Overheard a neighbor saying her electric bill spiked after she installed a smart thermostat wrong

I was at the hardware store on Elm Street and heard a woman tell the clerk she put her smart thermostat on the wall behind a bookshelf. She said her bill went up $80 in one month because the sensor kept reading the wrong temperature. Made me double check my own setup to make sure the air can move around it. Has anyone else seen a big jump from something like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.sam20d ago

Got a buddy who did almost the same thing. He mounted his thermostat behind a big picture frame in his living room because he thought it looked better there. His bill shot up like $90 the first month and he couldn't figure out why. Took him three months and a visit from his brother who works with HVAC to realize the sensor was just reading the temp of the wall and the back of the frame. He moved it to a hallway with no furniture blocking it and his bill dropped back to normal by the next cycle.

hill.andrew20d ago

That thing about it reading the wall temp is exactly the issue. The buddy's brother probably told him the same thing I've heard - those sensors are really just reading the air right around them, not the whole room. I had a similar problem but with a bookshelf. I shoved it against the wall next to the thermostat and suddenly the system was running way longer than it needed to, because it was just picking up the heat trapped behind the shelf. Moved the thermostat to an open spot on a different wall, problem solved. Honestly, it's one of those things nobody thinks about until it costs them real money.