Two Thermostats - One zone system - can it work?

[Nico6429]

Hello, 

We have not hosted yet but are planning to once our walkout basement is finished. We have a one zone hvac system, and currently the only thermostat is in our upstairs living area. Our walkout basement will be separated by locks from the main house so currently if someone visited, they would need to have the nest app to use our nest learning thermostat and I would have to find some way to setup a guest mode.

I am wondering, if anyone has experience with the new nest thermostat (the cheaper, non learning one). My goal is to be able to set that up (two thermostats in the house), with a locked range that they can use, and parameters so that we don't get a crazy electrical bill.

We are in Utah so I figured somewhere from 65-75 was a safe range for them to operate in, and when they are out of the place it defaults to a 75 degrees max. (It stays surprisingly cool down there, between air getting circulated regularly by the hvac system, and the sun not beating down on it.)

Thanks for your input everyone
In some quick research I was not seeing much about setting up guest modes on those specific units so I was curious if anyone else had any experience.
Also for context, we will only rent when we are out of town, so I am not worried about them making it hot downstairs, and roasting us upstairs.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nico6429 I am not sure what logic you will apply to the 2 thermostats. Assuming the house is the hotter space and you set the upstairs thermostat high then it will not demand cooling but if the downstairs thermostats is demanding cooling the HVAC system will get two conflicting demands. If your HVAC system can cope then great - If not then a clever relay system may be needed.

[Gwen386]

@Nico6429 My STR is my basement studio apt and there is no thermostat control. It took me staying in the apt over a weekend to gauge the correct temperature. As you say, the basement stays cool.

So when guests check in, I let them know during the tour that there’s no thermostat in the basement and that I keep the AC setting at 73-75 and to let me know if it gets too cold or too warm. To date, I’ve had only one guest ask me to change it because it was too cold (70 degrees).  

I don’t know what the winter setting will be yet because I just started hosting end of March. I’ll spend another weekend in apt in Nov and decide then.