We promised to tell you about Thermostats

Okay, it's time for something different that a picture of All Decked Out.  We promised you in an earlier post to tell you about our new thermostats at Smoky Mountain Tower.  You know from paying your own electric bills that utility costs are not cheap.  But they can be especially expensive when your house is empty, but your furnace is roaring away!

We found out recently about some new technology that let's us control thermostats over the Internet.  So we decided to try these new devices at Smoky Mountain Tower.  And it works!  I can even raise or lower the temperatures on my smartphone.  Take a look:

Not only does my phone show me the current setting, but it also shows me the current temperature in the room.  I can raise or lower the temperature, turn the fan from auto to on, or move the thermostat from heat to cool.

Now I know what you're thinking.  NO - we will NEVER change a thermostat setting while there are guests in Smoky Mountain Tower.  But when a guest leaves and nobody is coming in for a few days, this will give us the ability to change the temperature (lower in winter, higher in summer) and thus saving on electricity.  And when our electric bills are running several hundred dollars a month, we think it's important to try to have some savings.  It's things like this that enable us to keep our rental prices among the lowest in the area - which ultimately helps our guests.  And THAT'S the REAL idea behind all this.