Hey guys welcome back to the channel in this video we're going to do the top 50 features tricks tips hacks, whatever you want to call it of thermostats and if you're catching this video, this will be 11 through 20.. So this is the second video so check out the other ones, but let's get right into it. Number 11. different brand thermostats use different colors to do different things, and you want to keep that in mind when you're wiring in your new thermostat.

So you might be thinking what all thermostats don't have the same set of codes same set of you know, schematics and they're all wired the same. Unfortunately, no a couple examples when it comes to the common wire. I've noticed that different brands use different color common wires, commonly it's going to be. You know, usually black blue.

I have seen gray used before, but ultimately you want to keep that in mind. If you are wiring in a new thermostat, another example might be train an american standard when you're installing or replacing one of their thermostats, sometimes they'll have a b terminal, and a lot of folks will use the blue wire for that. But with just about every other thermostat on the market b means something totally different with training american standard, it's your common wire, but with those other thermostats, it's your reversing valve energizing and heating mode number. 12.

A lot of thermostats have error codes. So, if something's wrong with your system, you will get an error or some sort of alert, and that could be a big problem or it could be a small problem. Sometimes those error codes could be just popping up because they're alerting you that the wi-fi has is no longer connected or something like that. But sometimes if you get an error code, it means something is wrong with that system and you need to get a pro to look at it.

Number 13 extended fan run time. Basically, this is a feature that, if you are in a mode say ac mode or heat mode and it reaches your desired temperature. So you have a set of 72. It's now reached 72 and the system is going to shut off.

Extended fan run time would make that indoor fan motor continue to run longer even after the outdoor unit or furnace has turned off, and you might say why would you want that? Well, there's a number of different reasons. One might be if you are burning a fossil fuel of some type, so let's say you have a gas furnace and you have now burned. The gas you've got this heat exchanger holding all this heat, and you don't want to waste that energy. You can have the fan run a little longer after the system has reached temperature just to go ahead and blow across that hot heat exchanger.

So you don't waste that energy. Another reason you might have the extended fan run time would be in ac mode. If you are getting some sort of odor, i've heard it called the dirty sock syndrome and you might actually have the extended fan run time run longer after that air conditioner has reached temperature and shut off. Sometimes that will fix your issue, because what happens is the evaporator coil actually gets wet, which is why we have condensate drains and all that fun stuff and the extended fan run time.

The idea is, it continues to blow across that coil for a little bit longer dries the coil out after that air conditioner is turned off number 14. This isn't necessarily a feature of a thermostat, but i wanted to touch on float switches because sometimes, if you have float switches or auxiliary switches, some sort of switch on your system that if something were wrong, maybe the drain has backed up and it's no longer draining Properly and now you have a float switch that is open that will affect your thermostat, so in some cases it may stop sending voltage entirely to your thermostat, which would be why you would have a blank screen, but in other cases it can be an alert or Error code, like we touched on a moment ago, some communicating systems will have an alert setting on the board that those float switches will open if something is wrong and then you'll get an error code or alert on your thermostat number 15.. This is something that has kind of come along over the years years ago, when i first started out in the trade. This was not a thing and, of course, i'm talking about geofencing if you're not familiar with what geofencing is.

Essentially, the idea is your thermostat knows whether you are home or not, and it will operate accordingly. What it can do in a lot of cases is, it will see your cell phone leave the property, and it knows you're, not home, so it'll become whatever setting. You have it at because of that, or it sees that you are coming home. It can see your cell phone getting closer and it knows that you're about to get home and to turn the system on.

So that way, it's comfortable when you get home now, i've actually had customers say that they don't love that that they don't like geofencing they're. They don't want big brother, knowing whether or not they're home and if you're one of those folks just keep in mind. A lot of smart thermostats today do have geo-fencing capabilities number 16 and this feature is called holds. So if you have a thermostat that has a hold on the thermostat, essentially in most cases, what that is is if you are running a schedule on that thermostat and you were to make a change or want to stop running the schedule entirely.

You can actually put a hold on that thermostat, so, for example, you're running a schedule, it's doing whatever the schedule says so that thermostat's acting accordingly and now you're going to tell the thermostat you're going to change the temperature - and you know, maybe you have to hit Hold or hold will actually automatically turn on with some thermostats, but either way you're essentially telling that thermostat. You no longer want to run that schedule for a certain amount of time, if not permanently. Now there are temporary, holds and permanent holds, and the difference is, if you have a temporary hold on that thermostat. In most cases, you're going to change the temperature and it's going to temporarily hold at whatever temperature you've now set it at and until that thermostat reaches the next scheduled set point in the scheduling it will hold at that.

So that's why it's a temporary hold, because once it reached that next scheduled set point, it will go back to running the schedule and then obviously a permanent hold is a permanent hold. It's going to permanently hold on that temperature until you tell it otherwise, until you tell that thermostat, hey, i'm ready to run the schedule again, i can tell you personally: there are certain times of the year that i do run a schedule in my home and then There are other times of the year that i run a permanent hold in my home, so every home is different, every market is different, every climate is different, but essentially that is on there for when you're running a schedule, number 17 indoor air quality - and this is A term that's thrown around a lot in our trade. These days, a lot of contractors are signing on and becoming almost like indoor air experts, and we have all kinds of products on the market to clean air and make it better safer to breathe. And the reason i wanted to touch on that with thermostats is a lot of thermostats.

Today can connect to a lot of these indoor air quality products. So you can control it, whether you want it to be turned on or not whether you want ventilation to be turned on. Maybe you want to turn on the humidity more. In our last video, we talked about how you can actually control a humidifier or dehumidifier with a lot of thermostats, and actually these days they have air monitors that will tell the thermostat.

What's going on in your home, it's going to see particulates and see all these problems humidity whatever and it'll tell the thermostat. If there's an issue, number 18 indoor sensor, location - and i put this on here - because i've had customers have thermostats and they don't necessarily like where it's located for one reason or another. Maybe it was installed way too close to the kitchen. So it's getting every time you cook in your house, your home gets cold or maybe it was installed in direct sunlight.

You can get an indoor sensor and install it in your home, where you actually want to measure the temperature and that thermostat will go by that temperature instead of what it's seeing. If you set it up that way, and you never have to move the thermostat, the thermostat can say where it is, you don't have to pay somebody to move wires and get crazy, and all these things you can just remount that sensor in the location. You would like i remember a few years ago. I had this gentleman.

He had his thermostat located in a bedroom that was affecting the entire house and he wanted it relocated to his living room. And what we did was we just installed an indoor sensor where he wanted it and we didn't even have to move the thermostat number 19 maximum temperature settings and what this is a lot of thermostats. You can actually set it when you program it. You tell that thermostat hey, i don't want you going above a certain temperature and i don't want you going below a certain temperature, so whether you have kids or just in general, for whatever reason you don't want that thermostat to ever be set above a certain set Point a lot of thermostats.

You can set that and tell that thermostat from the get-go. That's what you want. Some thermostats use other verbiage. I've seen some of them call them thresholds and things like that.

You're telling that thermostat you want it to stay in a certain range. I can tell you personally: when we install a thermostat in someone's home, i will usually set those ourselves so i'll set the maximum set point for 80 degrees, the lowest set point at 60 degrees and basically, i'm keeping the customer in that range. So that way they don't get above that or below that and have other issues and finally, number 20. You can name your thermostat, yes, i said you can name it now.

You might be saying why would you want to name your thermostat? Well, the reason is some houses, whether you have zoning, which you'll have multiple thermostats in there, and you want to name each one when you pull it up on your app or on your computer and you're controlling it through wi-fi, you can name each one of those Thermostats and then, of course, some homes have more than one system and again you can control all of them just by naming that thermostat. So you know where exactly you're controlling. I can tell you in my house. We have a upstairs and downstairs so i have a thermostat that is called upper and lower level.

Some thermostats have set names, so you just have to pick one of the names on the list, but some thermostats you can actually do a custom name and call it whatever you want. All that said, if you are in the market for a heating and air system before you spend thousands check out my website newhvacguide.com, i basically wrote a book on this website, but instead of a book that would become outdated. I wanted a website that i could add to and change as new technology comes out, i put so much information on there. It's all meant to help you as the homeowner buying a heating and air system, some information.

I give you on that website, heating and air contractors and manufacturers. Don't even want you to know. I've got a whole page called no no's things to stay away from i've got a whole page about my favorite heating and air brands, and i tell you why so check that out before you spend thousands all that said, thanks for watching hit that subscribe button we'll See you next time you.