One of the things I'm actually worried about is that there are several things in my house that I don't think could be automated, at least not within the parameters available to me as a renter.
I do have two accordion blinds I raise and lower daily, but only two. One wall of my house is a giant sliding glass door with floor-length curtains, though, which are as manual as it gets. They don't even have a stick to guide them. I just grab an edge and pull. I don't think my landlord would appreciate it if I mount a whole different track, but I guess it might be different if he doesn't find out.
My heater is my biggest concern, though. It's a propane-fed floor unit (house is very small, as I mentioned). It's controlled by walking over and pushing buttons on the top of it. It has no remote. The thermostat is part of the unit itself. Turning power to the unit itself off and on would kill the pilot light, never mind that in the winter I can't have it go off. I just want it to go from 65 while I'm home down to 55 while I'm not. It only takes a couple minutes to warm the house (again, house is quite small), but the pipes would freeze if I let it get any colder.
And that's where I come back to, "How inconvenient is it, really, to open my curtains in the morning and turn the temp down when I walk out the door?" The heater is even adjacent to the door.
I do have two accordion blinds I raise and lower daily, but only two. One wall of my house is a giant sliding glass door with floor-length curtains, though, which are as manual as it gets. They don't even have a stick to guide them. I just grab an edge and pull. I don't think my landlord would appreciate it if I mount a whole different track, but I guess it might be different if he doesn't find out.
My heater is my biggest concern, though. It's a propane-fed floor unit (house is very small, as I mentioned). It's controlled by walking over and pushing buttons on the top of it. It has no remote. The thermostat is part of the unit itself. Turning power to the unit itself off and on would kill the pilot light, never mind that in the winter I can't have it go off. I just want it to go from 65 while I'm home down to 55 while I'm not. It only takes a couple minutes to warm the house (again, house is quite small), but the pipes would freeze if I let it get any colder.
And that's where I come back to, "How inconvenient is it, really, to open my curtains in the morning and turn the temp down when I walk out the door?" The heater is even adjacent to the door.