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Old 10-30-10, 09:00 AM   #1
RobertSmalls
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Default Heating just the master bedroom

I direct most of the furnace's airflow to my bedroom. With the bedroom door closed at night, the rest of the house gets nice and chilly (less wasted energy). With the door open while I'm home during the day, the living room and kitchen are warm enough.

However, with the thermostat in the living room, it was really hard to control the temperature in the bedroom. I ended up having to switch it on and off manually. I've corrected that by adding thermostat wiring in parallel, i.e. an OR gate, and moving my thermostat to the bedroom. I'll add a second thermostat to the living room if it looks like things might freeze out there.

If I didn't live alone, I would probably have to go with a home automation system (and I still might). But the result would be similar: heat the bedroom for 13 hours a day, and the rest of the house for just 5 hours a day M-F. If you can handle having breakfast in the cold, those hours are consecutive.

I could achieve satisfactory results from a home automation system with just two temperature sensors, one in-duct actuator, and one thermostat wire hookup.

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Old 10-30-10, 10:02 AM   #2
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I'd highly recommend automation. Can you do it manually? Yeah. But, its a pain in the butt. Then, you have people come over or some other unusual instance and you aren't setup to handle that and its more of a pain. IMO automation is the way to go. I don't know about you, but I don't have time every day to be messing around with this and that (it adds up quick if you do a few projects like this).
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Old 11-06-10, 08:08 AM   #3
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The new thermostat location works so much better than the old location. However, the heating duct for my room blows right on the thermostat, which was causing it to cycle on and off way too rapidly, reducing furnace efficiency. I enclosed the thermostat's temperature sensor with shipping tape, slowing the thermostat's transient response to a more appropriate level. You can probably use this technique if you want to increase the allowable temperature swing of a thermostat that doesn't give you that option in software.

Daox, you mentioned home automation. Where can I read more about that? Considering the tiny number of inputs (2) and outputs (1) required to balance the temperature of my room vs. the living room, it might just be affordable and doable.
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Old 11-06-10, 08:51 AM   #4
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The site I normally go to to look at home automation stuff is:

Smarthome - Home Automation, X10, Remote Control, Lighting, Wireless Security

I think the two thermostat idea sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure how your ducts are setup, but it might be able to be done with a simple relay setup and some electronic duct dampers.
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Old 11-06-10, 10:18 AM   #5
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Is the bedroom small enough that it might actually make more sense to use an electric heater in there and turn off the furnace entirely? How often and for how long does the furnace run?

You also might be a candidate for one of these: Amazon.com: Twin Draft Guard Brown: Kitchen & Dining
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Old 11-06-10, 09:40 PM   #6
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The bedroom is perhaps 150ft², out of the 500ft² of conditioned plus 300ft² semi-conditioned space in my house. I've been thinking about electric, but I would need it to be a thermostatically controlled electric space heater. Also, I do need the furnace to keep the house warm five hours a day, and to keep the house from dropping below freezing while I'm not home. Not that it would drop 30°F in 19 hours, but I do want automated safeguards like a thermostat and a furnace in place.

The furnace is grossly oversized, as is the house, actually. It comes on for less than 15 minutes at a time, probably every few hours this time of year.
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Old 11-07-10, 12:59 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertSmalls View Post
The furnace is grossly oversized, as is the house, actually. It comes on for less than 15 minutes at a time, probably every few hours this time of year.
It was exactly this situation that prompted me to get a Mini-Split.

The 'Inverter Technology' Mini-Splits are able to run at higher power until they approach the pre-defined comfort level and then, gradually reduce power until they reach a temperature balance, where they continue to run, whisper quiet and very comfortable.

For me I found that I was much more comfortable, my gas bill dropped to near zero, and my electrical bill was hardly any higher than before.

-AC_Hacker
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Old 11-07-10, 08:56 AM   #8
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Whether I go with electric resistance heating or a heat pump, I definitely want a differential controller, so as to avoid the uncomfortable cycling on and off of a furnace.

Mini split ASHP? Hmm, will that still work well when it's below freezing out?

Mini split GSHP? Hmm, that does sound more efficient, but dramatically more expensive.

I guess it's time for me to read http://ecorenovator.org/forum/projec...manifesto.html .
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Old 11-07-10, 02:37 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertSmalls View Post
The bedroom is perhaps 150ft², out of the 500ft² of conditioned plus 300ft² semi-conditioned space in my house. I've been thinking about electric, but I would need it to be a thermostatically controlled electric space heater. Also, I do need the furnace to keep the house warm five hours a day, and to keep the house from dropping below freezing while I'm not home. Not that it would drop 30°F in 19 hours, but I do want automated safeguards like a thermostat and a furnace in place.

The furnace is grossly oversized, as is the house, actually. It comes on for less than 15 minutes at a time, probably every few hours this time of year.
I'd definitely want to look at the electric option for the bedroom then. The furnace is probably working extra hard pumping heat only into the bedroom.

I had a couple of weeks where my wife and son were out of town, so I experimented with something similar. I had a small space heater in the bedroom, and turned the furnace down to 40 degrees at night and while I was away, upping it to 65 when I was up and around. The electric heater wasn't thermostatically controlled, but I found that leaving it on a very low setting, coupled with an extra blanket, made things quite comfortable.

I also turned down the water heater to a temperature where I could take 'navy showers' with just the hot water faucet, and moderated the use of the lights to just the room I was occupying.

Both the gas and electric bills for that month were down almost 50%.
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Old 11-09-10, 05:18 PM   #10
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I wonder how much of the heat produced by my furnace is currently making it upstairs. I turned on the furnace and headed to the basement with a wet hand ready to check for duct leaks... well, I didn't need a wet hand. About a third of the duct joints in the basement leak lots of hot air.

If you haven't, then check your ducts for leaks, and go buy a roll of metal foil duct tape.

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