How to calibrate a thermostat

The house we moved into has an older, lever-based thermostat that annoys me. It's not that hard to replace it with a programmable thermostat, but we're renting for now and I don't want to bear that cost.

So I picked up three cheap ($1.00-1.45) thermometers and placed them throughout the house. One's in the living room, one's above the thermostat, and one's in our study.

I placed a strip of scotch tape along the side of the thermostat so that I could mark on it and easily clean it up later. I also marked along the middle of the lever to make lining the lever up with the side markings easier.

The picture above only has one temperature so far, but I'm in the process of adjusting the temperature, waiting for the air conditioner to stop (meaning the desired temperature has been reached), and then marking the side of the thermostat with the temperature the thermometer reads.

Once that's done I'll have a way to adjust the thermostat that'll rival the up and down buttons folks with digital thermostats are accustomed to.