With older heat pumps there was some question about whether you used less electricity since you never heated the walls much with air temperatures entering the room in the mid 70s. Gas or oil heat always had the benefit since it doesn’t take long to heat the room. But you probably don’t have a heat pump in Alaska.
No, you’re wrong; he’s not right. It’s not true that “Once you’ve cooled to the new set temperature you’ll still see the same time span between the heat and non-heat cycle for temperature maintanence to the set temp” if the heat source is INSIDE the building.
Cooling off the interior is always slower than heating up the interior, given a heat source inside the building.
Here’s a thought experiment: heat a house to a temperature of 72 degrees. Turn the heat off and let the interior of the house cool to the ambient outside temperature, which we will say is 32 degrees. I can tell you from experience that this will take at least a day or two, but please try it yourself. Come back to the house, turn the heat on. Do you think it will take the same amount of time to warm up as it did to cool down? If it does, you need a bigger heater. It works the same way with air-conditioning.
The furnace never needs “to work as hard” because it is always either on or off, never working “hard.” You always save by turning the thermostat down.