HONEYWELL TL8230A1003 Thermostat Electric Heat Digital 7 day programmable
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of HONEYWELL TL8230A1003 Thermostat Electric Heat Digital 7 day programmable
Customer Review: Technology imported from the Frozen North
Summary: 5 Stars
Honeywell purchased Aube, a Canadian manufacturer of thermostats and heating/cooling products, several years ago. This thermostat is a rebranded and upgraded version of one of Aube's products.
I purchased seven of them when we moved into our home in 2003. The installation was truly easy, and I found the programming intuitive. There are some shortcuts built into the programming: for example, if you want the heat to come up at the same time every morning, hold down the "DAY" button and after a few moments you will see all seven days indicated on the screen. Individual alterations per day can be made afterward.
The "adaptive start time" feature means that the thermostat records how long it took to reach its setpoint--if it failed to reach it by the programmed time it starts a little earlier the next time. If it overshot, it will start a little later next time. That makes your living space comfortable at the times you use it, and in practice we just expect the room will be heated when we enter it.
REVISION: It was called to my attention that this thermostat does not drop voltage to the heater in any way. I have revised this paragraph to reflect what I learned from Aube-Honeywell technical support:
The feature that really saves energy is "Proportional Integral Adaptive" control (or "PIA"). Old thermo-couple thermometers are either "on" or "off." Even with various mechanical controls built in, they can't keep the room any closer than 2 degrees warmer or cooler than the temperature you set. This thermostat, by contrast, can "throttle back" the energy going to the baseboard as it approaches the setpoint. It does so by energizing the heater for fractions of a 15 minute interval, rather than simply running until the setpoint is reached. In practical terms, your electric meter spins less often, and the room eases in to the temperature you wanted. A minor drop in temperature results in a "nudge" from the thermostat rather than a full-blast energy assault that's guaranteed to go past the setpoint again.
This thermostat adds on-demand backlighting, which we would have wanted, but otherwise appears identical to the old "TH" model that we have. We've saved (and I've counted) several thousand dollars since we installed these, and I recommend them highly.
Customer Review: Horrible programming flexibility compared to Honeywell's Models CT1950A & CT1950B
Summary: 1 Stars
If you have ever owned or used Honeywell's Line Voltage Programmable Thermostat Models CT1950A or CT1950B, you will not like the programming options & flexibility of their new Line Voltage Products. I absolutely hate this Thermostat. It offers "no" programming flexibility.
Previous products allowed you to program up to four changes: any temps., up or down, any time of the day or weekend.
Their new products still allow for up to four program changes, but your temps. are limited between only two pre-programmed / pre-set temps. that are designated either economy.....your low temp. setting, or comfort.....your high temp. setting, and you have no control on whether you can keep increasing "or" decreasing temps. between program changes. You can only switch back & fourth between economy or comfort, or you can clear / ignore a program slot. You do not have the flexibility to continue increasing between program changes, decreasing between program changes, or using any temps. you wish between program periods.
I can see how this Thermostat might work better as a single whole house Thermostat, but I do not know anyone that runs all their baseboards heaters in a house on just one Thermostat.
I have eleven Thermostats in my home. All of them Honeywell's Model CT1950B. The only reason I purchased one of their new ones is because I fried one & needed to replace it. I couldn't find any of their older Models. I selected this one from several I reviewed. I now regret this purchase.
Anyone who submits a positive feedback for this product either must work for Honeywell or is getting a kickback to offer such reviews.
HONEYWELL TL8230A1003 Thermostat Electric Heat Digital 7 day programmable
HONEYWELL TL7235A1003 Electric Heat Line Voltage Thermostat
Customer Review: 4.5 Stars!!! Great upgrade from standard
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought 5 of these units, our old manual units were horrible and costing us a fortune. Installation was a breeze, but took some time and a voltage meter due to old shoddy electrical work. If you don't feel safe or comfortable doing this I suggest you pay an electrician. Programming was pretty easy, although it can get daunting quickly when you have to program 5 units, all with slightly different schedules. An excel sheet might come in handy for this, although the 5 star holy grail for these units would be a computer based central control. That being said these are pretty much set it and forget it. There's an internal battery so even if you lose power they won't lose their time. Although they don't adjust very well to daylight savings changes made in the real world since it hasn't always been the same day each year. My only complaint is that you can't program it to keep the display light on all the time. I actually would appreciate being able to see that across a room so I can determine quickly if it needs manual adjusting and I can't imagine the power draw is more than 1 watt. Also I have one unit that's 2 years old and it is slightly inferior to the new unit; they improved the display and put grips on the swinging edges. Guess that's just what you get for early adoption.
Can't complain much about these guys, here's the quick summary:
Good:
- Relatively easy to install
- Relatively easy to program
- Will pay for themselves in energy savings
- Light makes display easy to read
- Battery backup keeps time even in a power outage
Bad:
- Keeping track of programming for multiple units can be a pain (Central management would be a welcome upgrade).
- It would be nice if program temperature could be set individually instead of by the Sun/Moon setting.
- Can't keep the display light on 24/7 (Possible waste of energy, but would be a nice feature).
Customer Review: Awesome thermostat, easy to install
Summary: 5 Stars
This was the 2nd thing in my life I've installed home improvement-wise, the first being a dimmer switch so I'm definately a novice. It was easy to install. Just make sure you label your wires before disconnecting the old thermostat. It's rated for about double the Amps that my baseboard heater puts out (which is 8.33 or so). The only thing that caused me a little hesitation at first is that the L1 and L2 wire connection spots are labeled but the T1 and T2 weren't (my old thermostat had all 4 labeled) but I connected the T1 line directly above the L1 spot and the T2 directly below the L2 spot and it worked. The grouping looked pretty obvious.
It's pretty customizable. You can set 4 time periods for EACH day of the week, not just a weekday and weekend setting. You basically tell it what time you get up, go to work, come home from work, and go to bed and then set the preprogrammed temps that it should be at during those times. If you flip dip switch #2 before installing it, it'll go into this mode where instead of just starting to warm up your place at the desired time, it'll make sure it's ALREADY at that temp by the desired time and it auto tunes itself each day to find out how much lead time it needs.
I found out by accident that it does have a battery backup, as I killed power to it in the breaker box and it all came back up as programmed afterwards.
Great little unit, bought 2 of them. And it was really easy to install even for a novice like me. I had a hell of a time finding a nice digital programmable thermostat to replace my 240v double pole baseboard heater and was pleasantly surprised to find this one and for a comparable price to others.
Customer Review: Works perfectly - great product
Summary: 5 Stars
We have a four seasons add on to our home that was cold all of last winter. We did have a baseboard heater but no temperature control, just "high", "medium", and "low", so decided to have a thermostat put in for better comfort. I am really glad I chose this one; it has been working great. Some highlights:
- Double pole thermostat, so inherently safer than single pole ones. Will cut off all power to the heater in off mode, unlike single pole ones that simply disconnect one of the two hot wires to cut current, so the heater is still "live" when not heating.
-Breeze to install; wiring a two phase circuit is obviously a bit more complex than single phase. I did the final connections myself although I had to have the junction box installed professionally.
-Controls temperature really well, within +/- 1F. It does this by pre-emptively figuring out how long the heater needs to be on as a percent of a 15 minute cycle, unlike a simple on-off thermostat which simply turns the heater on or off when the temperature gets too hot or cold.
Lowlights:
-Although you can program each day separately, and have four periods per day, you can only choose between one of two temperatures, a "comfort" temperature, and an "away" or "sleep" temperature. In practice, I do not see this as a big limitation as I have never used more than two even on 5+2 thermostats.
-Bit more complex to program than other thermostats I have used, but not overly so.
All in all, highly recommended.