I’m probably gonna have to go into the attic tomorrow and look at the wiring to the furnace…
Last year, my roommate bought a digital wi-fi thermostat. I hooked it up, programmed it and everything worked as it should.
Yesterday, she did something and factory reset it or something. I reprogrammed (as correctly as I can remember) but it doesn’t exactly work right. Going through the settings I have 3 important settings (Heat pump or forced air) (Cooling changeover valve or Heating changeover valve) and (1 stage or 2 stage).
It’s a separate gas unit for heat, so I thought that would be forced air? I selected that option but then the Heat option disappears from the thermostat. I selected heat pump instead, with cooling changeover valve. Turned on Heat, could hear furnace come on, but cold air from vents. Even after 30 minutes. Switched to heating changeover valve. Voila! heat.
It had been set to 70 while I was messing with it and it was now a rather warm 70 inside. Satisfied that it was working, I moved it down to our normal 63. I waited and waited and waited. Heat still blowing. I moved it down to 59. Still blowing. I turned the heat OFF…still blowing. I moved the temp to 40…heat still blowing. Went back into settings, switched the changeover valve back to cool. waited and FINALLY it shut off.
OK i thought… its not terribly cold today or friday, ill check this more in depth saturday when im off.
I come home from work today and expect the house to bit chillier than normal but tolerable. Its warm inside. Warmer than before it got screwed up. I look at thermostat its 71. But its set to ‘Cool’. Also the compressor on the AC unit sounds like its running. Been 5 hours and neither cooler nor hotter. holding steady at 71. And also has not shut off once. Roomate not home so I don’t know WTF she did.
if she didn’t get into the attic to mess it up, you won’t need to get into the attic to fix it.
#1 is only true if she messed it up. it’s possible there’s another problem.
need to know
what type of system (gas heat/straight cool it sounds like, could be heat pump/ gas heat backup/ straight cool, could be a few other things)
and
model number of thermostat
you’ve got it currently set for heat pump & the valve you’re referring to is a reversing valve. some systems energize them for heat, others for cool.
if you’re the one that hooked it up & programmed it last time, you either had to know more than that, or you were guessing, and it would be a very likely guess, that it is a straight heat/ straight cool.
right now, it sounds like, you’ve got it set up for a heat pump. the “AC thing, square, fan on top. out back” will look the same regardless if it’s a heat pump or not. one of your big hints there would be the number of thermostat wires going to your thermostat sub base at the indoor stat. with a few exceptions, rare exceptions, you’ll have 5 wires going to a straight cool wifi thermostat and more going to a heat pump wifi thermostat.
do this - guess & program it like you did most originally. if that doesn’t work out, there’s a good chance there’s something else going on, if that’s the case, call someone out.
Maybe put the model of the thermostat into a Google search along with the words user manual. Download and read the instructions. Odds are though you have a standard A/C & furnace setup, maybe with an optional fan. If you or she did not change wires, you don’t need to look for moved wires. If it worked before, it will again.