With my AC/heating thermostat, does it save more money/energy to have a higher or lower differential for AC?

Question

Can someone explain this in layman 's terms? Does this apply to both the heating and A/C? Are most set to 1? Thanks!

Answer 1

It sure does. The greater difference between day setting and night setting the better. We also use a day set back so there is savings then also. Honeywell used to have a display stating about 12% savings if both set backs were used. Typical would be 74 degrees cooling (day) 80 degrees cooling (night) 70 degrees heating (day) 65 degrees heating (night).

Answer 2

Differential means the difference between cut in and cut out.The temp that  the a/c comes on and the temp that the a/c goes off.A lower one will run it more and a higher will run it less.Less run= more savings.More run=less savings.

Answer 3

The differential is used to set how long the unit will run for.  A higher differential will allow the house to get warmer before cutting the unit on.  lower diff will cause it to come on more frequently.

higher differential will cause fluctuation in your temperature of the house.  units that turn on and off more frequently use more power.  units that run longer, with longer periods in between use less power.

so you see the balancing act?  you should leave things the way they were set by the installers (assuming they set it up right).  A couple degrees more of diff isn't gonna give you THAT much savings.