Latest / Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast / Should I Upgrade To A Smart Thermostat?

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Should I Upgrade To A Smart Thermostat? · Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast

• 0:01
  We've all heard about smart technology getting all wired up in your home,
• 0:07
  in my home.
• 0:07
  I can just talk to the house and the lights go off and on.
• 0:12
  And actually the tea kettle does too.
• 0:14
  It's kind of interesting.
• 0:15
  I can warm up water just by speaking,
• 0:17
  but I can also control my thermostats by speaking to it.
• 0:22
  And they do more than that too.
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  They begin to really understand what we want for overall comfort.
• 0:29
  So to talk deeper into this subject,
• 0:31
  I've asked my friend Nathan Schafer to join me here on the program today.
• 0:36
  He's an expert in heating and cooling.
• 0:39
  Hey,
• 0:39
  Nathan,
• 0:39
  how you doing?
• 0:41
  Good,
• 0:41
  Jim.
• 0:41
  How are you today?
• 0:42
  I'm doing fantastic.
• 0:44
  So we've heard a lot of talk lately and more and more homeowners are installing what's called a smart thermostat.
• 0:53
  And like I said,
• 0:55
  you,
• 0:56
  you can do things remotely from a device like your smart phone or sometimes you can just talk to the system in your house and it can be hooked up to that and it can lower it or raise it.
• 1:08
  But even more so than that,
• 1:10
  it's a little creepy,
• 1:12
  but it's kind of neat.
• 1:13
  It begins to understand what you and your family want and need in your home.
• 1:17
  Explain how that's a benefit.
• 1:21
  Yeah,
• 1:21
  like you mean there's so many benefits to it and we see a lot of different needs and people utilizing this.
• 1:26
  And so um whether it be from visually impaired,
• 1:30
  but we can't see the buttons and say,
• 1:31
  hey,
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  they,
• 1:31
  they need something to be able to speak to,
• 1:33
  to whether it be,
• 1:34
  hey,
• 1:34
  I wanna be able to monitor it while I'm on vacation or gone and,
• 1:37
  and know if the level gets too high in the house because maybe that's caused by a water leak or,
• 1:41
  or maybe water sensors are tied into it,
• 1:43
  you know,
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  or that my systems broke,
• 1:44
  they can call us.
• 1:45
  I mean,
• 1:45
  they're all,
• 1:46
  all so many different reasons.
• 1:47
  We're going to the vacation house,
• 1:48
  let's turn it down before we get there.
• 1:50
  So it's comfortable when we get there.
• 1:51
  Uh So that,
• 1:52
  yeah,
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  starting to learn your patterns,
• 1:54
  right.
• 1:54
  Where do you normally keep at?
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  How long does it normally take to get back to that point?
• 1:58
  Going off of the algorithms and stuff that there's thermostat to do?
• 2:01
  Uh that increases the overall uh efficiency of the system,
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  especially with the newer high efficiency inverter driven systems and stuff and how they operate.
• 2:09
  Uh But as well with the overall comfort of the house.
• 2:12
  Um and so lots of,
• 2:14
  lots of uh pross and benefits to having that smart thermostat depending on how you're wanting to use it.
• 2:20
  Yeah.
• 2:21
  And,
• 2:21
  you know,
• 2:21
  it's another computer in your home but it's not that expensive.
• 2:24
  And I found that they last a long time,
• 2:28
  they don't give you much trouble at all and you'll tend to use only a percentage of what is capable of doing.
• 2:35
  But that's fine.
• 2:35
  It's true of anything else.
• 2:36
  Our cars and trucks are just loaded with things we don't use,
• 2:39
  same with our smartphones,
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  but it's true and,
• 2:42
  and so,
• 2:43
  so you don't need to use everything.
• 2:45
  But if you want to,
• 2:46
  it's really amazing what it can do.
• 2:48
  But just for peace of mind,
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  if you're away on vacation,
• 2:52
  for instance,
• 2:53
  you can see what's going on in the home with it.
• 2:55
  You can see if it's operating if it's kept the temperature down or up and,
• 2:59
  you know,
• 3:00
  in the winter time,
• 3:01
  um,
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  you know,
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  if there's cold weather coming a lot of cold weather and,
• 3:05
  you know,
• 3:06
  you're worried about the house freezing,
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  you can see what the temperature is and you can raise it or lower it and you can change it from heating to air conditioning and it can even report back to your service provider.
• 3:21
  So,
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  you know,
• 3:22
  a company like Schafer can get that information too,
• 3:25
  which is kind of nice for maintenance and so forth.
• 3:28
  Absolutely.
• 3:29
  I mean,
• 3:29
  it,
• 3:29
  it could potentially be what you're wanting to use and how you save you thousands.
• 3:33
  Right.
• 3:33
  Uh,
• 3:34
  and,
• 3:34
  and just headache and stuff,
• 3:35
  just something like that.
• 3:36
  I mean,
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  that,
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  that has personally happened to me,
• 3:38
  uh,
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  we were gone,
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  you know,
• 3:40
  out of state at my,
• 3:41
  at my wife's family's house and I just so happened to check my app because I knew the weather was bad back home.
• 3:45
  It was winter time,
• 3:46
  uh,
• 3:47
  and check my app.
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  I'm like,
• 3:48
  oh,
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  my goodness,
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  my system is not running,
• 3:50
  you know.
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  Uh,
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  and I have alerts set,
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  it just hadn't quite hit the alert yet.
• 3:53
  Once it hits a certain temperature in my house,
• 3:55
  it's gonna email me and text me,
• 3:56
  you know,
• 3:57
  I get that alert and so a very simple phone call,
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  you know,
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  call,
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  call a family member,
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  call my dad,
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  hey,
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  can you run over and unlock the house and check it?
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  The system's not running goes over,
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  checks it out and was able to fix it just like that.
• 4:09
  Right.
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  It was a simple glitch in the system when the power went out and we're back up and running.
• 4:12
  But if I wouldn't have had that,
• 4:14
  nobody would have known nobody would have checked the house would have froze up.
• 4:17
  Water lines busted.
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  I mean,
• 4:18
  it's just been a major catastrophe.
• 4:19
  So,
• 4:20
  yeah,
• 4:21
  lots of awesome.
• 4:22
  And like you said,
• 4:22
  you don't have to use everything.
• 4:24
  Sometimes people will be reluctant to get one because like,
• 4:27
  man,
• 4:27
  that's gonna be too complicated to use or,
• 4:29
  you know,
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  I don't need all these different things and bells and whistles.
• 4:32
  But like you said,
• 4:32
  you can utilize just the one or two or three or all of the areas that you wanna utilize in that stat.
• 4:38
  And for the most part,
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  most of them are actually just as easy,
• 4:42
  if not easier to use than your traditional stat thermostat.
• 4:46
  Oh,
• 4:46
  absolutely.
• 4:47
  They're not very complicated.
• 4:49
  And there's all kinds of things that I don't use on my thermostat.
• 4:54
  So,
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  um,
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  it,
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  I just use what I want to use it for and,
• 4:58
  and it's,
• 4:59
  it's just a great way to go if you actually have to get up.
• 5:04
  And either,
• 5:05
  and this is old,
• 5:06
  this is like an old Honeywell turn it or slide it.
• 5:10
  Ok.
• 5:12
  That might be old.
• 5:14
  It might be timed up and it's not that expensive really,
• 5:16
  for a couple $100 you can get into a decent one.
• 5:20
  Right.
• 5:20
  And it's not that bad and it's really the way to go if you've already upgraded to a smartphone and that's for some of us who are,
• 5:27
  who are a little older.
• 5:28
  Right?
• 5:28
  We're like,
• 5:28
  all right,
• 5:30
  you know,
• 5:30
  we went from that desktop and now we're using a smartphone.
• 5:35
  Well,
• 5:35
  if you're using a smartphone,
• 5:36
  you can usually easily use a smart thermostat and you can tie it in with it.
• 5:41
  The apps right on the phone is so cool.
• 5:44
  Absolutely.
• 5:45
  Absolutely.
• 5:46
  All right,
• 5:47
  Nathan.
• 5:47
  Thank you so much as always.
• 5:48
  Thanks for helping us out here to answer these questions.
• 5:51
  All of Nathan's information is located in the description of this POSS podcast.
• 5:56
  Reach out to him and he and his team would love to help out.
• 5:58
  Thanks again,
• 5:58
  buddy.
• 5:59
  All right.
• 6:00
  Thank you,
• 6:00
  Jim.
• 6:00
  We'll see you later.