Your outdated thermostat habits spike your bill

The number on your thermostat screen is probably wrong. Not broken wrong. Strategy wrong. The Department of Energy quietly rewrote its thermostat guidance and the old set it and forget it rule no longer matches how modern variable speed equipment runs. In this episode I walk through the new DOE setpoint advice, why the old 8 degree setback rule hurts efficiency on a two-stage or variable speed system, and what I actually recommend to homeowners in Kingfisher running everything from 1990s single-stage units to modern inverter heat pumps. More episodes: https://hartzellsheatair.com/podcast/

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Transcript

The Old Thermostat Rule Breaks

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The number on your thermostat right now, uh the one you deliberately set this morning because you thought it was, you know, saving you money, is actually secretly spiking your energy bill.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Yeah. And the crazy part is it's not because your equipment is broken or anything.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Right. It's because the golden rule of home energy savings that well, that we all learned back in the nineties is completely obsolete now.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Oh, totally. It's a relic at this point.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Welcome to today's deep dive. We are looking at a massive, albeit very quiet, update to the Department of Energy's thermostat guidance. The mission today is pretty simple. We are going to explore why applying a 1995 rule of thumb to a 2026 machine is a strategy that is actively working against you. So, okay, let's unpack this.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Well, in a world of just absolute information overload, we humans desperately cling to simple rules of thumb. I mean, they comfort us, you know. We love a good shortcut.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Oh, absolutely. Give me a cheat code any day.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Exactly. But the problem with short pets is that our behavior often lags way, way behind our technologies. So we upgrade our homes with the state-of-the-art machinery, but then we continue to operate that machinery using logic that honestly belongs in a museum.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

It's like a complete mismatch.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

It is. It's a classic mismatch between modern hardware and uh human habits.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

And that 1995 rule of thumb we're talking about. I mean, it was practically gospel. The Department of Energy repeated it for 20 years. Our parents drilled it into our heads.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Turn off the lights, turn down the AC.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Right. And it made us feel incredibly responsible. You set your thermostat to 78 degrees in the summer, 68 degrees in the winter. And the absolute golden rule was the setback, right? You bump the temperature up or down by like seven to ten degrees when you leave the house for work.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yep, the classic set it and forget it while you're at the office.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Exactly. You let the house get hot in the summer or freezing cold in the winter while it's empty, and boom, you supposedly save about 10% a year on your utility bill.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

And well, to be completely fair to the DOE here, for most of those 20 years, that advice was bulletproof. It really was the absolute best way to manage your energy consumption.

Why The Light Bulb Logic Fails

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Aaron Powell But logically speaking, isn't turning off the air conditioning when you leave the house like always cheaper? I mean, it feels exactly like turning off a light bulb in an empty room.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, it does feel that way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

If I leave the room, I flip the switch, the bulb uses zero electricity, and I save money. Why wouldn't a house full of cold air work the exact same way? If the HVAC machine is completely off, it's not pulling any power from the grid.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

What's fascinating here is that your light bulb analogy is a perfect description of how a traditional older HVAC system works. The DOE's new guidance actually contains a crucial caveat that honestly most people just completely missed.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Wait, really? What

Single Stage Versus Variable Speed

SPEAKER_01 2:48

caveat?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Well, if you live in a house with a traditional single stage furnace and a single stage AC, then that old advice absolutely still applies. A single stage system only has two speeds. It's either 100% on or it's 100% off.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Oh, okay. So it's very binary.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Highly binary. So if you have that older equipment, that seven to ten degree setback is absolutely still going to save you money. The friction and the whole reason for this updated guidance is what happens if you've recently upgraded your equipment.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Which I mean, a huge portion of us have. There have been these massive tax credits and rebates over the last few years, really incentivizing everyone to upgrade to those super energy efficient models.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Right. And if you have upgraded to a modern variable speed heat pump or a two-stage compressor, applying that old 10-degree setback strategy is just a massive financial mistake.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Because it's not a light bulb anymore.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Exactly. The off part while you're at work, that's not actually the problem. You are saving pennies while the machine sits idle. The real problem is the massive energetic penalty you incur the exact moment you demand the system turn back on to recover all that lost ground.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Okay. We need to clarify the mechanics of this because I think the average person assumes a new variable speed machine is just like a quieter, slightly better version of their old machine.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Oh, sure. They see the box outside and think it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah. But it's fundamentally different technology, isn't it?

The Recovery Cost That Spikes Bills

SPEAKER_00 4:10

It's completely different. A variable speed system is engineered from the ground up to run slow and steady. Rather than just a binary on-off switch, imagine a compressor that has, I don't know, dozens of gears. Okay. It is specifically designed to find a low, gentle speed and just cruise there all day, maintaining the temperature with an incredibly low wattage draw. It wants to sip electricity, not chug it.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So let's play out the typical scenario here. It's August, you leave for work and you let the house drift eight degrees warmer because you are diligently following that 90s rule of thumb.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Right, doing what you were taught.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah. Then you go home at 5 p.m., the house is 83 degrees in sweltering, and you walk over to the wall and demand that it cool back down to 75 instantly.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

And by doing that, you are forcing a precision machine into an absolute panic. The compressor's algorithm looks at that massive eight degree gap and realizes, uh-oh, I cannot gently cruise to reach that target before midnight.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Right. It's too big of a hill to climb.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Exactly. So to satisfy your immediate demand for comfort, it jumps to full maximum output. And here's the kicker full output is its absolute least efficient mode. The entire reason you paid thousands of dollars extra for a variable speed machine was so it could avoid running at full output.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

The source material had this brilliant analogy for this. It said doing this to a modern HVAC system is exactly like paying for Ferrari and then driving it like a U-Haul truck.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

That is so spot on.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Right. You bought an instrument designed for smooth, continuous performance, and you're just stomping the gas pedal to the floor and then slamming on the brakes.

Auxiliary Heat Strips Budget Killer

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah. And believe it or not, the winter scenario is actually even worse. The sources outline this heating phenomenon they call the silent budget killer, and this is where the math truly turns against you.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Wait, okay. I always thought a heat pump just magically worked in reverse. Yeah. You know, pulling ambient heat from the outside air and moving it indoors. Where is this extra budget killer coming from? Is there like a secret gas burner hidden in my ductwork that I don't know about?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Not gas, but electric. If you have a modern heat pump, you very likely have auxiliary electric heat strips installed right inside the indoor air handler.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Okay, what do those do?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Well, you're right that heat pumps are incredibly efficient at pulling ambient heat out of the outdoor air, even when it's near freezing. But they work gradually, they extract heat very slowly. So if it's really cold outside, and you suddenly ask the system to heat the house up by 10 degrees because you just walked in the door from work.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

The slow and steady thing isn't gonna cut it.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Nope. The heat pump compressor simply cannot recover that fast on its own.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

And the thermostat knows this, right? It calculates the temperature difference and realizes the compressor is gonna lose that battle.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

The thermostat sees that math failing in real time. So to keep you from freezing in your living room while you wait, it panics and calls for backup. It triggers those auxiliary electric heat strips.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah. Think of these as giant toaster coils or like a dozen high-powered hairdryers mounted directly inside your ductwork.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

So what does this all mean for the monthly bill? Because running a dozen hairdryers at once sounds financially terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

It should be terrifying. A normal heat pump compressor running in its efficient slow mode might pull about three kilowatts of power. Those emergency heat strips. They pulled 10 to 15 kilowatts. What? Yeah, it is staggeringly expensive.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

It's literally three to five times more expensive to run.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Exactly. So if your house drops to 60 degrees overnight because you think, hey, I'm saving money while I sleep, and then you wake up and demand 70 degrees immediately, you trigger those strips. You just turned your highly efficient, state-of-the-art heat pump into the world's most expensive space heater for 45 minutes. That is

New DOE Setback Limits

SPEAKER_00 7:56

just wow. Whatever the updated DOE numbers finally reflect this new reality. For summer cooling, they do still recommend 78 degrees when you are home and awake. But here's the massive shift. If you have a heat pump or a variable speed AC, you should have a maximum setback of only four degrees when you are away.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

A maximal of four degrees. Wow. Not the massive seven to ten degree swings we used to enforce.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Not at all. And for winter heating, the DOE recommends 68 degrees when you are home. But if you have a heat pump, do not drop the temperature more than two degrees if it is below freezing outside.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Only two degrees. That is an incredibly tight band. People are so used to letting their houses just free fall while they're at work.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

I know. It requires a completely different philosophy of home management. You are no longer managing on versus off. You are managing the momentum of the machine.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

The momentum. I like that. There is actually a fantastic real-world example in our sources that brings this whole abstract math thing

Comfort Equals Temperature Plus Humidity

SPEAKER_01 8:52

to life. It's a guy named Dave Hartzell.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Ah, yes, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah, he's an HVAC technician with 45 years of experience running a business down in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Dave basically laughs at the old set it and forget it with a massive setback rules. He has a variable speed system in his own house. In the summer, he sets it to 75. In the winter, he sets it to 70. And he basically never touches it again. No setbacks, no fiddling.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

And the result of that is that Dave's system cycles long and low. His energy bill is consistently lower than his neighbors who are, you know, constantly playing with their thermostats, trying to outsmart their own machinery.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Okay, I do have to push back on Dave's strategy for a second, just on behalf of anyone listening who lives in a hot, humid climate, 75 degrees in the summer. In an Oklahoma summer, where the sources note the dew point is constantly hovering between 60 and 80 percent.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

It sounds hot, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

It sounds like an absolutely sweaty, miserable nightmare. If the humidity is high, my house would feel like a swamp at 75 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Well, it would feel like a swamp if you had a traditional single-stage system that was short cycling. But this introduces something we can call the comfort equation.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

The comfort equation.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah. Comfort isn't just a raw number on a thermometer. The actual equation for human comfort is temperature plus humidity plus airflow.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Wait, go back a second. Short cycling. Is that when the AC just blasts for 10 minutes, turns off, and then turns right back on again a few minutes later?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Exactly that. It's like sprinting a hundred-yard dash over and over rather than just going for a long, continuous jog. Right. Think about what an air conditioner actually does. It doesn't just cool the air, it conditions it. Oh, right. A huge part of that conditioning process is removing moisture. A traditional single stage system blasts at 100% capacity, cools the ambient air in the house very quickly, say in 10 or 15 minutes, and then shuts off.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Right. Because the air in the room quickly hit the target temperature on the wall.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Exactly. But 15 minutes is nowhere near enough time to pull the humidity out of the air or out of the thermal mass of your home. Your walls, your couch cushions, your hardwood floors, they all hold on to moisture and heat.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

I never even thought about the furniture holding moisture.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

It totally does. So the AC shuts off, and you have a house where the air is technically 72 degrees, but it's incredibly humid. The air feels clammy, it feels sticky. The moisture radiates back out of the furniture. You feel like you need a sweater because the air blowing on you is freezing, but you're also somehow sweating.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I know exactly that feeling. You're cold, but you're damp. It's the worst possible combination.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

It is the worst. Now, Dave Hartzell's variable speed system operates on a totally different paradigm because he sets it to 75 and leaves it there. The machine runs at a very low speed for hours at a time. It is constantly circulating the indoor air over the cold evaporator coil. It basically acts as a massive whole house dehumidifier all afternoon long.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Oh, I see. So it's wringing the moisture out of the house like a giant sponge, slowly and continuously rather than just blasting the air and turning off.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Exactly. And a bone-dry 75 degrees feels incredibly cool and comfortable on human skin. Your sweat can actually evaporate. Whereas a short cycling, clammy 72 degrees feels terrible. So Dave isn't suffering at 75 degrees. He is significantly more comfortable than the person freezing at 72, and he's paying less money for that superior comfort.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Here's where it gets really interesting though.

Smart Thermostat Defaults Fight HVAC

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Because if managing this comfort equation, you know, balancing the humidity, the thermal mass, the compressor speeds, if it's all so complex, this is exactly why we all started buying smart thermostats in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

We buy a nest or an EcoBee, we slap it on the wall, and we just assume it's going to do all this complex math for us. We assume it is the modern brain that this modern system needs.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

And that assumption is exactly where millions of homeowners are falling into a very expensive trap. The paradox of the modern smart thermostat is that straight out of the box, their default programming is entirely built for the old world.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Wait, the brand new Wi-Fi connected technology is defaulting to 1995 logic.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

It is. Their default auto schedules, their eco modes, and especially their geofencing features, they are all heavily designed to maximize theoretical savings by enforcing aggressive temperature setbacks. They are actively programmed to fight a variable speed system.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

The geofencing feature is fascinating to me. The whole pitch is that the thermostat tracks your phone's GPS location. So it knows exactly when you leave the house and it knows when you are commuting back.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Right. And our sources highlight a specific geographic scenario that perfectly illustrates how this fails in practice. So imagine someone who lives in Dave's town of Tingfisher, but they commute 40 miles to Oklahoma City for work.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Okay. So they leave for work in the morning and the smart thermostat says, aha, the phone has left the geofense. Time to save some money. And it completely abandons the temperature target.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Exactly. The algorithm sees an empty house and lets the indoor temperature drift eight, maybe ten degrees warmer in the middle of the summer to save energy. Then at 5 p.m. the person gets in their car and starts their 40-mile drive home. When they hit the edge of the geofense, say 10 miles from the house, the thermostat realizes they are returning. It looks at the current temperature, looks at the target temperature, sees a massive 10 degree gap, and just panics.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Because its entire goal is to have the house perfectly chilled the moment the homeowner turns the key in the front door.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Precisely. To achieve that, it has to trigger the expensive heat strips in the winter, or it ramps the compressor to absolute maximum 100% speed in the summer. It runs incredibly hard using maximum wattage, trying to close a 10-degree gap before the car pulls into the driveway.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

So the homeowner walks in, the house feels great, they look at the little green leaf icon on their app and they think, wow, my smart thermostat saved me money all day while I was at the office.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

But they didn't save anything. They just moved the energy use to a different time of day. And because they forced a variable speed system to operate in its least efficient, highest wattage mode to recover all that thermal mass, they almost certainly used more total kilowatt hours than if they had just left the temperature alone all day.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

So if my expensive smart thermostat is actively sabotaging my new heat pump right out of the box, do I just rip it off the wall? I mean, am I supposed to buy a $200 device and immediately disable half of its brain?

Use Smart Data Not Eco Modes

SPEAKER_00 15:12

If you have a variable speed system, honestly, yes, you absolutely should turn off those specific features. You want to enforce a tight band, 75 to 76 in the summer, 68 to 70 in the winter, turn off the aggressive geofencing, turn off the eco modes that enforce massive swings.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Then what is the point of having a smart thermostat at all? Why shouldn't I just reinstall my dad's old mercury dial from the garage?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Because the real value of smart technology for modern HVAC isn't in aggressive setbacks. It's in the data it provides. You want to use the smart features for what they actually excel at. For instance, runtime data.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Why do I care how long my hair conditioner runs? I mean, isn't less running always better?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Not anymore. Runtime data tells you the health and the sizing of your system. If your smart app tells you the AC ran for 14 hours yesterday on a 92-degree day, your instinct might be to panic and call a repair man.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, I would assume the motor is overworked or the refrigerant is leaking or something.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Right. But on a variable speed unit, 14 hours of runtime is exactly what you want to see. Long, low, steady runs. That means it is constantly dehumidifying the air and sipping electricity. Okay, that makes sense. On the other hand, if your app shows the system only ran for four hours total, but in massive short chunks and your house feels clammy, you have a major problem. Your system is likely drastically oversized for your house's square footage, or you have a dirty coil and it's losing capacity. That is incredible diagnostic information that an old dial thermostat simply cannot give you.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

That is so true. The sources also mention smart filter reminders, which sounds really basic, but it's actually huge for modern equipment.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

It is huge. Most homeowners don't realize that modern systems often use thick, high-efficiency media filters that need to be swapped based on actual airflow. Sometimes every 60 days, not every six months, like the old cheap fiberglass ones. A smart thermostat tracking actual blower run hours to tell you exactly when to change the filter can save your expensive blower motor from suffocating and burning out.

C-Wire And Setup Menu Disasters

SPEAKER_01 17:15

But actually getting these smart thermostats installed correctly is a whole other minefield. The sources outline two massive DIY setup disasters that cause an endless stream of service calls. We definitely need to warn everyone about them.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Oh yes, please do.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

The first one is skipping something called a C-wire, because older thermostats were basically just light switches, right? They didn't need their own power. But a modern smart thermostat is a Wi-Fi computer with a backlit touch screen. If it doesn't have a dedicated common wire, the C-wire, to complete a constant 24 volt circuit, I'm assuming it has to get that power from somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

That's the problem. Many older homes don't have a C-wire run through the walls to the thermostat location. When a homeowner tries to install a modern smart thermostat without it, the device tries to power its Wi-Fi chip and its bright screen by essentially acting like a parasite.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

A parasite.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah. It starts siphoning power from the heat or cool call wires.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Wait, it's stealing electricity meant for the furnace relay?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Exactly, which causes the entire 24 volt circuit to drop. The HVAC system starts to flicker or short cycle, or the furnace relays start shattering erratically. The homeowner assumes their extremely expensive equipment is broken when in reality their fancy new thermostat is just starving for power and crashing the circuit.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Wow. And the second mistake is honestly even more painful because it's purely human error. It's what happens when you turn the new smart thermostat on for the very first time and you just impatiently click next, next, next, through the digital setup menu because you want to get it over with.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Oh, HVAC technicians see this constantly. During initial boot up, there is a hidden configuration screen that explicitly asks you what kind of system the thermostat is controlling. Is it a heat pump or conventional gas? Is it single-stage or two-stage? Does it have auxiliary heat strips?

SPEAKER_01 19:02

And if you don't know the answer to those technical questions and you just blindly click through.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

The thermostat software defaults to the safest, most basic, assumption conventional single-stage logic, which means you now have a highly intelligent $200 thermostat running your brand new $12,000 variable speed heat pump as if it were a rudimentary 1985 furnace.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

It completely ignores all the variable speed gears. Just turns the machine on 100% or off. You pay for a Ferrari, and you literally program the computer to think it's a U-Haul.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yep. This is one of the most common service calls in the entire industry. A frustrated customer calls, complaining their new system is short cycling, their bills are astronomically high, and the emergency heat is constantly kicking on.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

They think they got ripped off.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Exactly. The technician walks in the front door, goes straight to the thermostat configuration menu, changes three drop-down settings to tell the thermostat what machinery it's actually attached to, and walks out. It's a 30-minute visit that saves the homeowner $80 a month for the rest of

Homework Check Three Key Settings

SPEAKER_00 20:02

the winter.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So, what does this all mean for you, the listener? What is the actionable step you should take today? Well, here is your homework, straight from the experts in the field. Tomorrow morning, walk over to your thermostat, find the exact model number, and Google that number along with the phrase configuration menu or install or setup.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

You really have to dig into those back end settings.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yes, you need to get into the back end and verify three specific things. First, check the system type, make sure it accurately reflects the machinery sitting outside your house. Second, check your setback band. Make sure you aren't enforcing massive 10-degree swings on a variable speed unit. And third, check the emergency heat lockout temperature. Make sure those expensive toaster coils aren't firing up just because it's a mild 45 degrees outside.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

And look, if you look at that menu and you have absolutely no idea what you were looking at, do not guess. Call a reputable local HVA shop. Most of them will happily spend 20 minutes on the phone with you, entirely for free, walking you through the menu to ensure it's configured for your specific equipment and your specific climate zone. It is, as Dave Hartzell says, the cheapest tune-up you will ever do.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

We've covered the mechanical gears, the hidden money traps, and the comfort equation. We know that treating modern tech like old tech is a guaranteed recipe for high bills and clammy

The Bigger Lesson On Automation

SPEAKER_01 21:22

houses.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah, and if we connect this to the bigger picture, it really is a profound realization about how passive we have become with our technology. We blindly trust the default algorithms in our smart thermostats only to find out they are actively fighting the physical equipment they control?

SPEAKER_01 21:37

It really makes you wonder.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

It does. This raises an important question. What other smart automations in our daily lives are doing the exact same thing? From our smart appliances running inefficient wash cycles because of default settings, to our automated finances applying outdated logic to a changing economy. How many of our convenient set it and forget it systems? Are quietly costing us behind the scenes simply because we never took 20 minutes to look under the hood at the configuration menu.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

It really makes you rethink the whole concept of a smart home. You think you've got the whole house managed, everything is optimized, everything is clean and categorized like a perfect digital X-ray. You think you have the ultimate strategy.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

But you might just be fighting yourself.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Exactly. As we learned today, sometimes you have to look past the visible surface, past that sleek touch screen on the wall, and understand the messy, complex reality of the machinery underneath. Because if you don't, that beautifully clear, automated strategy is going to leave you sweating in a 72 degree swamp, paying double for the privilege. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. Check your settings, and we'll catch you next time.