Nest Rush Hour Troubleshooting

[Angelicac024]

Hello,

Since using the Rush Hour setting, I need help with understanding how it can work more effectively. I have a schedule that keeps the temperature at 78 during the day and by 6pm the house begins to cool to 74, by 9pm will be at 71. I've enabled early time to cool for all settings. 

The rush hour setting will turn on an hour before my scheduled early set time to cool (so from 3 or 4pm to 2pm), and will raise the temperature to 75 instead of 74. The problem is that over the hour of it trying to get to 75 from 78, it doesn't reach this temperature. Then by 3pm when the rush hour cooling has ended, it wil then try to be more efficient and switch to 80. This would theoretically be okay if the house had actually reached 75, but it's still at 77/78 after the hour. There have been a few times I realized it was warm in the house, and that is because it was then 80 degrees for a while instead of cooling down and then gradually warming over the course of the afternoon/evening. 

Can someone please help me figure this out? Does the rush hour only work with the Nest schedule, and if so, how to get it to recognize it needs to keep working to get to the rush hour early temp before turning to the energy efficient temperature (warmer temp). Thank you!

[virnab]

Hi Angelicac024,

Thanks for posting in the community.

I understand you're looking for help with your Nest Thermostat's Rush Hour settings. It seems the feature is causing your home to get warmer, rather than helping it cool down. I'd be happy to help you figure this out and align the settings with your comfort needs.

Based on your description, what you're experiencing with the Nest Thermostat's Rush Hour Rewards and your custom schedule seems to be a common point of confusion, and it sounds like the system is behaving as designed, though perhaps not as you expected. Rush Hour Rewards is designed to pre-cool or pre-heat your home before a peak energy demand period (the "rush hour") and then slightly raise the temperature during that period to reduce your energy consumption.

The behavior you're describing—where the thermostat raises the temperature to 80°F after the rush hour period has ended, even though it didn't reach the pre-cool temperature—is how the system is intended to work. The primary goal of Rush Hour Rewards is to reduce energy use during a specific, high-demand window, not necessarily to ensure the home reaches a specific temperature at a specific time, especially if the pre-cooling period is short. The system prioritizes energy savings during the rush hour event.

This leads to a couple of possibilities for your situation:

• The pre-cooling period is too short: One hour might not be enough time for your home's HVAC system to cool the house from 78°F to 75°F, especially if it's a very hot day.
• The system is prioritizing energy savings: The thermostat is following the Rush Hour Rewards protocol by raising the temperature to 80°F during the rush hour, as this is the most energy-efficient setting for that period.

Here is a helpful Google Nest Help Center article to learn more about: How Nest thermostats work with Rush Hour Rewards.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.

Best regards,

Virna

[Angelicac024]

Thank you for your explanation! 

So I guess my question is them this, why wouldn't the thermostat not actually try to get to 75? I understand we're trying to use less energy, primarily during high usage hours. But if it's cheaper and easier on the grid to cool during the day, why not then actually get the house to that cooler temp so that when it switches to 80, the thermostat won't need to turn on for a while until the house has warmed again? If the house never gets to 75 and is still at 77/78 before switching to 80/82, then you're just making a house uncomfortably warm very quickly, and even then, it will prompt the air to turn on during the high use hours more because it never cooled enough to begin with. That's what I don't understand about this. It really just seems like a way for us to continue to use energy during the warmest times of day which are high use. How the program is working now seems good in theory, but in execution, it's basically me having to suffer longer in warmer conditions, and then the air still coming on because it's so quick to go from 78 to 80 and then consistently try to maintain that, instead of cooling earlier on and then going to 80, so you wouldn't need the air to turn on a few hours. I just think Google needs to run some tests here in different climates to see how this actually helps people's energy use and bills. 

Also, I know the recommendation is 80/82, but I don't understand how anyone can have their house that warm. I set my house to 77/78 everyday and sometimes I have to push through mentally because some days it feels warmer than others. 

[Angelicac024]

@virnab also, why not start the cooling at 2 or 3 hours earlier so it has more time to cool during the off hours instead of one hour right up against the high usage hours? That also just seems not energy efficient, particularly because it's a very short jump and quicker to get from 78 to 80 rather than house actually being cooled to 75 then warming to 80.