“Circulating the air” is not worth the price

I had my thermostat set to run the furnace fan for 15 minutes every hour. In my mind it would help circulate the air, in summer it would bring cooler air from the lower level upstairs, and vice versa in winter.

I of course knew there was a cost to this, but I didn’t know how much power the fan consumed. It was a decision made in haste when setting up the thermostat, and because the fan is so quiet there wasn’t much to make me question that setting.

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In the Sense app I could see that the furnace fan was +445W when it would turn on, as I mentioned I knew the fan ran to move air around, and that it added to my electric bill, but seeing how much power it used trigger the exercise of calculating out the monthly cost at my electric rate, it's quite expensive! So I decided I didn't need to circulate the air after all, at least not with such a high monthly cost.

One Reply to ““Circulating the air” is not worth the price”

  1. I too have mine set to come on, but only for 5 minutes per hour. While I know it uses energy, sometimes the comfort of having things better balanced and having some circulation is worth it. Perhaps you could set yours to be on for only 5 minutes the way my Ecobee allows?

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