NEW THERMOSTAT Install it like a PRO
Installing a new thermostat can be intimidating. Don't be to afraid to do it on your own though. I know you can do it if you just set your mind to it. A couple things you need to know....Wire it correctly. Keep the furnace off while you wire it. Secure the base to the wall correctly....With all of that you should be good to go.
Oh, and make sure you have the right tools.
BTW. If you don't have air conditioning it's easier because you only have two wires instead of 4.
Transcript:
New Thermostat - Install it Like a Pro
Hey guys, it's good to see you today. We've got another project – I've got this rehab home that we're going to be starting. It's really cold; this is January where we live in the north, so it's really cold. The people who moved out of the house, while they did a disband, they took the thermostat out. So, I don't even know if there's gas to the furnace. I don't know if the furnace works. There's a way that we can test that to make sure. Then, we're going to install a very simple, non-programmable thermostat here. We're going to get this heat up and running so that when we start, we have a warm house. Thanks for tuning in.
If you have a project like this, or you want to change out a thermostat, I know you can do it. There are just a couple of things you need to learn about. So, we're going to show you what that's like. I'm not a professional thermostat installer, but I do know how to do this. So, let's teach you. Let's show you how to do it, and you know what? You can do this too. Let's just do it. Let's get started.
Tape off, let's go down and see what happens with the furnace when they're not connected. I remember I turned it off before I went back upstairs. Let's turn it back on again. Remember, the wires are not connected now at the thermostat and nothing happens. So, we need to keep that in mind. Let's go back up, and now I'm ready to install that thermostat and get it wired correctly. Let's get started with it.
Okay, so here's our furnace, and I took the front off, just a couple of screws. I'll put it back together before we try to fire this thing up, but let me show you what I needed to learn. We have air conditioning on this unit, so you'll see this red and white. These are for the condensers outside. I'm not going to mess with that at all. But this right here, this series of wires, red, white, and I'll show you a closer picture, but we also have a blue and a green. I have to wire those in the thermostat exactly like they're wired here in the furnace for that thermostat to send the correct signals.
So, I'm going to show you a picture of where these wires are because they're all color-coded, and in this particular furnace, the blue and the green are not wired correctly. They just have the wrong thermostat wires here, but they will work if I wire them in the thermostat exactly like they're wired here in the furnace. So, let's put the covers back on and let's check this furnace to see if it even works, and I'll show you how we do that upstairs.
So, I put the covers back on, and that's important for safety reasons. Most furnaces will not kick on if the covers are off, just for safety purposes. They don't want open flame. So, I put the covers back on. Now, let's go back upstairs and see if I can test this furnace before I put the thermostat on.
So, here's my thermostat wire. You'll see the… As it comes together here, you'll see the red and the white. Those are the wires for the heat process. You'll see the green and the blue. Remember, we talked about that a little bit earlier. So, to test this furnace, all I have to do is put this white wire and red wire together, all right? And then, we'll go down to the furnace, and we'll flip the switch to turn the furnace on, and I'll show you what I'm talking about with that in just a second. But let me get a little electrical tape, and let's get these two wires together safely, and then let's see if that furnace will kick on and blow heat.
I have a little bit of electrical tape, and there is no power to these wires, and they're low voltage anyways. But I can get these wires together. I'm going to put them together, and I'm just going to put a little electric tape around them just to hold them together. Now, I'm not going to… I'm not going to put a lot of pressure on that. That's all I'm gonna do. So, let's go down to the furnace, and let's see if the furnace will turn on.
So, here we are at the furnace. There's our switch. It's turned off. Our wires are connected upstairs with a little electric tape keeping them together. Let's see if the furnace comes on. Oh, it kicked on. Now, let's see if we get some gas ignition. It usually takes a minute or two. Oh, and there it goes. We have ignition. So now, the furnace is on. We know the gas is on. So now, we can go up and disconnect those wires and then install our thermostat.
Okay, so I'm using a simple Honeywell thermostat, a very easy, simple thermostat. Doesn't program. You just set it on heat or cool, because there is air conditioning here. And you use these to turn the temperature up or turn it down. Very simple. This is going to be a rental property. It's the easiest way to go, anyways. But now, let's take a look at this and see what we do with it.
It tells us that we have to separate the base. And all you do is just get a screwdriver in there and you separate the base from the rest of it. And there you have it. So, I'm going to install my thermostat wires in the base, and then this plugs right into that as we put this back on the base. So, we're going to remember our schematics. Red goes to red, white goes to white. And it's interesting that their blue wire went to the yellow, and the green wire went to the blue. So, we're going to make sure we wire it just that way. But first, let's attach this to the wall.
So, one of the tricky parts about this... I'm going to show you. They have tiny little screws in here that I'm going to tighten on those thermostat wires when I slide them in the slot. And you'll see that the wires come through this hole, and then you slide the wires into these slots, and then you tighten it up. Tighten up the screw.
Something else that I like to do is, although they have mollies and I am going to use one molly here, I really like to put these in a stud if I can. And it just so happens that there is a stud right here. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put that through there, and I'm going to put that one screw in the stud. Now, interestingly enough, I can... Because we're remodeling this, we can repair that. We can repair these holes. That's not a problem. We're going to repaint. So, I'll spackle and do whatever I have to do for all of that.
So, let's get started. I'm going to make a mark. I'm going to put it right there. So, I'm going to make a mark right there, and that's where I'm going to put my molly. Alright, so you can watch me as I do that. And once I get that molly in, then I can install this with both screws. I can get my wires where I need to get wired. I don't have a really little screwdriver, but I do have this all-in-one, and it's got a little screwdriver head that will fit inside those slots to tighten those screws. So, let's get started. Let's get that molly in there.
So, I'm just going to use the molly that they sent me. It's a little blue molly. And I'm going to use a drill bit. And this drill bit is just big enough... I don't even know if you can see that. It's actually an eighth-inch drill bit. It's just big enough so that this will slide into the hole, and I can kind of tap it in, and it's a nice tight fit. And we're not going to snug this down real tight, anyways. So, I like a quick change on my drill because that's what I'm going to use as a drill. And let's get the hole. Now, sometimes what I like to do as well is I like to work it around just a little bit like this. Okay, and that should work really well.
So, it starts in there. It's a little tighter than I'd like, so I'm going to just kind of move my drill bit a little bit, and that's nice. Now let me go get my hammer. I'll pound that in, and we'll be just about ready to do this. Perfect. Okay, so they sent some screws with this as well. So, let me get those, and we'll install this base and get this wired up.
Okay, so now let's install this base. First thing I have to do is get the wires in the right spot. And again, as you can see, we'll show you this. They have these. There's my red. There's my white. There's my yellow. There's my blue. Those are the four that I'm going to be interested in. And, interestingly enough again, the green... Orange is going to go to the B. The blue wire is going to go to the Y, because that's the way it's wired down in the furnace, right? This way, it's wired down in the furnace.
So, and then, of course, the red and the white are pretty self-explanatory. So that's what we're going to do. So, let me get those wires in there. You know, I'm going to use this, my needle nose here, just to kind of encourage that to go in there. Ah, okay, there we go. Now let's tighten that first one up. Okay. Now, let's do the same with that white wire and get that white wire in on the W slot. Okay, nice and tight.
Now, we have to remember, now this is a little different because they wired it differently. The blue goes to the yellow, or the Y. So, we have to make sure we do that correctly. So, let me see if I can slip that blue down into that, and it went very nice. But I don't have it in the right slot. I have it in the G. Let's get that in the yellow. Alright. All right. And the green was going to go to the blue, again unconventional, but that's the way they wired the furnace coming in here. So, we're just going to make sure we do it exactly the same, and that way, the furnace will work correctly.
So, I'm going to slip this into the blue slot, and there we go. Turns out this little tool has been pretty handy. It's got both things on there that I can use. So, let's tighten that up. Okay, very good. Now, I'm ready to install it.
Okay, so now that I have the wires connected, I'm going to install the base, and I'm just going to use a screw gun or my drill. And I'm going to put it on a very light clutch because I certainly don't want to overdo this. So, let's get these screws in there. First one I'm going to do is into the molly. You hear the clutch kick in because I... I just don't want to put a lot of pressure on it. And we'll have another video that shows you why that clutch is so important and how you could use it. So, now I'm just going to put this in.
Okay, so we also have some batteries we have to put in here. So, this is my thermostat, and it tells me that I have to put some batteries in, and it gives me the directions on the plus side and the negative side and how all that works so that these batteries kick in. Alright, and now the screen shows... I always do that. The screen shows that it's only 38 degrees in here.
Setting the temperature on this thermostat, let's see how we do that. This is a very simple Honeywell thermostat. Let's give you a close-up. So, I don't know how well you can see that, but it says it's 41 degrees, and it tells us that the heat is on. So, I want to change the temperature so you can see. Oh, there's a better one. So, it's 41 degrees, and my thermostat is set for 72. I don't want it that warm in here because we're not going to be working in here for a couple of days. So, I'm going to set it down to 58. Now, 58 will keep everything from freezing. And there we go. So, we've got the furnace on. We've got the thermostat nicely installed.
We will patch that with some spackle, drywall mud, tape, and get the top of that all fixed as well before we paint the property. But there you have it. Thermostat installed. So again, this is Dennis with Home Rehab Pros. Thanks for watching. Please give us that thumbs up and subscribe if you haven't done that already. And we hope this video has helped you. If you face a task just like this and you've never done it before, don't be afraid. Just muster up the courage to do it because we know that you can educate yourself, watch the videos that you need to watch, get the tools you need, and learn how to install a thermostat. Maybe you can change out an old one into a new one, or maybe the old one's just broken and you need to replace it. But just make sure your wiring is correct, and just get it done. In fact, if you face a task like this, let's just do it. And you know what? We'll see you in the next video.