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Old 03-05-11, 08:01 PM   #1
S-F
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Default Thermostat wiring question

I just picked up a new thermostat which works with my Z-Wave set up. The plan is to be able to control the furnace a little better. It’s programmable and I could turn it down super low when I’ll be gone for an extended period of time and then remotely set it to slowly turn up in small increments several hours before I get home. So I go ahead and remove my old thermostat only to find that there are only 2 wires. The new unit needs 24 VAC to run as it isn’t battery powered. Apparently the 24 VAC wire is usually the blue one (C) but it looked like my wire bundle only had 2 wires. So I went to the basement to check out the furnace. Lo and behold the red wire is going to the white screw and the white to the red. They are proper on the thermostat for the record. The furnace has all 5 screws. I don’t know what any of them do aside from C which apparently is common and where I need to get the juice from. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on here? Do you think I could just get a new 5 wire line and match up the letters?

EDIT: Isn't the white wire for the fan? My furnace fires up before the fan does. Is that normal?

EDIT 2:

Well I just did what I should have done first and asked Google my questions. I came up with this highly informative page right off the bat. It seems that all I need for the furnace are W and R. R being the voltage that gets connected to W by the thermostat to fire up the whole process. I don't think that it matters that they are crossed with an old mercury thermostat as it mechanically connects the two based on the the temperature sensitive motion of a bi-metal strip and making the connection via the mercury. Honestly it might not matter for a digital thermostat also. Just as long as the connection is made. So all I need to do to get things up and running is to get a new 3 wire line, tape it to the old one and pull it through. Man! I'd be doing that right now if Hampden-Zimmerman (the electrician supply place a block away) were open at 10 PM. Still though....why does my furnace have 5 terminals?


Last edited by S-F; 03-05-11 at 08:52 PM..
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