Smart Thermostats: What Does Recovery Mode Mean?
In a quest to improve the energy efficiency of your HVAC system, you may have installed a smart thermostat to control your system. While these devices offer many useful features to keep your Nacogdoches home comfortable, they can take a little getting used to.
One feature that confuses many people is something that’s called “recovery mode.” This feature is a perfectly normal part of your thermostat’s operation and is actually part of what helps maintain your system’s energy efficiency.
Understanding Temperature Settings
Whether you use a smart thermostat or a basic programmable thermostat, the goal is the same: to try to reduce the amount of time that your HVAC system operates. When you aren’t home, your system doesn’t need to keep your home at the same level of comfort that it does when you are home.
For example, during the summer, you might have your air conditioner set for 72 degrees while you’re home. While you’re away, though, this temperature might be closer to 78 or even 80 degrees. This major difference in temperatures allows your HVAC system to operate much less frequently, saving you a lot of money.
Keeping You Comfortable
Although 78 degrees is a fine temperature while you’re away, it is a little warm while you’re home. Since your system can’t immediately change the temperature right when you walk in the door, it has to begin lowering the temperature of your home before you arrive. This time of automatically lowering the temperature is what’s called “recovery mode.”
Smart thermostats have a leg up over conventional programmable thermostats when it comes to recovery mode because they can learn insights into their own effectiveness over time. For example, if you want your house to be at 72 degrees at 4 o’clock, the thermostat will try to control the system so that those two variables converge at the correct moment. However, if your home reaches 72 degrees before or after 4 o’clock on a certain day, the thermostat will learn from this mistake so that it can be more precise in the future.
Constantly Learning
Another feature of smart thermostats is that they can automatically learn your normal patterns of living. Using proximity sensors and Wi-Fi synchronization, smart thermostats can automatically determine the times when you’re typically home and when you’re typically away. This allows your smart thermostat to set itself so that you don’t overlook times when you could be saving energy.
Given what you already know about recovery mode in programmable thermostats, it’s important to note that smart thermostats will likely be in recovery mode more often than conventional programmable thermostats, especially when you have your smart thermostat set to program itself.
This means that you could notice your thermostat in recovery mode while you’re at home because it knows it’s only a few minutes until the time you normally leave for the day. Therefore, it’s already beginning to change the temperature of your home so that less energy is wasted. Of course, if your plans have changed, you can override this setting so that your home stays at its current temperature.
Monitor From Your Phone
Another great feature of smart thermostats is that you can monitor their status at any time from your smartphone. This allows you to check the temperature throughout the day to ensure that your system is operating as expected.
By checking in as it gets closer to the time for you to be home, you will quickly learn the patterns of operation of your HVAC system, including when recovery mode kicks in. This will help you determine if you need to change your temperature settings or if your system is working optimally to produce peak efficiency.
Smart Thermostats and So Much More
At Nacogdoches Sheet Metal, Plumbing & Air Conditioning, LTD., we believe that every person deserves an efficient and comfortable home. That’s why we want you to properly understand your smart thermostat so that you can use it to its full effectiveness. Regardless of the type of thermostat you have, though, we can help keep your HVAC system efficient with our full range of air conditioner and furnace services. We also offer plumbing and water heater services.
Our services ensure that you always know who to turn to for quality and reliable home services. With over 70 years of experience in the industry, you can be sure that we can take care of any job, no matter how challenging. Additionally, we are proud to be a member of the Disabled Veteran Business Alliance as well as an accredited member of the Better Business Bureau.
For further proof of our commitment to our customers, look no further than our long list of five-star reviews from satisfied citizens of Nacogdoches, TX, and the surrounding areas. We can help with any of your heating, cooling, and plumbing needs. If you want to improve your home’s efficiency with a smart thermostat, give us a call at Nacogdoches Sheet Metal, Plumbing & Air Conditioning, LTD. today.