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I started with one of these and after a month of satisfaction installed four more. It's an easy two wire installation, although you might want to have some yellow wire nuts handy in addition to the red ones that come with the unit. For some of my connections the red ones were too large. The temperature is easy to read and adjust and we have found them to be very accurate. The temperature rarely changes so they keep the temperature in the room consistent. These units are wonderful compared to the old dial and guess style we had.
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If you live in a house that uses 240V baseboard heaters with independent thermostats in every room then you really should use these RLV310 thermostats in addition to window plastic (if you have drafty or single pane windows) and ceiling fans on low speed blowing down to the floor to distribute the heat throughout the room. I just spent the past month and a half experimenting to find the most efficient and cost effective way to heat my home here in the Poconos. I was originally using Aube TH115 type 7 day programmable thermostats and, in all honesty, they were lousy! They were too slow to respond and didn't keep the room temperature stable, thus using more electricity than was really needed. I'm disabled and don't work anymore so fiddling with programs doesn't make sense. Besides, I know from experience that all the energy saved when allowing a room to cool for a few hours is needed to stabilize the temperature of that room once it's being heated again so why not just keep a constant temperature. I had one of these Honeywell RLV310 type thermostats in the bathroom and started experimenting with it in the living room, the largest room in the house. Using an inductive power monitor attached to my mains to get real time power usage data here's what I found out.The Aube units use what I would call 'brute force heating', sending constant current to the heaters until the target temperature is reached and then waiting for the temperature to drop 1 degree before sending current to the heaters again. This allows the heaters to get cold, making you wait for them to heat up again at the beginning of each cycle. This waiting period wastes money, especially when you have 3000 watt heaters and it can add up to a few dollars over a month. The Honeywell RVL310 type thermostats eliminate this waiting period by sending short bursts of current to the heaters and then `regulate' the amount of heat generated in real time by varying the delay between these current bursts. The heaters never get completely cold unless another heat source, the heat of the sun coming through the windows for example, eliminates the need for the heaters or the house is exceptionally well insulated and holds on to the heat well. The RLV310 type thermostats are extremely sensitive and fast acting, making them much more efficient at maintaining a constant room temperature than the `brute force' type thermostats like the Aube. I just installed 3 of these thermostats in the rooms I choose to heat constantly, the living room, the dining room/kitchen and the master bedroom. After only a few hours I feel more consistently comfortable in every one of those rooms. It's 18 degrees outside right now and I'm drawing an average of 2.5 KWh per hour with 8 kilowatts worth of heaters. It's too soon to figure out monthly savings but I do know I'm going to save a bundle over last year. I'm a newbie to mountain winters and while on budget billing I wasn't paying attention to my electric usage. I didn't know the best way to heat this house and, to make a long story short, I just finished paying my balance in time for the cold weather to come around again. ;-)
As an afterword, these RLV310 type thermostats don't have a back light on the display. No biggie for me but it would be a nice addition to future models.
Update:
After more fully evaluating these thermostats I've run into a situation that I think should be addressed. My mail living area consists of two large adjoining rooms that are on separate circuits, Living room and Dining room/Kitchen. For some reason these thermostats will not achieve a proper balance in this situation. One will always wind up driving its heater far too much while the other ends up rarely providing heat. I've tried switching them around but the problem doesn't follow a particular unit, nor does it occur always in one specific room. These thermostats also get very warm when running the heaters at 100% for an extended time. This is on the side opposite the temperature sensor but I suspect it may effect the reading. In smaller rooms with doors these thermostats work perfectly but in this large dual zone area they don't seem to cooperate well. I can't say that this will happen in every house with this type of room configuration, just that it happens in mine.
Also, I need to retract my original statement about programmable thermostats. I originally saw no value in turning the thermostats down, especially during the day, but I failed to consider the drop in outside temperature during the night. Since the house requires more heat when the outside temperature is lower it indeed does make a significant difference when you turn the unused rooms down at least 10 degrees during the colder portion of the day. The longer this period the more energy you'll save. I set them down from 65 to 50 between 9:00 PM to 9:00 AM. This has cut my electric costs by up to 30% on average. During the day when the outside temp is highest there would not be as much of a savings, if any at all.
I still think these are great thermostats. If it wasn't for the multi zone problem downstairs I'd love to see Honeywell create programmable thermostats that use the same method as these to regulate the room temperature.
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