Looking for someone much more articulate than I, and
More versed in communicating with those who seem immune to logic and reason and just won't consider or accept fact.
My wife is convinced that a home thermostat works the same as a gas/brake pedal in a car. I'll explain further in a moment.
First of all, she isn't stupid. She runs the book keeping dept. for a rather large collection of regional dealerships. In the areas of anything concerning numbers, contracts or organization, she is brilliant, maybe even approaching genius level. Outside that narrow band of competence and expertise, however, she is sorely lacking.
Over the nearly 30 years we've been together, I have tried to explain to her, countless dozens of times, the basics of how a thermostat actually functions. She believes cranking the heat/AC all the way up is the same as flooring the gas in a car. That it will get cooler/warmer faster. And that when, because she's wandered off and forgotten about "flooring" it, when it inevitably gets too warm/cool, turning the thermostat all the way down is the same a applying the brakes. That setting the thermostat at 65, for instance, means the AC/heat blows 65 degree air. Or 78 degrees at that setting. She also believes that setting the oven for ,say, 350 degrees, you get a 350 degree flame.
Each time I explain to her that, no that isn't how things work and go on to explain how things, in reality, work, she'll give me the skunk eye, as if I just make this shit up as I go along, and go right back to her 350 degree flames and flooring it. She is very big on researching to verify or discount things to her personal satisfaction, yet being convinced that her thermostat lunacy is unimpeachable, she refuses to research this topic.
After dealing with this, even though without success, for more than a quarter century, I've become accustomed to the futility of broaching the subject except in extreme situations, which still prove futile.
The situation now, is that having listed our home, and leasing a condo for a year while we look at new homes, we're paying both mortgage and lease payments, making her exceptionally aware of every cent of income and pay out.
While I am quite comfortable with the AC set at 72-74, she'll come home after 5:00 on a mid 90s day, fire up her 350 degree flame oven for dinner, which in this small condo pushes the temp up to close to 80 to where the AC is running non-stop. Running at capacity. She'll turn the AC down to 63 or so, convinced the 63 degree air will cool us off,( it doesn't).
So now, because of this, our power bills are WAY higher than they should be. She believes the reason is that I must be doing something weird, electrically, when I'm home alone. She's even come home unexpectedly, during the day, a few times when I'm off work and she's not, trying to catch me doing whatever weird electrical wasting nonsense she might imagine. Every month, both when the power bill comes and again when she goes to send payment, she gripes at me to stop whatever it is I'm doing that makes it so high. *Sigh*
So I try to explain, again how thermostats work, and that turning it further down when the AC is already running at full capacity does nothing other than force it to run at capacity even longer. For my trouble, I get the skunk eye and the strong insinuation that I just make this shit up as I go along, while she keeps on keeping on.
Any ideas on how I might get her to consider fact, logic, reason and reality would be greatly appreciated.
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I've seen this happen on both sides of a partnership. For example, the hubs thinks running the A/C on high fan if it's humid enough to make the window unit freeze up, is a good thing.
Thing he's not understanding is that he just needs to turn the ACTUAL fan on, that's in the room, to keep the air circulating from the other A/C units, and turn OFF the affected A/C and let it thaw.
I have this argument every summer with him. And then when it gets "too cold" for him, he turns on the heat in the bedroom. 
We have individual thermostats in each room for the heaters. Or, the windows are open, so he turns on the heaters. No, close the window, and don't turn on the heat. If it's not cold enough to turn on the heat, put on some MORE clothes, like a sweater or sweatshirt to be comfortable.
I've had to show him the electric bill, NUMEROUS times to get through to him that what he's doing is actually increasing the usage. Both of his actions make the A/C units that aren't having issues work HARDER. This not only increases my bill, it shortens the life of the unit.
I feel your pain. There is no easy way for you to do this.
Have you tried yelling louder than her?
That REALLY doesn't work.
If she's truly "immune to logic and reason and just won't consider or accept fact" then nothing you say will have the desired effect.
If there's one thing I've learned from being knowledgeable on a subject and then trying to help say, my parents, with the same knowledge, is that I am dismissed because I'm not an official authority on the subject. Now, if a magazine, whose authority is trusted, comes along and says the exact same thing as what I tried to offer, well they're accepted without question.
So, my advice is for you to find someone, say an a/c/ repair-person or salesperson in that field to explain it to her. They have to work with the public all the time and likely understand how to "dumb it down" best without being condescending. Plus, they are an official authority. You are not, and you never will be. That's just the way it is with some folks 
Good luck!
Or take an A/C repair class at the local CC, so you can claim authority.
Actually, if you live in the Southwest, taking A/C repair may become somewhat of a survival skill requirement. Along with learning how to make and maintain personal home evaporators...
Haele
while I was likely still proofing mine
Also, home evaporators only work in dry conditions. Most of the South is along the Gulf of Mexico, so humidity is high and home evaporators won't work. I figure what more people will begin using are mini-splits. Despite the disadvantages that link lists, a mini-split allows you to cool only those rooms you're actively using.
Right now, I'm in one room of my apartment. There's absolutely no reason why my bedroom, living room, kitchen, and both bathrooms need cooling. When I'm ready to work in my kitchen, or eat a meal, I could shut off the one in here and turn on the others as needed. Of course, I don't have mini-splits. I can't think of any apartment complex that does, other than window-units.
There really haven't been any ideas I haven't already tried, in nearly 30 years.
I think I'm just screwed.
Show her that the air comes out at the same temperature whether the thermostat at at 72 or 63
I never though of that.
It sounds like you have a lot more going on there. My son is bipolar, and that has been a heartbreaking challenge from when he was very young. Meds were extremely helpful at times, when that was possible.
In marital relationships, marriage counseling can be helpful in a general way and can help stave off a negative progression in the relationship. But I don't think they've found a way to solve the Battle of the Thermostat yet.
Personally, I set my A/C at 85°. But I live alone and can sit around in my shorts. Outside temp is currently 104°. 
Best of luck to you! 
Nice thought, though.
He'll just have to tell her he installed a new one. 
I was curious, so I did some reading about this. It turns out that most large office buildings have fake thermostats installed. Studies tend to show that people find comfort in what the thermostat says the temperature is, even if it's not accurate.
Now if she's going through obscene hot flashes like me, you can throw all this advice right out the window. If she's hot, she's going to find any means to cool down. My poor husband, and what he has to put up with. I kept the windows open in our bedroom all winter long. I slept with a sheet, he slept with four blankets.
I know, right? It's easier to add a few layers for warmth than it is to try and cool down.
Last edited Wed Jun 29, 2016, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)
Ask her how SHE thinks the thermostat works, first of all. It sounds like she'll tell you it somehow heats more the higher the thermostat, and cools more the lower it is. Then let her know that only high-end, usually custom-tailored heating/cooling systems work that way. Most homes/apts have the simple on-off system because it's (1) much cheaper to implement, and (2) much simpler to set up. If you were living in a 36-room mansion you'd probably have a system like she imagines, which would have been carefully fine-tuned over several days after installation for maximum comfort, but you aren't, so you don't.
It wouldn't hurt to acknowledge that yes, her idea seems to make more sense, and it would probably work much better in terms of maintaining comfort. But that's not what the gloriously infallible Free Market provides. The homebuilding industry is based on volume production, which tends to make it very conservative -- i.e., non-innovative. I have often wondered why things don't seem to have improved much over the several decades of my life, given how much almost everything else seems to have changed so much. IIRC the White House has had separate temperature controls for each room since it was constructed, but this has never moved into most residential housing. Apparently shipping tons of granite around the world to make (sometimes radioactive, radon-emitting) countertops is a more profitable enterprise than building a better thermostat. Now, it's true that mercury switches on bimetallic strip thermometers have given way to programmable digital thermostats, but most houses/apts still have a single, central thermostat, and it's not always in a location that gives representative readings (we had to close the vents in the hall bathroom completely to stop the AC from flipping on/off too quickly -- thermostat's in the hall, of course). I note that our thermostat can display both Fahrenheit and Celsius temps, but can only be set in 1 degree increments, which means that if you prefer Celsius temps you can only turn the settings up or down by 1.8 deg F at a time. Why aren't there decimals, or at least half degrees, on this "modern" thermostat ? Basically, because there's no big profit margin in making such "small" improvements, no matter how much the customer might want them.
(I dislike posting/emailing advertising, but the GIF caught my eye . Perhaps this is an easy, non-permanent installation, which can be done w/out running a lot of wiring ? If so, I'm glad to see someone is FINALLY thinking in this direction: http://santafeair.com/blog/article/how-to-stop-fighting-over-the-thermostats-temperature-setting )
ETA: Here's a link to some minimal hardware: http://www.smarthome.com/residential-control-systems-001-00242-zc2s-hvac-2-zone-controller.html Note that you need to install remotely controlled dampers in the ductwork, though. I would have thought that by now someone would have designed drop-in units that fit in a standard vent, get power from a nearby outlet, and communicate by wifi with the base unit thermostat -- i.e., a fraction of the sophistication that's shown in all those fancy new security gadgets flooding the market. As I said -- not very innovative.
