Posted by Harold Kestenholz - Hydronic Network on October 18, 2001 at 15:23:47:
In Reply to: Re: Setback thermostat posted by Joe Howell on October 18, 2001 at 13:15:23:
The hour-of-day settings for a steam system are there to permit lower room temperatures while people are not in the home. As a residential steam system is a whole-house or single thermostat system, the setback thermostat is there to save money while unoccupied.
The cycle setting of 1 for steam is to compensate for the fact that when steam reaches all the radiators, the radiators on every cycle are too hot for the weather except on the coldest days of the year; so the burner has to be shut off earlier than an air or water system with lower temperature heating. In this way the rooms will reach temperature from the residual heat in the radiators while the burner is off.