The thermostat can be bypassed like any other gadget.
Awhile back they made a deal at work, with the electric company, at the end of Summer. They could shut us down with 4 hrs notice when demand was up and supply short. In return they would knock a million bucks off the yearly electric bill.
So a contract was immediately made to install 3 gas turbine generators, to be operational before the next Summer season, in order to keep the basics running in the event of a shutdown. Life is good.
Well, it was a bad winter…..a very bad winter…very cold and snowy. About February the Electric Company exercised their option….. for 4 days.
They shut down the plant and brought in as many portable generators as they could find but one of the 2 huge steam boilers went down and almost lost the second.
Pipes froze and burst, the mainframe computers gave up and the maintenance people worked feverishly by flashlight.
It was a very expensive mistake.
