function that you set. It will completely ignore the temperature function and just continue to run until you manually stop it. The setting is perfect for circulating air throughout your home without changing the inside temperature. However, due to the fact that this setting causes your system to run consistently, it consumes a lot of energy.

The auto setting is where you’re going to want to have your air conditioning unit the majority of the time. When your system is on “auto” mode, it will utilize the temperature that you programmed into it to determine if it should be running or not. For example, if you program your temperature to 78 degrees and the indoor temperature is 80 degrees, the auto setting will kick your air conditioning unit on. It will allow the system to run until the interior temperature reaches 78 degrees. Then, the auto setting will tell your air conditioning system to turn off. This setting is ideal for optimal energy savings.

Away vs. Home

Two newer settings that homeowners are finding with smart thermostats are away and home. If you have a smart thermostat, you know that you can easily program it to be at different temperatures, depending on whether you’re physically at home or not. For example, you may have your air conditioner set at 78 degrees for when you’re at home. However, you can have your thermostat go up to 88 degrees when you’re not at home so that you save yourself money. If the indoor temperature is 88 degrees and your thermostat is set to 88, your system won’t run.

Smart thermostats utilize your smartphone’s location to determine where you are in regard to your home. If it senses that you’re within a certain distance of your home, it will alter the settings on your thermostat to the ones that you use when you’re at home. When you leave the house, the smart thermostat will pick that up. It will change the settings on your thermostat to be whatever you have programmed them to be when you’re not at home.

Reputable AC Services

All Temp Co., Inc Air Conditioning, Heating, Plumbing, & Electrical is proud to serve the Concord community with all of its air conditioning needs. We also specialize in heating, wine cellars, insulation, and energy efficiency services for your home. Just give our friendly and knowledgeable staff a call today to get help on the way.

 

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