Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

@gee aweesome house, very cute and yeah, a nice size. My previous house was 1990 sq. ft and it was plenty big. I'd buy your house in a heartbeat. Sounds like great build quality. Heated floors are fine. Much less destructive than forced fucking air.
Does the garage connect to the house or is that just a leg off of it to the right?
That's about what that house would cost here.
 
@gee aweesome house, very cute and yeah, a nice size. My previous house was 1990 sq. ft and it was plenty big. I'd buy your house in a heartbeat. Sounds like great build quality. Heated floors are fine. Much less destructive than forced fucking air.
Does the garage connect to the house or is that just a leg off of it to the right?
That's about what that house would cost here.
Garage is technically a separate building with its own foundation, but with a breezeway connecting it to the house that they decided to box in with walls, doors and a poured concrete floor to make a porchy connector thing.
 
Would a smart thermostat save me money or would it just make me lazier? Can't I save money just as easy with a programmable thermostat?
This is an answer I would like as well.

All I can see is Google gathering data on when I'm at home and when I'm not, which doesn't bother me, but hell if I'm going to pay for that.
 
It's a 1980s take on a farmhouse. So it's built with 2x6 walls, good insulation, vapor barrier and HRV and all that other good R2000 shit. But it's also built back when people had money so the sheathing/subfloors/roof are all plywood and not OSB. Good bones and shit.

Gotta remove some teal colored carpet in the front living room, but ain't much else required.

Garage was added on in the 2000's, and it's probably the thing I'm most excited about, because now I can get up to projects and shit.

It reminds me of my little cottage style house I had in Maine.
 
If you have a modern HVAC setup, it doesn't make much of a difference because modern systems are so efficient.

If you have old ass shit, it would probably help.
My current thermostat is manual so I plan on at least getting a programmable thermostat. I have a package unit that looks older than sin but seems to work fine. By my rough calculations of my first energy bill, it will be about 30% higher in a 1500sqft home than it was in 1100sqft. I still need to replace windows and improve insulation.
 
My current thermostat is manual so I plan on at least getting a programmable thermostat. I have a package unit that looks older than sin but seems to work fine. By my rough calculations of my first energy bill, it will be about 30% higher in a 1500sqft home than it was in 1100sqft. I still need to replace windows and improve insulation.
Unless you travel a lot or have a real need for your house to sense when you are home and make descicions based just on that, sure get the smart. Not my thing, programmable is just fine.

Not sure how old vs. new matters - dialing down when you are gone, asleep,etc. is still dialing down. For money and comfort.
 
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Would a smart thermostat save me money or would it just make me lazier? Can't I save money just as easy with a programmable thermostat?
It will turn it up/down when you leave, which people are generally unlikely to do. You can also control it remotely, for those times when you leave on vacation and forgot to turn it up/down. Also good if heat somehow goes out while you're gone in the winter.

Other than that, its the same thing.
 
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If you have a modern HVAC setup, it doesn't make much of a difference because modern systems are so efficient.

If you have old ass shit, it would probably help.
If the cost of energy saved in a couple years > the cost of the thermostat, it's definitely worth doing.
 
It will turn it up/down when you leave, which people are generally unlikely to do. You can also control it remotely, for those times when you leave on vacation and forgot to turn it up/down. Also good if heat somehow goes out while you're gone in the winter.

Other than that, its the same thing.
But programmable thermostats are set up for you to define periods when you're not there, too. Is there some sort of magic involved on the part of Nest/Ecofart/whatever that's above and beyond that?
 
People with regular jobs and kids live on a pretty defined schedule you can set the programmable around. A smart might help a little for times you go off schedule but you're going to have planned for that and know it's coming again because jobs and kids.

Might be cool if you're into the gadgetry but probably take a pretty long time to actually pay for itself.

Insulation, windows, sealing cracks, etc. probably get you farther ahead.
 
People with regular jobs and kids live on a pretty defined schedule you can set the programmable around. A smart might help a little for times you go off schedule but you're going to have planned for that and know it's coming again because jobs and kids.

Might be cool if you're into the gadgetry but probably take a pretty long time to actually pay for itself.

Insulation, windows, sealing cracks, etc. probably get you farther ahead.
As I said, ad-hoc...