Programmable thermostats provide a great means of controlling your household temperature for hours or days at a time without further intervention. Of course, the appeal of this is that it allows for energy savings by cooling or heating less during sleeping hours or for days when no one will be home.
In general, these are solid, reliable units, but a programmable thermostat acting up is certainly not impossible. When yours is not behaving correctly, here are some things to check for.
Programmable Thermostat Troubleshooting
- Some programmables are wired into the HVAC unit, so their power source is built in, but if your thermostat is powered by batteries, check them to ensure they’re still operating at acceptable levels.
- The fuse in a thermostat can potentially be blown by a power overload. If you see that the fuse filament is separated, remove the fuse and take it to a dealer for replacement.
- Since your thermostat is likely tied in to both heating and cooling systems, when you have a problem with cooling, check out the heating system. If the thermostat provides normal temperature control for the heating system, then most likely the problem is not with the thermostat, but somewhere in the cooling system itself. If the lack of control occurs in both systems, the thermostat should be replaced.
- When the thermostat was initially set up, the correct time may not have been set. If you experience problems where temperature control doesn’t begin at the correct time, check to make sure that the thermostat’s original time was correctly set.
- When the digital display does not seem to work properly, ensure that the unit is securely attached to the wall plate and not shorted out. If all seems in order, check your circuit box to be sure a circuit breaker has not been tripped to the “off” position.
Contact Us
For expert advice on any home comfort issues, please contact us at Ace Hardware Home Services, Inc. We have been serving the Dayton-Springfield area for three generations, and would like you to become part of our growing family of satisfied customers.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
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