Don't Mess With the Thermostat!

As I have stated in previous posts, our house is fairly large. It is a 7-bedroom house with four of the bedrooms being on the top floor which is where we live. The house has been set up so all the utilities are independent of each other for each floor, meaning we don't have to worry about splitting utilities with the person on the first floor. Living on the second floor though can create higher energy bills since heat rises and the cold air sinks, especially in the summer. 

Our utility bills are typically higher in the summer because of the A/C usage. But the last couple months they have been insanely high, reaching into the $300 range a couple times this summer. For a while we couldn't figure out why they were so incredibly high, until we checked something other than the temperature setting on the thermostat.

The thermostat has an option on it that can either leave the fan on auto or turn it on 24/7. We found out that it had been turned on for the past few weeks, making our electricity bill immensely high. I was extremely upset with whoever had turn this option on without remembering to turn it off. I ended up asking everyone who did it and of course everyone's response was "it wasn't me". 

I set the fan back to auto. The next morning I find Kaveman sleeping in the living room because he said his room was too hot. I automatically assume he is the one who had kept the fan on because he constantly forgets to turn off his own TV, lights, and fans in his own room. He admitted that he was the one to turn it on but said he didn't realize that it would stay until it got switched back to auto. 

 My other two roommates and I asked him not to mess with the thermostat anymore because it was causing higher energy bills.He was upset at first but eventually realized that we shouldn't have to pay extra because his room gets a little toasty sometimes. The lesson to take away from this is don't mess with something you know nothing about, in this case the thermostat!