Got to it today… twice! Ran to Home Depot this morning, picked up a RiteTemp 8030c, a 7-day programmable, touch-screen jobber for $50. We needed the 7-day since the ladies in the house have odd schedules, putting them at home on certain weekdays. The other 7-day jobber? $100.

I arrived home, pulled off the ancient round thermostat, which was probably original with the house, saw just how easy it is to install a new one (our wires were colored, and apparently they have kept the same standard FOREVER). After 15 minutes, new guy was installed, I went to program it only to find that a portion of the touch screen didn’t work… great. Uninstall, run back to the store, get another one (really thought about getting the $100 one, but it was ugly in comparison!), back home, install new one. BLAMMO! Sweetness.

It’s working, I’ve programmed it to what I think should be a pretty good setup, and that’s that. I’ll give an update on the energy savings some time in early ’08. The box says using the recommended settings can save you 30%… I found 62 degrees during sleep to be ridiculous so made some modifications to that… I think we should be able to expect a 10% savings, but we’ll see.

To top off my productivity, I replaced our two air filters. We previously only had one, and it was probably a year old and quite nasty.