I have a dumb thermostat, that still uses mercury for the switch portion, never fails, and if I don't want heat there is a simple switch next to the furnace that shuts it off. Works good over 60 years!
20+ years ago, the air conditioner in my small office building stopped working. When the HVAC guys got it fixed, it had warmed up to around 85 degrees inside. A newly minted Vanderbilt Electrical Engineer came into my office to ask me a question and remarked about how hot it was, and I explained that the AC had been off, but they had just gotten it working again. He looked at the thermostat and said "why don't you turn the thermostat down so it'll cool off faster?". I just looked at him and started laughing.
Thanks Jay. I have never like the programmable thermostat and so I got a smart Nest thermostat which I like because it's similar to the older thermostats in their simplicity.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm tired of everything these days needing to be "Smart". I also say this as a big fan of technology; sometimes simpler is better! 😅
I recently heard that SMART actually stands for Surveil, Monitor, (something), (something), Track. I don't remember what the (something) was, but with the way our governments and big tech are going, it wouldn't surprise me.
My house dose not have a furnace I have a boiler with hot water heating and the thermostat is just a lever I pull one way or the other. It’s so simple the way I like it.
Say you set the thermostat to 74°F to keep warm in winter. When that temperature is reached and the furnace goes off what temperature informs the thermostat to turn the furnace back on? 72F or 73F for example?
The old thermostats used mercury like a thermometer when the temp in the house would raise or fall below your set temperature it would turn on or off the furnace and ac
In most old thermostats (at least the ones I've seen) the mercury is not used for its expansion with temperature properties. There is a coiled bimetallic strip that expands differentially with temperature, uncoiling and tipping the glass bulb that holds the mercury which flows to the other end flipping the switch. Very simple and easy to fix and replace. Some of the modern thermostats try to be too smart and sometimes are a bit unpredictable as a result.
I wonder why my new thermostat was working fine for the first week .The temperature in the room became very hot in the second week, the temperature was not controlled by the thermostat ? Is this a new thermostat broken again or is there something wrong with my furnace?
What you forgot to mention is how smart thermostats are controlled by others. I would set my smart thermostat to 70, however during the day the Google lords didn’t think my house needed to be that warm and would cut it down. Without showing on the gauge they reduced the temp and my house was always cold. Long story short I went back to the non smart thermostat.
I have heard that there are people who rented houses with smart thermostats in them and they would not allow them to set the thermostats above or below certain temperatures because the power companies wanted to conserve power. That was when I decided I will never own one of them.
Yeah I had to explain to my wife & a couple elderly friends that the home t-stat is not like your car. They always thought if you turn it all the way up or down, that it would hat or cool down like a car. Nope it just runs longer.
Let me tell you all about the time years ago that my mom put the thermostat at low as it would go to try and cool the house quickly, only to have would up frosting the AC coils over.
I have a housemate that stays in the loft and has a window unit that blows extremely cold. The loft is up a staircase with no door and the home AC thermostat is just below on the wall below the stairs. You can feel the cold air coming down the stairs. Does his cold air hitting the thermostat below force my central AC to turn off? It seems that we are competing constantly between the central air and the window unit air coming down the steps. What would solve this?
That's a good question. I think it would affect the sensor. Perhaps you should get an old-fashioned mercury thermometer, place it next to your thermostat, and check what the actual temperature is in that spot when he is running his unit?
I have a 2019 Honeywell Thermostat with sensors in each bedroom. I don’t understand sensors,since vents are normal no motors in closing vents. I want to instal a nest but don’t want the sensors . Will this cause an issue? Or are the sensors a better system
FYI...if you are thinking about upgrading your thermostat, check with your local utility, I got a 150.00 rebate on my Ecobee thermostat from Georgia Power.
Aloha good buddy Jay 👍 👌 good to see you my friend 😀 👍 😊 I've been trying to stay busy to keep my mind occupied it's hard though buddy. Tell everyone I said hello 👋 I love you all very much Jay.
Aloha David! Good to see you too. I think that's a good approach to try and stay busy.. Hang in there my friend! May the Lord be with you, greetings and blessings from Hawaii!
I have the old mercury bulb thermostat. I like the reliability on my 1955 Thatcher gas furnace because I travel and leave the house unoccupied for usually 5 days a week. With the modern thermostat, do you lose heat when the battery dies or the electronics fail? How reliable are these thermostats?
My thermostat does NOT need to connect to the internet. I have a programmable thermostat and never use those features. I have even thought about going back to an even more simple thermostat but I can just bypass all the programming on the one I have now.
My power company installed free Wifi thermostats some years back. I technically "can" control it with my phone, but I just never really felt the need to. I use the schedules occasionally, but mostly just change it manually with the buttons. It was free so I can't complain.
Jay. Can you do a video on 2 stage furnaces and 2 stage stats ? I have a Bryant 2 stage 80% furnace and a Honeywell RTH6360 Series stat. Only way i can get the second dtage to kick in is to bump the stat up 2 degrees. It'll run in 2nd stage for roughly 8-10 minutes and kick down to single stage. But then it'll run there for another 30-40 minutes. Is this normal?? This is my 3rd season using them. Installed in 2020
I can try.. Though I can't say I am an expert in the 2 stage units. Some of them are set up so that they kick into 2nd stage after running first stage for 15 minutes (it's adjustable), other systems are set up to only run on low stage until the temperature in the room goes below the set point by 2 or 3 degrees. I would need to do some prodding and digging to figure out your particular situation but the staging and timing is adjustable in most systems. Either at the thermostat itself or the control board. If you have the service manual from your furnace or can look it up online, it should tell you more about how the two stage aspect of it works in greater detail. I don't know off the top of my head.
2 stage furnaces can either be programmed for the thermostat to control the 2nd stage or for the furnace itself to control it. I would recommend having the furnace control the 2nd stage and not the thermostat. There should be dip switches on the circuit board that you can adjust and then just remove the W2 wire from the circuit board and disable the second stage in the thermostat programming.
Many smart thermostats make participating in special rates programs easier. For example, my thermostat has the option to report usage and receive temp setting changes from our electric company to help shed demand during peak demand times. I can get about a 15% discount by participating in this.
My smart Nest thermostat texted me that my AC want working properly before I know it wasn't working and gave suggestions as to what might be wrong. I opened up the unit and saw a pretty cruddy thing which turned out to be the capacitor. I was able to go on line and luckily found Jay's video and he explained how to replace the capacitor. I ordered a new one on Amazon with the confidence that Jay gave me and I saved a lot of money that day.
Thank you very much for your videos they are very useful and informative the way you explain I can understand and also tye way you show ho to do the flps and not to curl before a person starts flipping so thank you
Most likely yes. I would also check the wire connections to make sure they are connected securely. If there's a loose connection, that could cause it too. If it has batteries maybe try replacing the batteries?
@@WordofAdviceTV Thank you for your reply, now I have to convince my landlord Mansfield District Council that I need a new one, this happened two years ago, I kept on to them till they put a new one in, that started right away? I have a contract with the land lord, I pay the rent, they do repairs but try to get out of it? I will remind them of the contract again? when i send them a copy of your reply. Thank you once again.
Hello, do you know of any booster fan that can work with 24 volts, would you like to increase the air in some vents, that can be connected every time you turn on the heating or AC, thanks
Freon can on lock the temperature in the room. Do you spray a couple of times get it really cold. And it works harder and gets warmer in the room. My old boss you still do that?. The temperature room is 72 …. is spray the temperature from the Freon get really cold. And it warms up the room now.
Many no heat or no cool calls are caused by a Nest or Echobe thermostat. They are way overpriced consumer grade junk and are not built to last. A main problem is Power Stealing. The battery doesn’t charge and it shuts down. I always use Honeywell TH 8320R or 21R. Cheaper than Nest and Echobe and is compatible with everything out there. It is a professional level model. The failure rate is almost nonexistent.
Years ago I got rid of my "smart" programmable thermostat and got a dumb, mercury laden one. Best thing I ever did. Nobody has yet been able to explain to me how backing down my house temperature then making my furnace run like crazy to reheat everything is good for my furnace. Also, If you think you're cool because you can adjust your home temperature from work you're delusional.
@@harrydickson4575 Oh I see! I'm glad to hear you didn't get notifications and it wasn't something like you being sick in bed for two weeks. 😨 Stay healthy and always awesome Harry!
I have a dumb thermostat, that still uses mercury for the switch portion, never fails, and if I don't want heat there is a simple switch next to the furnace that shuts it off. Works good over 60 years!
I personally love the dumb thermostats too! 😄
@kkovler - my kind of thermostat.
20+ years ago, the air conditioner in my small office building stopped working. When the HVAC guys got it fixed, it had warmed up to around 85 degrees inside. A newly minted Vanderbilt Electrical Engineer came into my office to ask me a question and remarked about how hot it was, and I explained that the AC had been off, but they had just gotten it working again. He looked at the thermostat and said "why don't you turn the thermostat down so it'll cool off faster?". I just looked at him and started laughing.
Lol that made me laugh too. 😄 Thanks for sharing the story! You should have asked if he can show you how to turn on the turbo feature too.
Thanks Jay. I have never like the programmable thermostat and so I got a smart Nest thermostat which I like because it's similar to the older thermostats in their simplicity.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm tired of everything these days needing to be "Smart". I also say this as a big fan of technology; sometimes simpler is better! 😅
I recently heard that SMART actually stands for Surveil, Monitor, (something), (something), Track. I don't remember what the (something) was, but with the way our governments and big tech are going, it wouldn't surprise me.
My house dose not have a furnace I have a boiler with hot water heating and the thermostat is just a lever I pull one way or the other. It’s so simple the way I like it.
@@ryans413
I want one of those. All this dry air is drying my air passages.
Say you set the thermostat to 74°F to keep warm in winter. When that temperature is reached and the furnace goes off what temperature informs the thermostat to turn the furnace back on? 72F or 73F for example?
I have always wondered about that. For example, if I set the AC for 75, how hot does it get before it will kick on again?
What is the best cheapest smart thermostat that works with smart phones? I don’t need tons of features but can adjust temp from phone.
Amazing that people are too lazy to get up and walk over to their thermostat.
I saw a Wyze WiFi one for $72 on Amazon
Probably the Amazon smart thermostat would be the cheapest, yet good option: amzn.to/3HFYvmO
@@WordofAdviceTV ok thank you
The old thermostats used mercury like a thermometer when the temp in the house would raise or fall below your set temperature it would turn on or off the furnace and ac
In most old thermostats (at least the ones I've seen) the mercury is not used for its expansion with temperature properties. There is a coiled bimetallic strip that expands differentially with temperature, uncoiling and tipping the glass bulb that holds the mercury which flows to the other end flipping the switch. Very simple and easy to fix and replace. Some of the modern thermostats try to be too smart and sometimes are a bit unpredictable as a result.
I wonder why my new thermostat was working fine for the first week .The temperature in the room became very hot in the second week, the temperature was not controlled by the thermostat ?
Is this a new thermostat broken again or is there something wrong with my furnace?
What you forgot to mention is how smart thermostats are controlled by others. I would set my smart thermostat to 70, however during the day the Google lords didn’t think my house needed to be that warm and would cut it down. Without showing on the gauge they reduced the temp and my house was always cold. Long story short I went back to the non smart thermostat.
I have heard that there are people who rented houses with smart thermostats in them and they would not allow them to set the thermostats above or below certain temperatures because the power companies wanted to conserve power. That was when I decided I will never own one of them.
Yeah I had to explain to my wife & a couple elderly friends that the home t-stat is not like your car. They always thought if you turn it all the way up or down, that it would hat or cool down like a car. Nope it just runs longer.
Let me tell you all about the time years ago that my mom put the thermostat at low as it would go to try and cool the house quickly, only to have would up frosting the AC coils over.
Yup... That can happen too. 😄
If you have one of those old round mercury thermostats with the heat sensitive metal coils or know where I can get one please let me know.
Honeywell T87F. Todays version is digital and just as reliable for a basic single stage hvac system
I have a housemate that stays in the loft and has a window unit that blows extremely cold. The loft is up a staircase with no door and the home AC thermostat is just below on the wall below the stairs. You can feel the cold air coming down the stairs. Does his cold air hitting the thermostat below force my central AC to turn off? It seems that we are competing constantly between the central air and the window unit air coming down the steps. What would solve this?
That's a good question. I think it would affect the sensor. Perhaps you should get an old-fashioned mercury thermometer, place it next to your thermostat, and check what the actual temperature is in that spot when he is running his unit?
I have a 2019 Honeywell Thermostat with sensors in each bedroom. I don’t understand sensors,since vents are normal no motors in closing vents.
I want to instal a nest but don’t want the sensors .
Will this cause an issue? Or are the sensors a better system
Wouldn't have a "smart" thermostat, never. We're spied in in enough ways already.
I have a similar thought about that too. 😅
Excellent explanation of the T-stats ... I noticed that after I retired , my '' Week-end immune system '' did get stronger 😂😅🤣 Aloha my friend ...
Hello 👋 Eddie how is Trixie doing?
@@davidmckinney6577 She's mean as ever 😂
Thanks Eddy!! Hahaha glad to hear that you have a strong weekend immune system my friend! Stay blessed all week long this week!
FYI...if you are thinking about upgrading your thermostat, check with your local utility, I got a 150.00 rebate on my Ecobee thermostat from Georgia Power.
Is that internet connected? If it is, be prepared for them to shut it off when they feel you are using too much power.
Aloha good buddy Jay 👍 👌 good to see you my friend 😀 👍 😊 I've been trying to stay busy to keep my mind occupied it's hard though buddy. Tell everyone I said hello 👋 I love you all very much Jay.
Aloha David! Good to see you too. I think that's a good approach to try and stay busy.. Hang in there my friend! May the Lord be with you, greetings and blessings from Hawaii!
Good content, "weekend immune system " cleaver
Thank you! Glad you liked the joke!
I have the old mercury bulb thermostat. I like the reliability on my 1955 Thatcher gas furnace because I travel and leave the house unoccupied for usually 5 days a week. With the modern thermostat, do you lose heat when the battery dies or the electronics fail? How reliable are these thermostats?
1955? Wow.
My thermostat does NOT need to connect to the internet. I have a programmable thermostat and never use those features. I have even thought about going back to an even more simple thermostat but I can just bypass all the programming on the one I have now.
Yes, many people will agree with you on that one. A simple thermostat satisfies the majority.
My power company installed free Wifi thermostats some years back. I technically "can" control it with my phone, but I just never really felt the need to. I use the schedules occasionally, but mostly just change it manually with the buttons. It was free so I can't complain.
And please ,please keep making these videos every one is learning thank you
Jay. Can you do a video on 2 stage furnaces and 2 stage stats ? I have a Bryant 2 stage 80% furnace and a Honeywell RTH6360 Series stat. Only way i can get the second dtage to kick in is to bump the stat up 2 degrees. It'll run in 2nd stage for roughly 8-10 minutes and kick down to single stage. But then it'll run there for another 30-40 minutes. Is this normal?? This is my 3rd season using them. Installed in 2020
I can try.. Though I can't say I am an expert in the 2 stage units. Some of them are set up so that they kick into 2nd stage after running first stage for 15 minutes (it's adjustable), other systems are set up to only run on low stage until the temperature in the room goes below the set point by 2 or 3 degrees. I would need to do some prodding and digging to figure out your particular situation but the staging and timing is adjustable in most systems. Either at the thermostat itself or the control board. If you have the service manual from your furnace or can look it up online, it should tell you more about how the two stage aspect of it works in greater detail. I don't know off the top of my head.
2 stage furnaces can either be programmed for the thermostat to control the 2nd stage or for the furnace itself to control it. I would recommend having the furnace control the 2nd stage and not the thermostat. There should be dip switches on the circuit board that you can adjust and then just remove the W2 wire from the circuit board and disable the second stage in the thermostat programming.
Many smart thermostats make participating in special rates programs easier. For example, my thermostat has the option to report usage and receive temp setting changes from our electric company to help shed demand during peak demand times. I can get about a 15% discount by participating in this.
Good to know, thank you for sharing!
My smart Nest thermostat texted me that my AC want working properly before I know it wasn't working and gave suggestions as to what might be wrong. I opened up the unit and saw a pretty cruddy thing which turned out to be the capacitor. I was able to go on line and luckily found Jay's video and he explained how to replace the capacitor. I ordered a new one on Amazon with the confidence that Jay gave me and I saved a lot of money that day.
I have had several people that thought just that, the temp coming out was what it was set at
I am still trying to explain that to my 60 year old son daughter!
Hi Jay. Liked the video. Hope all is well with you
All is well! God is good. Glad you liked the video, may you have a fabulous week Jim!!
Thank you very much for your videos they are very useful and informative the way you explain I can understand and also tye way you show ho to do the flps and not to curl before a person starts flipping so thank you
Thanks always!
You bet! Have a spectacular week good sir!!
That's "Mr." dummy to you thank you very much😉
Your presence is appreciated Mr. Benevolent Backpacker! You're welcome!
where are you located?????????? you are too great.....what state if ok, ill use you
Subscribed!
Isn't it amazing how many HVAC UA-camrs HATE the Nest and similar thermostats!
No, it's completely logical.
Lol because they get to see firsthand how many issues those smart thermostats can have.
I have a thermostat that is over two years old and now I have to keep tapping it till it starts? In your opinion, is it faulty?
Most likely yes. I would also check the wire connections to make sure they are connected securely. If there's a loose connection, that could cause it too. If it has batteries maybe try replacing the batteries?
@@WordofAdviceTV Thank you for your reply, now I have to convince my landlord Mansfield District Council that I need a new one, this happened two years ago, I kept on to them till they put a new one in, that started right away? I have a contract with the land lord, I pay the rent, they do repairs but try to get out of it? I will remind them of the contract again? when i send them a copy of your reply.
Thank you once again.
Outstanding !!!
Thank you!
next thing you know, children in 2050 are going to grab the thermostat off the wall and play games on it.
I have a 1980 era thermostat in my Mobile Home
Hello, do you know of any booster fan that can work with 24 volts, would you like to increase the air in some vents, that can be connected every time you turn on the heating or AC, thanks
Freon can on lock the temperature in the room. Do you spray a couple of times get it really cold. And it works harder and gets warmer in the room. My old boss you still do that?. The temperature room is 72 …. is spray the temperature from the Freon get really cold. And it warms up the room now.
That was funny
Lol glad you liked it!
weekend immune system 🤣🤣🤣
Many no heat or no cool calls are caused by a Nest or Echobe thermostat. They are way overpriced consumer grade junk and are not built to last. A main problem is Power Stealing. The battery doesn’t charge and it shuts down. I always use Honeywell TH 8320R or 21R. Cheaper than Nest and Echobe and is compatible with everything out there. It is a professional level model. The failure rate is almost nonexistent.
Years ago I got rid of my "smart" programmable thermostat and got a dumb, mercury laden one. Best thing I ever did. Nobody has yet been able to explain to me how backing down my house temperature then making my furnace run like crazy to reheat everything is good for my furnace. Also, If you think you're cool because you can adjust your home temperature from work you're delusional.
👍👍👍
Lol, thanks for catching up on the thumbs up Harry! You were missed good sir! 😄
Have a blessed weekend!!
@@WordofAdviceTV UA-cam never notified me of the new video 😞
@@harrydickson4575 Oh I see! I'm glad to hear you didn't get notifications and it wasn't something like you being sick in bed for two weeks. 😨 Stay healthy and always awesome Harry!
@@WordofAdviceTV thank you and same too you jay
Apparently, the video maker has no experience with heat pumps???
All that, and it didn't actually tell you how they worked.
If you are interested in the "background" workings, this video will fill you in on that: ua-cam.com/video/jDLz3REPTWM/v-deo.html