better to turn thermostat down or leave as is?

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yankeeslover

New Member
Nov 20, 2009
7
upstate ny
I know this has probably been beating to death, but I have not been able to find any post..I have a Harman p68 that I purchased about 4 years ago, it is my only source of heat..until now, I have always kept at room temp(70) all winter long, but have been throwing around the idea of turning it down at night and during the day...the only issue with this, is that the stove burns alot of pellets when it restarts, will I save pellets turning down? or am I just better off kepping it at the 70? I was gonna turn down to around 63-65 at night and day...and also, if im constantly turning that knob, will that eventually wear out the circuit board? thanks for the help..
 
my 2 cents...

I throttle it back at night and while the house is empty. But the outside temperature dictates how much to throttle it back. When it's 40 degrees, I can put it on it's lowest setting and it will keep the house somewhere in the low 60s. When I come home, I crank it up and it won't take long to get it back to 70.

If it's in the teens, however, it going to be much harder for the stove to keep the temp up on the lowest setting, and will take much longer to raise the temp of the house overall. So in this case, I'll set it about midway maybe. I think you'll need to experiment, but I'd think throttling it back will be more pellet-effective than both keeping it burning high and/or shutting it down completely.

hope that helps.
 
I have both my pellet stoves on programable t-stats. We turn down from 68-70 degrees to 62 degrees at bedtime and when we are away from home. The program brings the heat back up 1 hour before we wake in the morning and before we return home from work..plenty of time to get the house comfortable. The rule of thumb is that for every 1 degree= 3 percent of energy saved, so in my case I figure we save 18% energy for 16 hrs per day vs. leaving the t-stat at 70 degrees 24/7. Your mileage may vary.
 
If your worried about pellet consumption you should consider running the stove in manual mode constantly rather then letting it come on and off periodically throughout the day.
 
I too have a programable t-stat and I have it set to come up from 65 overnight to 70, 1 hour before we get up and back down to 65, 1/2 hour after we leave for work. One hour prior to getting home it comes back up to 70 until 1/2 hour past bed time. During the coldest part of the winter I just have to make sure that the hopper is full when I leave for work and when I go to bed at night. Just in case something were to happen to the stove, the regular furnace is set at 62 degrees at all times. If we leave for a weekend, I reverse the t-stats so the oil furnace takes over with the pellet stove as a backup.
 
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