How to program a heating thermostat?

In this post we will give you the keys so that you can learn to program a thermostat for heating and so that you get the most out of it, which will lead to having a comfortable home and less energy consumption.

What is programming a thermostat?

A thermostat is a device that allows you to regulate and program the intelligent air conditioning of a room. Broadly speaking, it consists of a central unit, in which the operation is configured and determined, and a probe , which is the part that will measure the temperature of the place.

Throughout the text we will teach you how to program a thermostat, an action that consists of transmitting the appropriate commands to this device so that it works as we want; in román paladín: thermostat programming is fundamentally based on set temperature and operating times of heating.

Advantages of programming your thermostat

There are many types of thermostats and some offer more possibilities than others, but generally, these devices allow you to program on, off, time zones and temperatures.

For example, a thermostat will allow the house to be at 21 degrees from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and at 18 degrees from 11 at night until six in the morning. How to achieve it? Very simple: programming from the central unit so that during these periods of time the temperature does not drop below the set degrees. Of course, it also allows you to determine the complete switching on and off of the heating.

These possibilities offered by thermostats have two main advantages. The first, the comfort which means keeping the home warm, also adapting it to the hours and rhythms of each house. The second, derived from the previous one, considerable energy savings .

Steps to program a heating thermostat

Step 1. Turn on the thermostat and choose the heat option

As it could not be otherwise, the first step to know how to program a thermostat is to Turn it on . If this is your first time using it, you will probably need to enter the correct date and time.

These devices are not only used to program the heating, but some models can regulate the air conditioning in general (that is, provide cold or heat). Therefore, the second thing we are going to do is discover if our thermostat is of that type or if it is only dedicated to heating.

In the first case, we must choose the 'heat' option, common names in these devices to determine that we want to increase the temperature (although it may be something else).

In the second case, which includes the analog thermostats who work with, for example, natural gas boilers , it will not be necessary to order anything else at this point, since they are designed exclusively to regulate heating.

Step 2. Choose usage bands

Depending on the type of thermostat you have, it will offer more or fewer options in this regard. From the most basic models that exist, which only allow one ignition temperature to be programmed, to the most modern, which offer the possibility of set multiple usage bands Depending on each day of the week, there is a wide range.

At this point, the most common thing is that a thermostat offers many possibilities for programming. In this way, it is convenient to think about what our daily and weekly habits to determine the time slots and the temperature that will correspond to each of them.

If, for example, you work outside the home from Monday to Friday, from 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, an optimal schedule would be to set a temperature of 21 degrees from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., when you will be at home, and from 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., 18 degrees, when you sleep and are not at home.

This example would be valid for weekdays, but most thermostats also allow you to program usage periods. during the weekend , when habits usually change, since one tends to spend much more time at home or, on the contrary, one is hardly there (like when taking a getaway). Therefore, it is recommended that you also pay attention to what the most appropriate time slots would be for these days.

Step 3. Set the temperatures for each strip

Once you are clear about what your habits are, you must choose what temperature corresponds for each of them. Although in this post we explain this process as a different step, normally, when configuring a thermostat you must enter the temperature of each time slot according to the programs. Therefore, it is good that, before approaching the thermostat, you have taken a pen and paper to make a previous plan with temperatures and ranges.

Tricks to save when programming the heating thermostat

The Institute for Energy Diversification (IDAE) calculates that households in Spain dedicate 47% of the energy It is consumed during the cold months in heating, a fact that highlights the importance of knowing how to regulate this service to avoid losing money unnecessarily.

The first key to knowing how to program the heating thermostat to save on the electricity bill It is, obviously, knowing your habits well. If you adapt its configuration to your daily rhythms, you will achieve fully optimized use of heating, which will translate into comfort and lower bills.

In addition, it is advisable for the house to maintain a stable minimum temperature and avoid long shutdowns that will require a lot of energy to be consumed to reach the desired degrees.

What types of thermostat can be programmed?

Although there are many more types of thermostats , broadly speaking we can distinguish between analog and digital. The first ones are much simpler and they usually only allow you to adjust the heating. On the contrary, the seconds They offer many more possibilities . In fact, currently they are much more common and in this text we have explained, precisely, how to program a digital thermostat .