Increasing heating/cooling efficiency

This is only partially related to automation, but please bear with me... I had a friend tell me he cut his heating bill in half by installing filters on the back side of his return vents (as opposed to just before the blower cabinet) and installing an automatic thermostat to turn the heat down when no one is home.

The automatic thermostat is a no-brainer, but I can't even find fliters designed to attach to the back of the return vents. Is this something anyone else is doing? Can there be significant advantages to this approach? It seems to me that if this was a better mousetrap, all forced-air systems would be designed that way. What am I missing?

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

Reply to
Stryder Honeymonkey
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there are vent covers made to put a filter in. You will have to replace the vent covers with these new fangled devices. Personally don't see how that will save on your bill though.

Reply to
Chub

It's not particularly new-fangled. My 22-year-old home in San Diego has its filters on the return vents.

Frankly, I doubt it makes a lot of difference where the filters go. If you're getting less total drag on the fan, you're probably getting less filtering. You could get even less drag by removing the filters entirely -- but that's probably not a good idea.

Most of his benefit is likely to have come from the programmable setback thermostat.

Reply to
NoSuchPerson

Me thinks your friend doth stretch the truth a bit.

Reply to
D&SW

Maybe they just needed changing and that caused the savings.

Reply to
Don

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