Home Improvement Today?

For what it's worth, I buy somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 thermostats a year for my company, of a few different brands, I install honeywells for standard programmables, but I wont go near one of their smart thermostats, user interface is crap compared to competitors, and their apps are the most nonsensical things I've every tried to use.

If you send a picture of the wiring behind the faceplace, I may be able to point you in the right direction, in the end, a thermostat is just a fancy light switch, it tells your furnace/AC when to turn things on and off, that's about it. When you pull the faceplate you'll probably be working with W,R,Y,C,G wires (although that Mitsubishi may be a heat pump with a B or O wire.) If its the standard first 5 wires, just connect the Y and R together, if the AC comes in, the thermostat is the problem, if the AC doesn't come on, something downstream in the furnace or condenser unit is the problem. Honestly, the biggest cause we find of this is a dirty furnace filter, these things are smart enough to know when their is not enough airflow over the A coil to avoid freeze up, and will shut themselves down.

W=heat
R=power in
Y = Condenser
C= thermostat power
G= furnace fan

 

How about one of these? Originally came to market in 1953 and still sold today.

 

I’ve learned to pretty much not deal with contractors that want money up front, unless they have material they’ll be leaving at my house. Ones around here that are reputable and worth using have enough capital to get their jobs started without a couple grand to get going.

the jobs I’m having done are more “I’ll do it for this price and it’ll take this long” then I get an electronic quote and off we go. Nothing on paper about schedule. That would be different if I was using a GC but I’m basically the GC hiring a plumber, a drywall guy, and a tile guy. Everything else I’m self performing.

 

We fill a 5 gallon bucket every couple months with the old mercury version of these. Average house age in my area is mid 1940’s. I think we’ve only come across 2 that were actually broken (snapped bi metal strip). Most people have a huge adjustment period when we replace them since they are so innacurate for the temp they show vs true temp. You think you had your thermostat set at 70 for the last 40 years, but the real temperature was more like 74, lol.

 

Growing up we always worked the opposite way. When your reputation is good enough, you can charge for the estimate time. You either want the best or you don’t.

 

I wish it was that way, but the contracting world is so saturated nowadays with unqualified and/or shady folks. Anybody can get a license and get some good reviews and such. Not everybody can work long enough successfully to have capital to do their jobs. A contractor can more easily disappear than a customer can in my experience..

 

what do you recommend for a smart stat with remote sensors?
currently the stat is upstairs in the hall under the return but I feel that is short runs and doesn't really run long enough
would like to put a sensor in each bedroom and one downstairs, weighted to time of day would be nice (downstairs during waking hours and bedrooms at night)

 

To be entirely honest I was okay with the one I had but it's wasn't compatible with a heat pump AC if you can believe that.

 

I like the Google smart thermostats with the remote sensors.

@Key-Rei could you get your gaming room zoned with a remote sensor?

 

Possibly but I don't see much point, it would still try to cool the whole house to that level and the thermostat is less than 10 steps from the desk.

 

Close some supply vents and leave that one wide open so it cools more?

 

This is what I meant, @Key-Rei. You can get dampers with small electric motors that work with the thermostat.

 

Slower than I expected, but we got one of the forms up today. We couldn’t figure out exactly how we wanted to form the stem walls, so we kind of killed a couple of hours experimenting. Probably should put a disclaimer: we are NOT concrete guys.




This footing is a little more difficult than the other one we are doing this weekend. It ties-in the old building to the breezeway wall. The other one will just be an extension of the breezeway wall to a 90° bend and die at a blunt end.

 

Some idiot who added the central air in my place put the return duct and t-stat right below the attic door. Damn thing runs constantly cause it pulls heat down from the attic, while freezing out all the other rooms. I even got one of those zip up attic door insulators, and it helps for sure, but not that much.

 

Ecobee has been the best one I’ve worked with, Its the one I kept after testing every google, ecobee, and Honeywell product out there. the additional sensors do end up just over cooling or overheating areas of the home unless you have a true zoned damper duct system though, I use them to monitor temps in areas of the home, but turned off their ability to control the heating hvac system. The in register booster fans that are out there actually are a good compromise if you don’t want to zone the whole home. They have built in temp sensors that turn them off/on and help pull additional conditioned air into spaces that need it.

 

@Key-Rei there's software settings for your air handler that are only available on Mitsubishi branded thermostats, specifically the ones listed on the air handlers' compatibility list.

 

I had one of those until just a couple years ago when l got an all-new system installed.

 

Yes they drift over the decades -- on the other hand I never found one yet with dead batteries.

So many folks (aka: women) get so hung up on the number displayed, completely ignoring if they are comfortable or not.

We have an indoor/outdoor display in the kitchen -- my wife will look at the indoor number and then be cold...

 

My AC buddy told me that could lead to the vents getting condensation on them and molding?

 

Yeah I liked me vague guess mercury thermostat, I get hung up on the big digital number on my new electric one.

Don't really like it but not much I can do about it.

I go through lots of temp swing and generally "run hot" so I'm constantly messing with the temp but it usually lives around 74 when home and 77 when I head out.