I’m not a big home improvement person. I do what is needed repair wise but, both because of time and money, don’t go out of my way to upgrade anything.
A couple weeks ago, I discovered our thermostat wasn’t working properly. It was one of those dial ones (which might have been the one originally installed when the house was built) and it would turn itself up (as high as 80 degrees) without warning. After this happening a few times, we decided it was time to replace it with a much more modern digital thermostat instead.
My parents actually ended up buying us one as an early Christmas gift; a Lux Smart Temp Programmable Thermostat; model TX500E. And, this past weekend, with the help of my brother, we installed it. So far, I like this product.
First of all, this was much easier to install than I thought it would be. The wiring in the house is a bit old and, because it isn’t color coded, we had to guess a bit about which wire went where. But, we had the new thermostat installed in about a half hour without any major headaches. And, right off the bat, we discovered just how bad our old thermostat was; realizing it was almost 80 degrees in the house when the old thermostat said it was just 70.
The Lux Smart Temp thermostat can be programmed so it automatically raises and lowers the temp at certain times of the day during the week and on the weekends. This is a feature I love because my wife and I both work during the week and don’t always remember to turn the furnace down when we leave (or turn it back up when we get home). More importantly, it isn’t something that is overly complicated to program. We have a similar thermostat at work and, even with the instructions, nobody can figure that function out. I was able to program this thermostat for the week without even looking at the instructions.
And, when it is slightly colder out, we can override the pre-set function simply by pressing a button; something I do love.
If I were to change anything about this thermostat, it would be the display. I sometimes have to manually turn the heat up/down at night in the dark (so I don’t wake anyone) and it would be nice if the display had some sort of light so I could see what I was doing.
Overall though, I think this was a good purchase. As I said before, I don’t do a whole lot of home improvement work, but this is one improvement I feel is a good one.