Thermostat Selection

[csvt_2004]

Trying to find a thermostat with adjustable temperature swing. For example +/- degree settings. Most are about .5 degree +/-. Example set temp is 70, temp drops to 69.5, heat turns on, runs till 70.5 then off. I'd like to not have a lot of short cycling of my heater. Would be nice if it was say 3 degrees +/-. Set temp 70 turns on at 67, runs till 73. I have a garage heater and it's probably a little oversized, just want to keep it from cycling all winter for short times.

Bonus if it's a WiFi thermostat.

 

[rlitman]

Most thermostats have adjustable hysteresis. It's necessary, because electric baseboards for example do fine with a short cycle, but oil fired steam radiators, not so much.

Once you go with a smart WiFi system, things get even more interesting. For example, Ecobee has a wider band when unoccupied than when occupied, but you can adjust the delta as well, plus it is able to detect short cycling too.

 

[johnnyradiant]

That 6° of swing I think would be a tad uncomfortable. What is the heat source and how much heat are you loosing to no sealing or no insulation? Short cycling can also be a sign of a mistake in the installation of the equipment or too large a heat source for the application. From a consumption perspective that much swing might even be enough to consume more energy for a mean temp than a shallower swing for the same mean temp.

 

[csvt_2004]

That 6° of swing I think would be a tad uncomfortable. What is the heat source and how much heat are you loosing to no sealing or no insulation? Short cycling can also be a sign of a mistake in the installation of the equipment or too large a heat source for the application. From a consumption perspective that much swing might even be enough to consume more energy for a mean temp than a shallower swing for the same mean temp.

I have a Beacon Morris 45K BTU NG heater in my garage. About 20'x22'x10', walls and ceiling are insulated. This will be the first year I'm using it.

Was looking at amazon.com/gp/product/B00JWRZKN4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[AldeanFan]

I have a mr heater 50k hanging furnace in my 20x20 garage.
My thermostat is the cheapest programable unit the hardware store had, a Honeywell.

I had to go in to the settings and change the cycle time. I think is set it up for hot water or oil heat, whatever had the longest cycle time. Now it only comes on every 20 minutes at the most.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TonyJ]

I made my own for my garage that is fully adjustable and can also be used for heating or cooling. I wired it up to control the coil of a small magnetic starter then the magnetic starter sends power to whatever I have plugged up to it. Torpedo heater and fan for moving the air around.

 

[Bert_]

I went through this with the thermostat in my house. It had a maybe 10-year-old Honeywell programmable. I never liked it. It would cycle once every 15 minutes. Even messing with the cycles per hour setting wouldn't really change it. I tried setting it to one cycles per hour which is intended for steam heat and it would still cycle several times an hour.

I scrounged up a mercury thermostat and an extremely happy now. It hardly ever runs more than once an hour now, even in the dead of winter. I'm not really sure what the temperature range is but it's definitely not noticeable.

This would all be much less of an issue with a properly sized furnace. The one in my house is probably 1 1/2 - 2x the size it needs to be. But honestly with the longer cycle times it works pretty well.

 

[HouseDadLife]

Trying to find a thermostat with adjustable temperature swing. For example +/- degree settings. Most are about .5 degree +/-. Example set temp is 70, temp drops to 69.5, heat turns on, runs till 70.5 then off. I'd like to not have a lot of short cycling of my heater. Would be nice if it was say 3 degrees +/-. Set temp 70 turns on at 67, runs till 73. I have a garage heater and it's probably a little oversized, just want to keep it from cycling all winter for short times.

Bonus if it's a WiFi thermostat.

Just installed an Ecobee, it lets you do this, and a bunch of other things. Has WiFi, integrates with smart home.

 

[bored350]

I have a Honeywell Lyric T5 that I have been thrilled with. It can be picked up as cheap as $50 new if you are patient in your search. I recall when setting it up that it allowed a program able temperature window like what you are looking for.
https://www.honeywellstore.com/store/products/honeywell-lyric-5-thermostat-rcht8610wf2006w.htm

 

[yeldogt]

I made my own for my garage that is fully adjustable and can also be used for heating or cooling. I wired it up to control the coil of a small magnetic starter then the magnetic starter sends power to whatever I have plugged up to it. Torpedo heater and fan for moving the air around.

they are great little devices .... I have a few and will be getting a couple for my new system ... just to play around

 

[Jking24]

I have the echobee in my house and it pretty much every parameter is adjustable. The hysteresis being one of them

 

[csvt_2004]

I ended up going EcoBee as my utility had a discount through them and they were on sale for BF.

I was able to set a 3* swing on my garage thermostat. Also the Ecobee gives some pretty awesome statistics you can also pull down to an Excel sheet. Plus it's WiFi so I can control most functions from my phone. There are some finer items like temp swing that has to be done at the thermostat. I locked it with a pin code too.

Both my thermostats came with sensors. I ended up using both with my indoor thermostat as the garage is small enough I don't need to know if it's occupied. Plus I have it set to a hold temp in the garage so it doesn't need extra sensors for that. The sensors let my inside thermostat know which room is occupied and then adjusts the thermostat to try and keep those occupied areas at temp. It's pretty nice.

 

[Denwood]

I've installed about 19 of the Ecobee 3 and 3 Lite in various sites..they are dead reliable, have great information via the web portal, and also integrate very well with automation. Great product.

 

[Smoghat]

Love my Ecobees.

 

[TractorJeff]

I looked inside my Shop Thermostat this morning. The "Hysteresis" (?) Dial is adjustable from 0.18 to 1.2. Are these Degrees? Or a Multiplier of some type?
Mine is Factory set to 0.4. I have commented before that it seems to run quite often for short cycles. Will moving this closer to 1.2 (raise to 0.7) lessen the Short Cycles?

 

[Bert_]

I looked inside my Shop Thermostat this morning. The "Hysteresis" (?) Dial is adjustable from 0.18 to 1.2. Are these Degrees? Or a Multiplier of some type?
Mine is Factory set to 0.4. I have commented before that it seems to run quite often for short cycles. Will moving this closer to 1.2 (raise to 0.7) lessen the Short Cycles?

Sounds like the anticipator. The numbers are current in amps. I believe you are supposed to start with it set to the amount of current used by the gas valve or control board.

You can adjust it to a higher number for longer cycles.

 

[TractorJeff]

Yeah, waiting for Brunch to be served I GOOGLED this Rabbit Hole!
I am going to Amp Test the leads like most articles state to see how close the value is to the 0.4, its set at. I wouldn't mind if the Run Temps were a little lower/higher as I believe it would run a little longer helping to stabilize the Heat Exchanger temps.