HVAC thermostat problem

Gmachine

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
I picked up a programmable thermostat from Lowes tonight and it has only 5 wire connections. The thermostat in the house has 7. The wires in the old unit read:
B: blue wire
2: white
x: brown
R: red
Y: yellow
G: green
E: orange

The new unit has:
G, W, not used, Y, R, Rc
The R & Rc are bridged.

I'm guessing I need a new thermostat? The HVAC unit is an electric Rudd. The house was build in the 50's.

Thanks in advance!
 
Do you have two stage heat in the house? IE: heat pump with heat strips. If it is I would venture to guess that the thermostat that you bought is for single stage heat only.
 
I believe you are correct. The old thermo does have an Em. Heat switch.

I guess I can ask the people at Lowes tomorrow, but was hoping I could get better advice here. I don't always trust what they have to say.
 
Futbalfantic said:
Do you have two stage heat in the house? IE: heat pump with heat strips. If it is I would venture to guess that the thermostat that you bought is for single stage heat only.
Click to expand...

This is my bet as well. It sounds like you do have 2 stage heat.

When I was shopping for cool digi stats for my last house, I discovered that only some models are designed for multi-stage heat (we had a heat pump w/ oil backup).
and of course, those are the more expensive/fancy ones.

I bought a Honeywell model from Home Depot that was 7-day programmable that fit the needs, it wasn't cheap - like $100 or so.

Oh and don't trust those guys at all. Its very possible that somebody will be very knowledgeable, but equally possible the person you ask will not be that guy!
 
These thermostats are confusing.I got a new one that works with my home integration system so like it turns itself down at night when the night time lighting scenes load and same thing,turns up in the morning with the morning lighting scene so the house is warm when everyone is getting up.Plus it's computer programmable so you can load variables like if the lights are on for more than 5 minutes during certain hours,obviously someone is up and the temp needs to change accordingly and it Polls the lights so when there are back off,it turns itself back down.Problem is I am having an issue with "Power Stealing",my HVAC system wasn't wired to power the thermostat,which has 11 pin plug in.I keep having to replace those Energizer 123 battery's every two weeks or so at $10 a piece.
 
I'll take it back and try and get a two stage. I looked all over the packaging and nowhere does it say how many wire the system should have. I guess that's why there were several that were taped back together in front of this one.

Thanks guys! I'll let you know what I find.
 
Back
Top