It Kinda Works... Why Mess With It?

Some of Facebook buddies might remember a month or so ago when I complained that our thermostat at home wasn't working and I didn't feel brave enough to fix it. I got lots of comments that told me it wasn't that hard to change the thermostat and giving me advice and support. I felt confident and sure of myself and went right out that night to buy a new thermostat at Home Depot.

I found a new thermostat with the features I wanted quite easily. I went home with the plan to install it right then and there. Where I discovered that I needed a funky screwdriver with a square tip in order to remove the old thermostat. No problem, I was sure I could find one at Home Depot. But it was a few days before I could make another trip over there.

In the meantime, it was REALLY cold. So I managed to figure out that if I set our current thermostat to always on (instead of the setting where it should cycle on and off) and set the temperature to stay at 95 degrees, the furnace will come on sporadically and keep the house around 65-70 degrees. Sometimes this stops working and it gets pretty cold in the house - so then I have to go turn the thermostat to Off. Which for some reason turns on the fan to blow cold air into the house from outside. But if I let it blow the cold air for 30 seconds or so and then turn it back to Heat, the fan will turn off and after about a minute the heat will actually kick on and warm things up again. It's a little convoluted, and it's a pain when I have to get up in the middle of the night to kick the heat back on, but it's kind of working.

So now I have the new thermostat and I have the necessary screwdriver, and I am afraid to actually do anything with them. At the moment, I've got a system that kind of works. What if I try to install this new thermostat and just mess it up completely. Then we won't have any working heat at all. And then we'll have to call in an HVAC guy to fix it - and pay him with what money?

At this point, I'm kind of thinking that I just don't want to touch it. Winter is half over, right? I can make it through a couple of months with my jury-rigged system, can't I? And at some point, either my dad or Aaron's dad will surely come visit us, and then HE can replace the thermostat for me! See... I have a plan...