What do you have for heating equipment?
You said 42% humidity, is that your home?
Avg run time?
Do you have another thermomer to compair temp?
i set my tstat at 71* during the day, 68* at night, but my house doesn't feel as warm as others i've been in that are also set at 71*. the RH is 42%, anybody have any ideas as to what i should be looking into?
What do you have for heating equipment?
You said 42% humidity, is that your home?
Avg run time?
Do you have another thermomer to compair temp?
A mental evaluation! J/K!!!
71 is 71. If a house has higher or lower humidity than yours, that can make a difference in how 71 feels...
Drafts. Stratifacation. Insulation quality.
All this stuff goes to comfort.
Did you walk over to the others?
Sorry
My post is sarcastic. Just couldn't resist.
Fishin,
Google on the psychrometic chart. It will explain more the comfort level. And skip all the headache from us.
Another thing which affects some houses -- the thermostat may be in error or located on a wall which misrepresents the actual house temperature. My own house has some unusual construction which sure looks pretty but causes the thermostat to think it's located on an exterior wall. Measuring the wall temperature with an infrared thermometer tells me in cold weather this wall is chronically several degrees colder than other interior walls. You might have a thermostat problem like mine, or some other measurement problem.
Another thing I have observed is master bathroom being 4 degrees cooler than the thermostat. I am a homeowner not a pro and am still trying to get a handle on that situation. In some houses at least, the room-by-room heating loads are not in proportion to the cooling loads. If the duct system is sized right for cooling then you cannot help but have a winter problem with temperature variation between rooms. Just throwing this out, not at all thinking this is your problem.
Best of luck -- Pstu
There could definitely be a difference between what your old stat and your new stat think is 71 degrees. I had a new furnace, A/C, and Honeywell stat installed in 2005. I set it to the same temps as my old stat. I was cold all winter, always turning up the setting. This summer, I was cold as well.
I finally decided to compare the room temp that my new stat was registering with an independent thermometer as well as my old stat. I just put batteries in my old stat and set it to 'Off'. I used my old stat since I knew that I liked the settings on it. I put the thermometer and old stat near the new stat. When the new stat was showing 72 degrees, the old stat and thermometer were showing 70 degrees.
I have a very nice Honeywell stat that allows me to vary the readout by plus/minus 3 degrees so I programmed it to change the offset by 2 degrees. I had not thought that this would even be an issue since I assumed the new 'digital' sensor would be very accurate. If this is your problem and you cannot adjust with an offset, you can just bump the setting to xx degrees to get the temperature that you are used to. Good luck.
Like some people already said the way the house is insulated is where you might feel a difference... Humidity has an effact as well... But try using a differant thermometer to make sure theres nothing wrong with your t-stat..
and take the same thermometer with you when you visit to compare.Very hard to compare different houses. If you're not comfy at 71 in your house,adjust the t-stat till you are.
If everything was always done "by the book"....the book would never change.
The type of heating will certainly affect this.
A house with baseboard or in-floor radiant, set at 71F, will feel much warmer than a house with gas/oil forced air set at same temperature, which will feel warmer than a house with an air/air HP at same temperature.
People say 71 is 71 but I say bollocks... If the system moves the air at a certain speed it will feel colder, if it moves the air even faster, it will feel colder still. It's called windchill. And even if the distribution system is perfect on a forced air system, there is still air moving from the supplies to the returns even if the vents aren't pointing 'at you.'
As was stated, check the actual temps in the actual rooms with a thermometer. Don't go by the thermostat. It may be in a bad location or be inaccurate. Be sure to compare apples to apples, like heating systems.
As was stated, insulation and drafts play a huge roll. If the room temp is 71 but the window you are sitting next to has a huge leak, it will feel cold! Even a cold wall will make you feel cold even though the 'average' temp in the house is fine.
Also if it's forced air and the system is oversized, it will 1) blow more air over the same time, increasing velocity and 'windchill' and 2) run less therefore leaving some rooms cold while satisfying other rooms.
If you have gas/oil there is some flexibility in slowing the blower but this is best left to a tech that can assess the distribution system as well as the heat rise of the heat exchanger. You have to stay in tolerance.
[Edited by fortressofcomfort on 11-06-2006 at 01:41 PM]
the tstat is correct in it's reading and location. the heating system is a 92% gas unit. i questioned it being oversized since the load cal says 64k and the unit is 100k instead of 75k the hvac guy says that's what needed to work with 3.5 ton ac. i thought about the air infilltration, the attic has r-38 cellulose, it may have settled some? anyone heard on blowing fiberglass over cellulose? i looked at the psychrometic chart and don't understand it at all.
I would say drafts is the main culprit. I live in a house with 2x4 outside walls and no housewrap. Though not felt as like you would expect drafts to feel like, it can make your 71 feel colder.
SRJ
house also has house wrap.
how big is the hole in the wall the thermostat wires come through? is it well sealed?
Perhaps the other homes have large unsealed holes and are actually reading the temp of the draft up the wall cavity, thereby, with an actual room temp of 73, the thermostat reads 71.
???
An oversized furnace will short cycle, and may lead to temp swing. Is it a two stage furnace?
Not knowing what brand it is, most unit next size would of been able to handle the 3.5 ton A/C.
tempstar with two stage furnace
Got a two stage t-stat on it?Originally posted by fishin
tempstar with two stage furnace
i believe so, by that i mean in the morning when it comes on (to get to the wake setting) it is putting out more cfms / heat, then it slows down after it has run awhile. once it reaches set point it won't ramp up until the next morning.
Sounds like you do have two stage t-stat.Originally posted by fishin
i believe so, by that i mean in the morning when it comes on (to get to the wake setting) it is putting out more cfms / heat, then it slows down after it has run awhile. once it reaches set point it won't ramp up until the next morning.