To program a room thermostat correctly can be an excellent way to optimize resources and save on your bills.
Room thermostat or chronothermostat?
First of all, before thinking about programming, we need to understand what type of product is installed in our homes or offices. In fact, both room thermostat and chronothermostat (or programmable room thermostat) are necessary to detect and regulate the temperature in a room or in an area: depending on the set value, the appliance communicates the request to the boiler and, when the temperature is reached, the thermostat detects it, commanding the system to deactivate the heating elements. Most room thermostats work with an ON/OFF logic and a set temperature when needed.
The chronothermostat, on the other hand, as its name suggests, adds a “time” variable, or programming, to this logic. This allows you to set one or more desired temperatures at different times of the day and/or days of the week.
In this article, therefore, we will deal with the programming of the chronothermostats, but some ideas will still be useful to optimize the operation of even the simplest room thermostats.
Why is it important to program a room thermostat correctly?
This operation, often underestimated, is actually very important: every degree of centigrade more, in fact, can affect consumption by up to + 10%. In general, therefore, we suggest setting 18-19°C as the maximum temperature for the day and 16°C for the night, putting in place other valuable tips to improve comfort and prepare for the winter season.
Program a chronothermostat
The programming possibilities of a chronothermostat depend on the manufacturer: there are daily programmable room thermostats that allow a temperature programming that will be repeated every day, unless you intervene manually, and weekly programmable room thermostats, which instead allow you to customize the programming for the whole week, depending on your habits.
For example, it might be useful to turn on the heat later or longer on weekends than on working days.
Here are some “tricks” to perfect the programming, valid for most of the models on the market.
Read the instruction manual
It may seem trivial, yet it is so: accurate programming, first of all, involves in-depth knowledge of the potential of your device, thermostat or chronothermostat, and also of your boiler.
In addition to ensuring proper maintenance of the system, you may have missed some special features, such as a more ecological operating mode, programming on different temperature ranges, and much more…
For IMIT thermostats and chronothermostats, a portal has been created that collects the instruction manuals of our most popular products: search for yours here.
Reaching the desired temperature
Before proceeding with programming, it is necessary to know the reaction time of the system. This depends on the size of the room to be heated, the presence of a sufficient number of heating elements, the starting temperature of the room, the external temperature, the presence of drafts, the total demand for the home…
These parameters vary from house to house, but as a rule, it takes from one hour to three hours for an environment to reach the right temperature.
Consider this in programming, even if some models of chronothermostat “learn” to do it independently.
Manual mode
In most of the models on the market, there is the possibility of manually controlling the chronothermostat. Although it seems a contradiction, this mode is useful in mid-seasons, by checking your local regulations when switching on the systems, or in rooms or areas that are rarely used.
It is only necessary to set the desired temperature, once reached, it will be the task of the thermostat to maintain it, by commanding the system to be switched on or off. In this mode, you just need to pay attention to remember to turn off the thermostat at the end of the stay and avoid drafts or temperature changes, to limit the demands on the system and consequently avoidable energy consumption.
Habits
Taking note of our habits and of those who live or work with us is the first step for proper planning.
What time do you wake up? Which rooms do you use at certain times of the day or week? Are your working hours constant? What are the timetable of your family members? Are you smart working? Do you have a living area and a sleeping area that are controlled separately? Are you more at home or away during the weekend? These are all questions to ask yourself in order to draw up a weekly program and apply it to your thermostat, reminding you that when needed it is possible to switch to manual mode for an “extra request” to the system.
Here, consider that for absences of up to an hour, it is not advisable to lower the temperature very much.
Special functions
There are models with special functions that can meet our needs. For example, there is the “boost” function, which allows you to activate the heating elements in an area for a limited period of time, then returning to the usual programming immediately afterwards.
There is the geolocation function which, thanks to the connection with the smartphone, allows us to know our position and to go into energy saving mode when we are not at home and even to activate the heating when we are approaching. In this case, pay attention to which phone you use for the connection, if you do not want to find yourself in the cold at unexpected moments of the day!
There are also thermostats with TPI technology, which allow the boiler ignition time to be reduced: the closer the room temperature approaches the required one, the more the thermostat calculates how much time is actually needed to reach it, keeping the boiler on just as long as it serves.
Finally, the most advanced technology at the moment is the one that uses the OpenTherm protocol: an OpenTherm thermostat is able to receive and send information relating to the ambient temperature to specific boilers with flame modulation, to overcome the simple on/off state of the system, to obtain a more targeted response to heating requests, guaranteeing considerable savings on the bill.
Holidays and vacations
If you are going on vacation or on holidays, you need to review the programming of the chronothermostat. It is good practice to remind yourself before each trip to set the off, manual or antifreeze mode (in case of colder temperatures).
The opposite is true for the holiday season spent at home: in that case it will be necessary to decide whether it is more convenient to change the entire programming or whether to switch to manual mode (remembering to return to the previous settings after).
In case you want to replace the thermostat or the chronothermostat, for a more precise temperature regulation, we refer you to our dedicated articles:
- How to replace an old room thermostat
- How to choose the right room thermostat for classic and underfloor heating systems
- How to choose the right room thermostat for combined heating and cooling systems
- Why do choose a radio thermostat?
To find out more about our products for comfort, browse our website, download our catalog below or preview the instruction manuals. For further requests, send an email to info@imit.it. Our staff will reply as soon as possible.