Thermostat questions

[drmark12pa]

Just a few quick questions regarding the Control4 thermostat (I'm running 2.2.4 software).

I have 2 thermostats, 1 in my house, 1 in my garage. When I was gone on vacation I returned to find the garage thermostat running without stopping and my garage was 90+degrees with the display out on the thermostat. I replaced the battery and it seemed to return to normal function.

This morning I woke up and the display was flickering on my in house themostat and the unit was OFF though it should have been in HEAT mode as the house was 5 degrees colder than it should be (I keep the display lit up). Again, replaced the battery and it seemed to work ok to get back on track.

I have set to POWER STEALING ENABLED in the house but just switched to on in the garage but I'm no heating guy so don't really know if I'm using the COMMON or not and whether I need to use the resistor that is mentioned in the instructions. So far everything had been working.

My questions:

1) if the backlight display is left on, does that power draw from the heating system and not the battery?

2) how long should a typical 3v lithium Duracell battery last in the thermostat? I don't want to be way and come home to find the thermostat wasn't working which is the case with my garage thermostat. I can't imagine what my heat bill is going to be if that thing was running for 10 days straight which I believe it was due to the thermostat locking on.

3) is there any alert that Control4 can send if the battery is dying on the thermostat?

[dive2xs]

The battery is not meant to keep the thermostat running for any significant period of time. It is designed so that on some heating systems when calling for heat and you are using power stealing, the furnace may for a very short time may drop voltage to the thermostat. Without the battery the thermostat would see this as a power loss and reset. The battery keep the thermostat running for this brief moment so the heating system runs properly. A new battery would only keep the thermostat running without furnace power for up to 3 weeks.

To test if you wired your system properly, remove the battery from the thermostat. The system should run properly without it.

From your description your is not wired properly.

If at all possible get a common wire hooked up from the thermostat to the furnace. This is usually a blue or black wire. You need to verify it is hooked up at both ends. And then turn off power stealing. Look at the instructions on that came with the thermostat for wiring guidelines. On some rare occasions you need the little capacitor but I have never used this on any system I installed, tech support should tell your dealer if it is needed.

Basic heat only systems need only red, white and common. Yellow and green are for A/C and fan respectively. If you don't have a common, this is when you use power stealing, but ideally you would also have a the yellow and green hooked up. This way when calling for heat you steal power from yellow.

If it doesn't work at this point you need to get an HVAC contractor involved.

[drmark12pa]

So I think my thermostat is working ok after changing the battery though I now have a new question (hopefully not problem).

I have my garage thermostat set for 41 degrees (winter in the north) around the clock. However, when I look at the thermostat it will change from AUTO (which is what I've set it at in Composer) to OFF on its own. The temperature is 51 in the garage now because it's warm out and it's attached to the house.

Will the Control4 thermostat just turn to OFF setting after a period of time if the temperature exceeds the temperature setting? This doesn't make sense why it keeps going into the OFF setting even if the temperature set is exceeded....

[CFUG]

Since mode is not a selectable PROPERTY you must check your programming.

[TexasBill]

So I think my thermostat is working ok after changing the battery though I now have a new question (hopefully not problem).

I have my garage thermostat set for 41 degrees (winter in the north) around the clock. However, when I look at the thermostat it will change from AUTO (which is what I've set it at in Composer) to OFF on its own. The temperature is 51 in the garage now because it's warm out and it's attached to the house.

Will the Control4 thermostat just turn to OFF setting after a period of time if the temperature exceeds the temperature setting? This doesn't make sense why it keeps going into the OFF setting even if the temperature set is exceeded....

I had a really screwy thermostat in the bedroom when it was installed - it would drain the battery and then flash and do stupid things. Found out that it was a bad thermostat and when replaced I had no more problems.

Yours has many if not all of the symptoms that mine had before it was replaced.

Bill