Article: Thinking thermostats; new programmable thermostats can cut your heating and cooling bills without sacrificing your comfort.

It was a strange thought to have the first thing on Saturday morning. Yet every time the banging pipes of my steam-heat system woke me at 6 a.m., I'd yearn for a smarter thermostat--one that would remember it was the weekend.

To cut energy costs I had already replaced my ancient night-setback clock thermostat with an auto-setback model. It allows up to three daily setups and setbacks. But you program it with slippery little pins that snap onto a clock dial. To change the program so the heat would bang on at a civilized hour on Saturday morning, I had to fumble with the pins on Friday night--or push the "comfort" lever back from 68 degrees F to the "economy" ...

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