Programmable Thermostats - Do they help?

My boss and I got into an argument today.  Our gas bill for heating our office and showroom was over $700 last month, so I made some recommendations, one of which was to put in programmable thermostats and set the temperature back at night, that is almost 14 hours that we do not need to have comfortable temperatures.

He argues that the power it takes to get the office back to the ideal temperature in the morning is just as bad as keeping the entire office at a single temperature 24 hours.  Is 14 hours of heat savings all wasted just to bring up the temperature again?

In my house I think it made a significant difference, both with heat and air, but what about a 3600 sq. ft. facility??  Is he correct in that instance?

Here are a few tidbits I found from various hydro sites (this included commercial buildings)

Myth #2: I’ll use less energy if I set my thermostat at the same temperature all the time than if I turn it down when I'm not home or sleeping.
Fact: Although many people disagree about this myth, the overwhelming research says it takes less energy to heat up a cold home than it does to maintain a constant temperature. So you’re better off turning down your thermostat when you’re away from home or sleeping.

A common misconception associated with thermostats is that a furnace works harder than normal to warm the space back to a comfortable temperature after the thermostat has been set back, resulting in little or no savings. This misconception has been dispelled by years of research and numerous studies. The fuel required to reheat a building to a comfortable temperature is roughly equal to the fuel saved as the building drops to the lower temperature. You save fuel between the time that the temperature stabilizes at the lower level and the next time heat is needed.

This was specific to commercial buildings:

Consider programmable thermostats or timers. Savings can be substantial. For instance, a 14-hour night setback and full weekend setback, from 18°C to 10°C could result in energy savings of 19%!

What does he have to loose trying?  If it really does make the bills higher then just always set it at the regular temperature but, I'm pretty sure you'll see a difference according to the information from hydro companies.  Good luck!

Same issue as PureShop mentioned in that I only have experience from a house, not a big office, but we definitely saw a savings month to month after we put in a programmable.

Please let us know if you make the leap and get any before and after stats!

Your boss is wrong.

Here's the way I think about it - your building's insulation is not perfect, and it's constantly losing heat to the outside atmosphere (assuming it's colder outdoors than in your building).  As you lose that heat, it's replaced by your heating system.  The larger the temperature difference between the indoors and outdoors, the more work the system has to do to maintain the indoor temperature.

If you have the temperature gradient (difference between outside and inside) constantly high, the building is constantly losing heat, and the heating system is constantly having to replace it.  This is particularly going to be the case overnight during the winter, when outside temperatures are the lowest and the temperature gradient is thus the highest.

Now, if you use the thermostat and keep the temperature low overnight and heat up the building in the morning, the system only has to do the work over a short period of time.  You're not constantly replacing the lost heat overnight, you're allowing the temperature gradient to remain lower, and then only using the energy from the heater when necessary.

It's hard to explain - hopefully that was sufficiently clear, but your boss is definitely wrong.  Programmable thermostats are one of the best ways to improve energy efficiency in a building.

I'll take a stab at simplifying what Dana said:

The hotter something is the faster it will cool (a burner on the stove will go from 400 to 350 much faster than my dinner will go from 150 to 100.) This is, as Dana mentioned, the gradient effect. More technically, it is called "Newton's Law of Cooling" which states that the greater the difference in temperature is between the object and its environment, the faster the rate of cooling.

So you can imagine a J-shaped 'temperature hill', which becomes steeper the higher you climb in temperature. Now imagine a little ball representing the temperature of your office. If you are high on the temperature hill, say at 75 degrees, then the ball will roll down the hill relatively fast during the time that the heater is not working; the ball will have to be pushed back up to where it was more often. Each heater has its own setting of when it needs to turn on, its own 'wake up call' that realizes the ball is too far from where it is supposed to be.

You can imagine now that if you are lower, at say 55 degrees, then it will not roll down quite as fast, and the ball will not have to be pushed up quite as often.

...usually my metaphors end up complicating things more than they already were, but hopefully it helped a little : D