A Nest for our Nest

When we bought this condo, we made a deal that we would not remove anything that was in good working order.  This was determined when our kitchen faucet started leaking, and Jenn wanted a new one, but knew it shouldn't happen if it could be fixed.  Alex kindly pointed out that it could be fixed.

So, our existing thermostat received exposure from the sunniest area in our home, and would occasionally read 80 degrees in, you know, December, which meant we would have no heat in any other rooms of the house.  Below is the best photo I could find of the previous setup.  If I had holed up in our hallway of a kitchen, that was no big deal because it was probably 70+ in there anyways, but if we were anywhere else it was not so great and Nyobi and I just huddled under the blankets.  Come to think of it, why did I push to change this arrangement?

The breaking point for me was mid-January, when the thermostat read 73 but the house had to have been 65. So I cranked it up to 74.  When the sun went down, I turned it back to a normal temperature and went about my life.  We experienced some awesomely hot evenings of - 74 (!!!) for the next week or so, which really means I woke up burning up (never happens) and Alex just suffered in his sleep.  It was programmable, and could have been addressed in that way, but we were not going to be able to do anything about the sun, other than moving it to another wall, which would have been even worse because the opposite side of the wall is the office which is already all kinds of hard to use with the fuse box.  Enough, we said.

We ordered a Nest.

It is so shiny and beautiful and perfect and has an app and we can manage the temp from anywhere with it.  That alone is worthwhile, as evidenced by the week I was recently holed up in bed sick.

 It also "learns" our habits and will figure out that, no, people who sleep with a dog and a cat and a good blanket do not need it to be 74 in the night, so even the cold person wakes up sweating.  And, even if the learning did not happen, it would be helpful because there is an option that we can turn on and it ignores a turn of "Sun Beats Down" (yes, a nerdy board game reference).

I also researched online, and learned that utility companies can offer a rebate on a new thermostat, which helped to soften the blow.  Our electric company provides a substantial rebate of $100, and our gas company does as well, only $20, but we are going to heat no matter what, so they have us.  Given that I found the Nest on Amazon for $247, that's almost half of the cost, for what we really wanted.

For anyone considering a new thermostat, we also looked into the Ecobee smart thermostat, but our wiring was not appropriate.  We needed a different power supply set up than our current HVAC wiring allowed, and it would have required another fix which seems really silly.  No additional fixes for our fix, please.  You can learn about this on both the  Ecobee and Nest websites.

I probably could have learned some cheats to work out the thermostat properly, but it just wasn't worth it to us as we plan to live here long-term, and a huge part of why we DIY is to improve our life and home without breaking the bank when we can, so we can budget out for larger needs that we find appropriate.  There's also no one who would put up with these working conditions, I mean cats and food stuff everywhere at any given time, but, hey, we have to make do with what we can.