There is a large part of the year where I live when it’s only a few degrees cooler outside than inside. On a sunny day, I like to open the door and get some fresh air. And, I don’t want to have to manually adjust the thermostat when I do that, to prevent the heat from kicking on while the door is open.
I’ve create a PLEG setup that turns down the thermostat when the door has been open for more than 20 seconds. It works great.* Now I just need to decide how to trigger the “resume program” when the door is closed.
The action is simple enough: I can send a “resume program” to change the setpoint back to whatever it was supposed to be based on the regular thermostat schedule.
The condition is a little trickier. I don’t want it to fire every time the door closes. What if the door had only been open for 10-15 seconds, and the thermostat never got turned down. What if it’s summer, and the thermostat hadn’t even been on in the first place?
I want to account for these variables, but without getting needlessly complicated with lots of triggers and conditions.
My first thought was to try a condition that fires when the door is closed and the thermostat is set to the specific set point (61) that it goes down to when the door has been open for a while. But I’m not sure what happens if the thermostat was set to “off” in that case, and there’s always the small chance that someone might have intentionally set the thermostat to 61 for another purpose. So it’s not quite foolproof.
Any ideas? Has anyone done something similar, and come up with a simple, elegant solution?
(*By the way, if anyone on UI7 is having a fit trying to set thermostat settings as part of a scene or in PLEG, let me know. There’s a workaround to the UI issue.)
Why not just leave the set point alone … Just turn the HVAC to OFF when a door (and/or window) is open.
I actually recently put a fan in an under utilized room controlled from a Z-Wave wall plug.
I now have a PLEG that reminds me if I should Open Windows to cool the house ((InsideTemp - OutsideTemp > 2) and (InsideTemp > SetPoint)) .
If I open some windows … the fan turns on … it also turns the HVAC to off.
When the windows are closed … the fan turns off … and the HVAC is turned to on.
The FAN will also turn off if the House temp drops to the HVAC setpoint.
If the windows are open and the Outside temp is with 2 degrees of the inside temp … it reminds me to close the windows.
Actually, I was having some trouble getting “Resume Program” to work, so I changed over to switching the HVAC off and then back on. Now, my only issue is that, if we have the heat off in the first place–say, during the summer–then this could turn it back on.
It’s not much of an issue, since the temperature isn’t going to get that low in the summer… and if it does, then maybe it’s time to turn the heat on, after all. I just like having control over when I turn on the furnace for the season. Maybe I’ll just set up a virtual switch as the “Master” switch for the thermostat. If it’s off, nothing happens at all.
I use the Windows Open/Close to change the Thermostat between Auto and OFF.
I use Home/Away to change from Energy Mode (Higher Cool Setpoint/ Lower Heat SetPoint) to Normal Mode (Normal Heat/Cool SetPoint).
Not wanting to re invent the wheel, this has been on my “list of things to do”, is there an example of the PLEG programming to accomplish this? I realize that it of course the specifics are implementation dependent, but seeing a sample can make life sooo much easier. Thanks!
I use PLEG for this purpose too. If the door is open too long I set the thermostat to Frost Protection mode (ie. a setpoint of 7 degC). When the door has been closed for a certain time I set the thermostat back to Auto.
I realise that not all thermostats have this facility, but I’m just putting it out there.
