Hey guys in this video we're going to talk about the top 50 tips tricks hacks features whatever you want to call it of thermostats and if you've caught this video you've caught one of five, and this is going to be 21 through 30.. And so let's get started, number 21 is actually not necessarily a feature of the thermostat, but it's more of a thought process. I've actually had this question a few times and i'm remember starting out in the industry, and this was something that people would talk about from time to time, and that is for the most part. There is no such thing as overworking the thermostat or system, and what i mean by that is in most cases, most thermostats unless it's a communicating thermostat most thermostats.

There are switches in the inside of that thermostat that open and close based on what's going on. So what i mean by that is is if you set a temperature and that thermostat is working the system and they eventually reach that temperature. All it does is open a switch inside and tell that system. Hey.

I've now reached temperature and you can turn off. So this thought process of you turned it up way too high that you know if you set it at 80. Instead of 72, it's going to make it work even harder. It's going to reach 72 a whole lot faster.

It's just simply not true. The only exception of that rule that i can think of off the top of my head would be sometimes, if there's what we would call a heat, droop discrepancy between the ambient temperature, meaning the temperature in the room and the set point. The temperature you have set on that thermostat, if there's a large enough gap, it will bring on other stages in the system in some cases. So one example that might be if you have a heat pump system and it has a 2 degree heat droop internally or is programmed that way and it becomes a bigger gap than two degrees.

Then it's going to bring on second stage. That would be the only thing i could think of off the top of my head. I had a customer just the other day. They said well, hey.

You know we turned the temperature up really high, so maybe we broke it and i told them yeah. That's it's! Not either there's something wrong with the system or there's not uh, there's no turning the temperature up and you broke something because of that and i'm sure i get a lot of other heating and air guys and they'll quote on my videos and they'll tell me exceptions To some of the things i say, i would still say, even if they think of one and they comment on this video, i would still say in most cases 9 times out of 10. What i just told you is fact number 22. This is a pretty cool feature, it's something that has kind of come out in the last few years, and a lot of brands are getting on board and i don't necessarily know the verbiage to use, but basically it's a notification that a lot of brands are setting Up that it cannotify your contractor through some sort of system on the internet.

However, it's set up, but basically, if there is an issue with your system, your contractor will know about it. A lot of these manufacturers are actually charging the customers money for this feature and, depending on what that number is, it may or may not be worth it to you, but what's really cool about it is if you were to have that capability a lot of times, If there was something wrong and your contractor was notified about it, they can already be having you scheduled, getting you into their system, getting an appointment on the books and then they'll be contacting you to say, hey look, you know we're seeing this going on. We just got this notification and we can definitely help you out with that. So again, if that's something you're interested in ask your contractor about it a lot of them again, a lot of brands are starting to sign on to this.

I know train in american standard had the capability a few years ago. I know daikin now has that capability, i'm sure carrier? Does all the big dogs usually will have the same sort of stuff, but again with a lot of these manufacturers? They are charging some sort of fee for that sort of capability number 23. This is a subject that i get asked about all the time and that is the o or b functions on a thermostat. Now, when i say b, just as a quick disclaimer we're not talking about training american standard thermostats, some of those some of the older ones, especially b, would actually be your common wire, but 90 of all other thermostats b is going to be your reversing valve.

If you are energizing in heating mode, whereas o is going to be a reversing valve, if you're energizing in cooling mode and so a lot of thermostats, it's sometimes even the same terminal, it'll say o slash b and you land your wire there. And then you tell the thermostat what type of system you have the reason all this matters is, if you have a heat pump system, all the heat pump is is an air conditioner that can run backwards in the winter time, and so basically it'll run backwards. And your indoor coil will get hot instead of cool and that's how you get heat from the heat pump. Well, what controls all of that is your reversing valve the reversing valve is: what tells that system i want ac mode or heat mode or, if i'm in heat mode, the reversing valve is what then puts it in the defrost mode and gets the coil clear of Ice so, like i said some of those it's one terminal, some of them, it's actually two separate terminals, you'll have an o or b and you landed on which one is for your system.

But for the most part i'll say this: if you are buying a new thermostat and you're trying to figure out, you know, what do i need to do with the orb? Most brands on the market are going to be energizing when in oh, it's going to energizing cooling, riemann rood are exceptions that rule and bosh at during the making of this video bosch is also an exceptional rule. There might be a few others definitely check with your local contractor if you're not sure on how to wire it again, most other brands, all your other big brands, daikin train carrier linux. All of those are going to be on o number 24. This would be your outdoor temperature sensor, so a lot of thermostats.

Now you can actually install an outdoor temperature sensor and that thermostat can either tell you what that temperature is, and in some cases it will actually operate based on that temperature. So, for example, if you have a dual fuel system, it may lock out the first stage heat and go to the back up heat if it gets below a certain temperature and in most cases you can actually set that yourself, i used to be years ago. You would actually have to install a whole separate module, an external fossil fuel kit, but these days you can buy a thermostat that has dual fuel capabilities and have that outdoor temperature sensor some sensors use batteries. Some sensors are wired which one's better honestly, it's kind of up to you.

It's kind of up to your contractor preference, wise. To be honest with you, i like a wired one, just because there's never any batteries that need to be replaced, but there are times that if it's wired and it's in the same cable as a lot of your other low voltage stuff, it can mess with that Temperature reading - and that has been an issue before we've had folks. You know call in and say: hey i'm having an issue here there. We have to pull a whole nother, separate cable, just to go to that outdoor temperature sensor.

That said, just because i touched on dual fuel just realized a lot of thermostats today that are coming out. They actually do the temperature reading for the outside because of the internet, and they do not have an outdoor temperature sensor unless you install one. So just keep that in mind as well. Number 25: let's talk real quick about what i would call the pinch tabs or the screws of thermostats and the reason i wanted to touch on this is: if you have screws that need to be tightened down on the wires themselves.

You've got a terminal block. You want those screws to be tight, but i'm seeing where folks are installing these pinch tab thermostats, it's kind of the new thing. A lot of the big brands have them on their newer thermostats, nothing wrong with them if they're installed properly, but what i would say in most cases, if you do have pinch tabs when you stick that wire up in there kind of pull out on that tab. A little bit you don't have to be a he-man about it, but just pulling out a little bit making sure that it's pinching it's making a good connection, and you should have less issues.

It's not a big common thing, but there are times when folks will install this pinch tab type and have issues, because it's not making a good connection and the other thing with the pinch tabs. I've touched on this in other videos, but a lot of thermostats count on those pinch tabs. That's what i call pinch tabs, but just those tabs that you push in on when you slide your wire in the thermostat itself can see which one of those are being used and in some cases those thermostats will operate differently based on what it's seeing. So it won't even give you the option to program it for a heat pump if the o or b, isn't even inserted and that tab is pushed in if that makes sense number 26.

This is probably one of my favorite features, and i kind of stuck it right in the middle of all of this on purpose, and this feature we'll call it the preheat feature and a lot of different thermostats call it different things. I know honeywell calls it the adaptive intelligent recovery. I think nest calls it early on and some other brands call it smart recovery, whatever the verbiage they use. I call it a preheat function, just kind of as a blanket rule, depending what verbiage they use, but ultimately, basically what you're telling that thermostat.

If you turn that function on so, if you have the adaptive intelligent recovery or the early on or whatever the verbage is, if you turn that on, because in some cases you can turn it off. What you're, telling that thermostat in most cases, is you're running a schedule and you want it to reach that temperature at that time. So what up? What do i mean by that? If you have a thermostat that says okay in the morning, i want it to be this temperature and, let's say in the afternoon at 3 pm: i want it to be 72 degrees, so i had it set for lower than that. But now i want it to be 72 at 3 pm.

Well, if you don't have the preheat or the smart recovery or whatever turned on that, thermostat won't actually start trying to do that until 3 p.m. So if you have a set at 3 pm, it'll get up to 259 bam, then it'll turn on and then it will try to reach that temperature. But if you have the recovery or preheat settings turned on a lot of those thermostats will actually learn your home or your system, and they will learn how long it takes for it to reach that temperature. So if you have it set at 72 at 3 pm and that thermostat knows in most cases it's going to take it about 15 minutes to reach that temperature it'll actually come on at 2 45..

So, for example, if you get home every day at three o'clock - and you want it to be that temperature, when you get home, that system knows hey, i need to start at 2 45. That way, when you walk through the door boom, you're comfortable number 27 reminders. In most cases, it's actually not that big of a deal as far as technology wise in a lot of cases, it's just a timer inside of the thermostat, but you can set up reminders on thermostats to tell you to do certain things. So, for example, you can tell that thermostat every 30 days i want to be reminded, i want to be told i need to replace my air filters or every year or every two years i want my uv bulb to be checked or replaced.

Maybe you'll have a reminder for your humidifier pad or your ventilation filter. Whatever you have there's all kinds of reminders and in some cases some thermostats. You can even set custom reminders, but ultimately it's just a timer inside the thermostat. You can turn it on, and it will tell you when to do certain things, because you have those reminders turned on number 28.

We've kind of already touched on this with a few of the other features, but most thermostats coming out today are now able to run a schedule or are what we would call programmable. It can run a schedule to some degree and so years ago, that was kind of a thing right. So when those things first started coming out, thermostats themselves were still pretty basic. They were just on and off, and you know you just set the temperature sort of deal and then all of a sudden, these scheduling, thermostats started coming out.

They were kind of a big deal, but i would say in most cases, eight out of ten thermostats coming out today have that capability, even the cheap ones, have some way of programming them to a degree. You know they might not have quite as many programmable times, meaning you know they might not be able to set for every day and four set points for each day or whatever, but most of them you can run some sort of schedule and save energy or added Comfort or whatever reason, you're running that schedule, some thermostats even have modes, so you have a vacation mode. You know so you're running a schedule. You can hit vacation or turn on vacation and tell that thermostat, hey, i'm not gon na be home for a little while and it will operate.

However, you've told it that in a lot of cases, vocation mode, you can adjust that accordingly as well. Some thermostats are pretty easy to set the schedule. You just kind of go on the screen and you hit a couple buttons and you can get something scheduled some thermostats. It's actually easier to go through their app their software, maybe on a computer and you've got it connected through wi-fi and it's easier just to program it.

That way, i would say if you have a new thermostat, try it both ways. If you want to run a schedule, try it both ways figure out which one makes more sense, because that makes a big difference. I've noticed number 29 screen lock, you can actually lock the screen and some thermostats there's like a partial, lock and then there's a full lock and then some of them is just a full lockdown regardless and you might say well. Why would i even want that? I would say in a lot of cases, especially with residential, you probably will never even use that function, but what's nice about it is, if you do have somebody that adjusts the temperature and you're not happy about it.

I can tell you that we have a co-work space for our office and i locked the screen on it because a lot of folks, you know even customers would come in for some of the other businesses and they'd mess with the temperature, and it would be super Hot or cold in there, so i actually locked the screen because of that, but the first time i ever heard of that function was we were doing some work at a dorm for a college years ago and they went through and they replaced all the thermostats. With these thermostats that you could lock the screens and control through wifi, because the students kept changing the temperatures and usually, if it's just a degree or two, nobody would even notice. But you get these folks they're like oh i'm cold and they turn the temperature. All the way up, that's when folks are like okay.

I need to lock my screen down here and finally, number 30. This has become the thing in the last few years and that is all these technologies coming out. So you've got amazon, alexa, you've got google assistant or google home and apple siri can even do this, but you got all these different technologies coming out in the home. You know smart home technology and a lot of thermostats can connect to these devices, and so usually it's just as simple as if you are buying a thermostat.

Just look on the box. It'll usually have logos of the different technologies that it supports, but it does give you the ability by saying one sentence. So you can say you know, alexa, hey change, my temperature or whatever i'm actually uh. I've got a i've, actually got an echo dot in this room and uh.

I'm surprised it hasn't gone off since i've said alexa a few times, but yeah you can just walk through your door and tell the thermostat just you know by talking to your device what temperature you want it to be, and in some cases, even if you just Want to change a degree or two you just tell it. You know you just yell out and and it'll control that thermostat for you. So i hope that helps if you're in the market, for a new heating and air system check out my website before you spend thousands new hvacguide.com. I basically wrote a book on this website, but instead of a book that could become outdated, i put so much information on there that a lot of heating and air manufacturers and contractors don't even want you to know, and i can continue to add to it as New technology comes out, and so on.

I've even got a page called no-no's things to stay away from i'll walk you through the entire process, ways to avoid the headaches that a lot of homeowners are dealing with today, and i even have a page now for heating and air favorites, and not so favorites. So check that out before you spend thousands check out that website, i appreciate you watching hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time.