EcoRenovator - Does it make SENSE, to monitor your homes energy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wanna Beco (Post 63905)

So, something interesting. I have the ecobee. With that device, there is no way to set the AC to come on at a specific time. I have looked into this quite a bit and can find no solutions.

With my power company we have a time of use plan, and between 3pm and 8pm are our highest prices on electricity usage. Ideally I would run the AC during those hours for 10 minutes each hour and keep the house at a more even temp. As it is now, I go from a 75F setting at 2pm to an 82F setting at 3 where it remains until 8PM.

The problem is the AC takes a longer time to recover at 8 and we are pretty uncomfortable from 3 to 8. To combat this I tried something a bit different. There is a setting to keep the air circulating with just the fan on. I have the fan running 24/7. Also I changed the temp for that time period from 82 to 80. We have been more comfortable as you can imagine. The hit to the power bill was 6 bucks more this month than the same month last year. I think Six bucks is worth it. OH, and according to Sense, my fan uses 100 watts an hour to use. No perfect but not bad.

The only way to run it like you want may be to use Smartthings. I know it has more control over thermostats than some apps do.

As for running the fan continuously with the AC on that will increase the indoor humidity.

If you want to cut back to running the unit less in those hours you will need to have a larger AC unit installed to cut down on the cool down time. The system is sized to maintain a constant temp. Without the larger unit it is going to take hours to recover as everything in the house now has to start cooling off again.
What you can do if you want to run it less during those hours is to cool the house off more at night so the unit doesn't have to run nearly as much during the day and it won't be as warm inside so recovery time is much lower.