Selecting a thermostat
A good thermostat is an important asset to have. Its basic function is to monitor the air temperature in your home and activate the heating or cooling equipment to maintain the setting that has been selected. The technology for thermostats available ranges from very basic manual settings to hi tech multifunction remote setting devices.
The first question you should ask is why would you want to replace your thermostat?
Thermostats are usually quite reliable devices that don’t often fail. There may be a few different reasons for replacement of a thermostat such as:
A change in the look such as the colour, the orientation or the display.
A change in the thermostat functionality (to control different HVAC equipment)
A change due to malfunction or damage of the thermostat.
How Do I select a new thermostat?
No matter how sophisticated your thermostat is, there are only a couple of different wiring methods used to interface them with your HVAC equipment. The most important issue you may face with replacing your thermostat is that you must have the right number of wires available for the thermostat that you are considering. During the construction of many older homes, limited wire counts were provided for thermostat wiring; sometimes as few as two. If this is the case in your situation, you may not have much choice in the selection of your thermostat.
The next thing to consider is the type of HVAC equipment you want your new thermostat to control. The simplest way to guarantee success with a thermostat replacement is to replace it with a thermostat that has the same functionality as the one you currently have.
For a full explanation of how to select a correct thermostat, stay tuned for our upcoming video!