Honeywell RTH8500D 7-Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S Department of Energy have made a series of standards to make products more energy efficient. Those products that excel in meeting or surpassing these standards gain an Energy Star rating.

One product that has gained a prestigious Energy Star rating is the Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat because it can save a household 33% of its energy bills. The US Environmental Protection Agency has researched the issue of energy bills and the emission of greenhouse gases. Their research shows that the average US household spends $2,200 annually on energy bills. A significant proportion of this energy bill is from wasted power. Wasted because people are heating or cooling their houses when they are not at home. Or they have an older heating and cooling system with an inefficient thermostat, so people are over heating or over cooling their houses. It is very true that many houses in America are too warm in the winter (people wear T-shirts and shorts inside) and too cold in the summer (people wear sweaters inside). This is because the thermostat is not being used properly. If you take out the wasted energy from heating/cooling empty houses and the over heating/cooling you can save 33% or over $700 on your energy bills.

The Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat is easy to install to a modern house. If your house has older electrical wiring Honeywell has a team of technicians and engineers ready to provide installation solutions by email or telephone for free. The Honeywell Programmable Thermostat can be installed to control single stage and multi stage heating systems. It can control both separate heating and cooling systems and combined heating/cooling systems. It can even regulate gas fireplaces.

Once the Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat is installed it is a breeze to start programming your heating/cooling requirements. The menu driven touchscreen is intuitive and easy to understand. You can program your heating requirements for every day of the week. Within each day of the week you can define 4 periods of heating. This means you don't have to always be getting up to change the thermostat. You can have the heating on low during the night, have the heating come on before you wake up and then turn off when you go to work; and again turn on just before you get home. This means you are being energy efficient; you are not wasting energy and money by heating or cooling an empty house.

Furthermore, the thermostat is accurate to within one degree Fahrenheit so at long last you don't have to have a cold house in summer and a boiling house in winter. Instead, you can find a more reasonable and comfortable ambient house temperature.

The Honeywell Touchscreen Thermostat also can switch automatically between heating and cooling systems to help maintain a constant room temperature. And the thermostat gives you a warning when your air-conditioner filters need changing. This also saves you money by making sure that your air conditioner units are running at their most efficient.

All of the small savings in heating and cooling as a consequence of having a programmable and accurate thermostat build up over a year. The Honeywell RTH8500D 7-Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat costs just over $100 on Amazon and in its first year of use will save the householder over $700. That is a great rate of return and the reason for its Energy Star rating.

Through such products as the Honeywell RTH8500D Touchscreen 7 Day Programmable Thermostat Energy Star rated appliances have helped reduce green house gases significantly in the USA. In 2008 alone Energy Star products prevented an estimated 43 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emission.

With this thermostat the householder wins and the environment wins. It's a win-win product.

Here's a quick bullet point list of the features found on the Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat

• 7 Day Programming + 4 periods per day
• Menu driven programming on large backlit touchscreen display
• Smart recovery (to pre-heat or pre-cool a room)
• Can be hardwired to the HVAC to avoid needing batteries
• Can regulate up to 2 stage heating and up to 2 stage cooling and heat pumps with auxiliary heat
• Auto change-over (switches automatically between heating and cooling)
• Real time display that keeps track of daylight saving
• Settings kept even after a power outage
• Energy Star recommended
• 1 year warranty
• Easy to install
• Can cycle the fan to circulate cool/warm air 
• Armchair programming
• Temporary hold and vacation mode
• Filter change and battery change warning
  

People who bought the Honeywell RTH8500D touchscreen thermostat generally give glowing reviews of the device. More than one reviewer commented on how easy the unit was to install. Also there are a number of comments about the useful functions such as temporary hold and vacation mode.

Some reviews focused on comparisons with other thermostats and what stands out from these types of review is that the Honeywell RTH8500D is much easier to program than Hunter thermostats.

The only negative comments were concerned with the shortest of the time the back light stayed on and that the instruction manual was sometimes a bit confusing.

Click here to download the instruction manual of the Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Programmable Thermostat