Below is a tutorial on how to install your new thermostat! If you are not comfortable with installing your thermostat yourself and you choose to hire someone instead, here are a few things to make sure of when making your decision to call someone to install your thermostat:
1. DO NOT hire an electrician. While electricians wire many things and will be more than happy to charge you to install a thermostat, they are not who you should call to install a thermostat.
2. Call an HVAC company. One who services HVAC equipment (i.e. Furnaces, Air Conditioners, AHU’s, etc).
3. When setting up your appointment ensure that you are getting aLicensed Journeyman HVAC Service Technician, from a reputable HVAC company, to come install your thermostat. While almost anyone can install a thermostat, we’ve discovered that there are several “HVAC Technicians” out there that claim to know what they are doing but in reality they do not and end up costing you money and time in the long run. So, don’t use a friend of a friend.
4. Be aware… A lot of HVAC companies out there do not like the idea of the consumer buying a thermostat from outside of the company that they represent and only calling on them to do the labor. They would rather sell you one of their thermostats. So, they may claim that the thermostat that you have purchased is not compatible with your system to try to schmooze you out of more money. While this is apossibility, the likely hood of this actually being the case is slim,VERY slim. Most standard thermostats are compatible with the majority of your equipment. If you’ve purchased from us, every thermostat that VenstarOutlet, HVAC-Outlet, and HoneywellOutlet, carried in our e-stores are considered a standard thermostat. Same applies if you were to purchase from a place like Home Depot or a Lowes. They are kind of like Universal Remotes for your HVAC equipment, they’ll work with 99% of the standard residential/commercial HVAC units. If the technician says that your new thermostat, from any one of our stores, is incompatible with your system, verify with us. There is a good chance they are trying to work you for more money. We will be happy to walk the technician, or consumer, through the process of installing their new thermostat. Don’t let them take your money.
5. DIY - really the whole purpose of purchasing a thermostat from us or a hardware store is to save yourself some money. Not only through energy conservation, with a programmable thermostat, but also to save you the expencive service fees. Thermostats are not difficult to install, and in a lot of cases it’s just a matter of matching your current thermostat wire terminations to the new thermostat base. If you’ve purchased a thermostat from us, and the thermostat doesn’t work after you’ve installed it on your first try, call us, we’ll walk you through it for FREE.
Click the link below to follow a step by step guide to installing a thermostat:
1 Heat / 1 Cool Thermostat
What you will need:
-
A Phillips screwdriver (I would suggest a 6-in-1)
-
A Precision screwdriver (phillips or flat)
-
Wire Strippers
-
A Level (preferably a torpedo level)
-
PPE (Personal Protection Equipment, safety glasses, gloves, etc...)
In this tutorial we are assuming that the thermostat wire has been ran from your furnace to your thermostat location.
First step is to put on your PPE gear followed by turning off the breaker to your furnace. If you have a switch by your furnace I would also suggest turning that to the off position as well.Failing to do this step can, and most likely will, result in damaged equipment. BE SURE TO TURN THE SYSTEM OFF!
Go to where your current thermostat is installed or to the location where you are going to be installing a new thermostat. If this is a new install and you are pulling wire to the location I would suggest pulling 18/8 thermostat wire. Most thermostats and standard (single heat / single cool) systems will not require more than 5 wire to run your fan, heating, and cooling features. However, it's never a bad idea to have additional wire for future expansion of your system (I.E. outdoor air sensor, humidification, etc...) or in-case a wire gets shorted out during the wire pull.
Remove your current thermostat from it's location. If your thermostat has mercury bulbs it's important that you don't just throw it away in your garbage. Mercury is toxic and should be handled as such. If you have one of these thermostats please visit the following site for proper disposal and handling of your old t-stat. http://www.epa.gov/hg/spills/#relatedstate.
Once your thermostat is removed, determine what kind of wire was pulled. Depending on how old your house is you could have anywhere between two (2) to eight (8) wire pulled. Most of todays digital thermostats require at least five wire to be pulled to the thermostat location. If you only have two wire pulled to your thermostat location don't worry you wont necessarily need to pull more wire. There are thermostats out there that will control full heating and cooling systems with as few as two wires. If you are in this situation here are three thermostats that will save you from pulling new wire:
Hopefully you have at least five (5) wire pulled to the location. We're going to base the rest of the tutorial with the thought that you have at least five wire pulled.
You should have the following wire colors:
Red / White / Yellow / Green / Blue
On some older wires your colors may not be exactly the same but those colors are the standard nowadays, at least here in the USA.
For a better understanding of your system, and what each wire is for, I'll break them down.
Red (R terminal): Your red wire is your control voltage wire. It's the wire that provides a 24v signal from your Furnace to your Thermostat which allows your thermostat to pass signals back to your furnace to Heat, Cool, run your Fan, and any accessories that you may have. It also supplies power to your digital thermostat and allows your thermostat to display all of it's features. Temperature, time, date, etc...
White (W or W1 terminal): The white wire is in your control circuit for heating. It allows a signal to travel from your thermostat to your furnace to tell it when to turn the heat on.
Yellow (Y or Y1 terminal): The yellow wire is in your control circuit for cooling. It allows a signal to travel from your thermostat to your furnace when it's time to cool.
Green (G terminal): The green wire is in your control circuit for your Fan. It allows a signal to travel from your thermostat to your furnace to run the fan.
Blue (C or X or B terminal): The blue wire is your common wire. It completes the control voltage circuit for your thermostat and allows your thermostat to have a display and back-lights.
Now that you have a better understanding of what each wire is actually for let's start installing your thermostat.
Separate your thermostats face plate from it's baseplate. Place your face-plate in a safe place. Thread the wire through the back of the baseplate and use the mounting hardware (normally supplied with the thermostat) to mount your thermostat. Make sure that your thermostat baseplate is level with your torpedo level. Once you've mounted your baseplate we can begin wiring your thermostat.
First thing is first; If the sheathing of the thermostat wire is still in-tact we need to strip back enough sheathing so we can work with our five wires. If you have enough slack on your thermostat wire I suggest stripping off at least six inches of sheathing leaving the five wires exposed and no longer bound by the sheathing. Refer to the illustration 1-1.
| Standard 18/5 Wire. |  |
If you don't have enough slack to do this just use what you have from the previous thermostat
Once the wires are exposed we will strip approximately 1/4” from each of the individual wires. Exposing the copper.
There is no specific order you have to do the following but for the purposes of this tutorial I am going to assign an order to connect your wires to the base plate.
We'll start with the Red wire. Plug the exposed copper from the RED wire into the R terminal. Use your control screwdriver to screw the terminal screw down onto the wire. Give a light tug, on the now attached wire, to ensure that the wire is secured to the baseplate.
Next we will attach the Blue wire. Insert the exposed copper into the C terminal of your baseplate. This terminal may also be labeled with an X or a B. If you have all of these labels in your baseplate just install the wire into the C terminal. Use your control screwdriver to screw the terminal screw down onto the wire. Give a light tug, on the now attached wire, to ensure that the wire is secured to the baseplate.
Then we will take the Green wire. Insert the exposed copper wire into the G terminal of the thermostats baseplate. Use your control screwdriver to screw the terminal screw down onto the wire. Give a light tug, on the now attached wire, to ensure that the wire is secured to the baseplate.
Next we'll take the White wire. Plug the exposed copper from the WHITE wire into the W terminal on your baseplate. This terminal may also be labeled W1 or W1/O depending on your thermostat. Use your control screwdriver to screw the terminal screw down onto the wire. Give a light tug, on the now attached wire, to ensure that the wire is secured to the baseplate.
Finally we'll take the Yellow wire and plug the exposed copper into the Y terminal. This terminal may also be labeled Y1. Use your control screwdriver to screw the terminal screw down onto the wire. Give a light tug, on the now attached wire, to ensure that the wire is secured to the baseplate.
Congratulations, you've wired your thermostat! Now, snap your faceplate back onto your baseplate. Viola! You're done with that part of the installation.
Now, just to ensure we are matching on the furnace end you'll need to locate your furnace and remove the access panels to check that the wiring matches up. While the color coordination that I've shown you here is basically a standard now, you never know what the original technician did. So, it's best to double check his wiring to ensure that it matches with what we've just done with the thermostat. Double check to make sure that each wire matches exactly the same as we just did:
Red to R
Blue to C
Green to G
White to W
Yellow to Y
Be sure to change any discrepancies you may find in the furnace wiring. Once you're done with this, put the panels back onto your furnace. Go to your breaker and power on the furnace again. If you had a service disconnect (a switch) next to your furnace go and turn this on at this time as well.
Now the fun part. Go back to your thermostat and check to see if it's display is on. To ensure everything is working properly run it through every function: Fan on, Heat on, A/C on.
If each mode runs correctly congratulations, you've done everything correctly! You've successfully installed your thermostat. I hope you've found this tutorial helpful.
