Another boring thermostat...or is it?!

So of course when you are installing a new state-of-the-art heating and air conditioning system, it would not be complete without a new state-of-the-art thermostat....BUT...never mind "would not be complete" - because the many benefits of the new system will NOT be realized without a new thermostat...AND never mind the name "thermostat"...these new "thermostats" do SO much more that they are now called "controllers."

They no longer just determine how hot or cold your home is...they control the quality of your indoor environment!

Nostalgic Moment: Remember when all you needed was one of these?

Enviromental P.S.A. - When you take that round dial off your wall to replace it with a Controller - remember there is mercury in that round dial - so they must be properly recycled. Luckily a new law makes this process easy. All home centers (and any place you can buy a new thermostat/controller) must have a thermostat recycling bin. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Why Replace Your Old Dial (or any non-programmable) Thermostat
This is easy. Save Energy = $ave Money. Per Energy Star a properly used programmable thermostat can save you up to $180 per year on energy costs. Also, through 12/31/14 you can receive a $25 rebate from National Grid for installing a programmable thermostat. In most cases your payback will be less than a year. It really is a no brainer. Also if you are only changing the thermostat - it is usually a very easy process...unless you are like me who had to get one with ALL the bells and whistles...even that install was pretty easy.

How to Replace Your Thermostat
In the age of iPhones and everything Tech-Geeky - of course I selected an controller that has a touch screen, is WiFi compatible so I can control it from anywhere in the world, and takes all the guess work out of Home Comfort. I selected the Carrier Infinity Touch WiFi Controller.

Step 1: Remove the old thermostat

Step 2: Run a new thermostat wire


Many of the old thermostats only had two wires. Whereas, some of the new controllers use thermostat wire that have 4 wires. After-all you need more wires to control more aspects of your indoor air quality.

NOTE: if you are installing a basic programmable thermostat it is very possible you will not need to do Steps 2, 3 or 4. It depends on how many wires the new stat requires.

• After you remove the old thermostat you should have some of the old wire sticking out from a hole in the wall. 
• Disconnect the old thermostat wire from your furnace/ac if you have not done so already - do not pull it out of the wall yet!
• You need to connect your new thermostat wire to the old wire by wrapping/twisting the wires around each other - then taping the ends together - making smooth transitions so there are no bumps that will get caught during the next step

• Have Paige hold the spool of new wire with a pencil through the middle so it will roll out nicely during the next step - it is so nice to have help!!!

• Go downstairs (or wherever your old wire goes from your thermostat location) and look for the thermostat wire
• Hopefully yours does not come out from under your return ducts like ours did.
• I had to disassemble a portion of the return ducts so that Lily could perform the next step

• Have My Little Helper Lily pull on the old thermostat wire until enough of the new wire is available to reach your furnace and then to the outdoor condenser....important - make sure there is at least a few inches sticking out of the wall upstairs where the new thermostat will be installed.

Step 3 - Connect the thermostat wire to the furnace

Basically is is a matching the colors game. On the control board inside my furnace there are 4 slots for thermostat wire. Green, Yellow, White, Red. My thermostat wire had 4 colors (Green, Blue, White, Red). So I just matched up as many as possible and then place the blue in the yellow slot.

FYI - the color order really does not matter as long as you keep the same order throughout all the next steps...but of course it is easier if you just try to match the colors!!!...also most technicians will expect the colors to match what the system suggests.

Step 4 - Connect the thermostat wire to the AC

Sorry no pictures of the outside units control board...but it looks similar to the furnaces. the same colors, too. So you need to connect thermostat wire from the furnace to the AC - following the same color pattern. You can see in the above picture there are actually two blue wires, two green wires, etc. One set is coming from the controller to the furnace. The other set is going from the furnace to the AC. We ran the thermostat wire to the AC through the hole in the cinder block we made for the line set (discussed in Step #3 of the AC Installation entry).

Step 5 - Attached the back plate to the wall

Just make sure it is level and attach with a few screws. See picture in next step.

Step 6 - Connect the Thermostat Wire to the Controller

Just follow the same color pattern as in steps 3 & 4

Step 7 - Program your Controller

Every controller may have different programming steps. Some are more difficult than others. the Infinity Touch Controller does all the thinking for you. 

If you can answer simple questions like this:

...then you can program this controller to help your system maximize your home comfort and maximize your energy savings.

You are done with your new controller install.

Here is some more info on the various benefits of the Infinity Touch Controller...

The next 4 paragraphs are from the Carrier site because it kind of says it all...

"The control knows to conserve energy while you’re out and will turn back on at just the right time to create the perfect temperature for your return.

Because vacations cost enough money these days, let the Infinity System know how long you’ll be gone and it will make sure to save on energy costs.

Throughout the day the Infinity Touch control will intelligently react to changing outdoor temperatures and the conditions in the house to make sure you’re always getting peak efficiency and performance. Say, for hot summer days, you like to set your system to 78 degrees while you’re gone so you can save some energy but you always want it to be back at 72 when you return. The system will figure out if easing back to 74 instead will save you more energy and money and do just that. We call that a dynamic, self-determined “away” temperature control. Smart, huh?

The control will communicate to you, too. It’ll let you know when your air filter needs replacing or if service is needed. If you like, it can even communicate with your local Carrier^® expert and tell him what needs attention."

...back to my commentary...

The Main Screen 
Gives you the date, time, room temperature and current days forecast (note only the WiFi version has weather forecast capabilities).

Matches Any Decor
Note the white face plate - the box also comes with a silver plate and a black plate. It can match any decor.

The Settings Screen

The next screen allows you to easily adjust any settings with one touch. These adjustments would be temporary and then will return to your programmed settings after the desired time you select.

The Menu Screen

• Profiles - you set your desired temperatures for when you are Home, Wake, Sleep, Away
• Schedules - You can set all your schedules here. Whether you want the same settings for all 7 days in a week or a different setting for each day...the controller will ask you series of simple questions that will guide you to your perfect settings.
• Vacation settings - you can pre-program the exact days you will be away on vacation so you do not waste energy heating and cooling.
• Energy Tracking - You can enter your Price per Kilowatt and Price per Therm. Then the controller will track how much you are spending per day.
• Display - you can set up your Screen Saver settings - see the very last picture

This one control can manage temperatures, humidity, ventilation, airflow, indoor air quality and up to eight zones.

FYI - I set up all my profiles, schedules, vacations, energy rates, connected to my WiFi - the whole shebang - in about 30 minutes...you know...probably less time than it takes to read this entry! ;-)   ....without opening the Instruction Booklet....just press the buttons and follow the on screen prompts...it was fun!...yes I am a bit tech-geeky!

The Weather Forecast

Even quicker then my iPhone ap - just press the today's weather portion on the Main Screen (see above picture) to get the next 5 days Forecast...again only if WiFi equipped...but really - if you are going to go all out with a state-of-the-art energy saving system - then get the WiFi version too!

The nice part is - with the weather (WiFi) option - the system will take the outside weather into consideration when determining how to run most efficiently. Re-dic-u-lous!

There's an Ap for That!

No shocker here - of course there is an ap! Everything has an ap these days. 

With the MyInfinity Ap - I can control my "thermostat" from my iPhone, iPad, home laptop, work desktop...from anywhere.

The nice thing about the ap...ALL the screens look exactly the same as the main controller's screens. Learn one. You learned them all.

Here are 4 random screens from my iPhone Ap:

The best part...say Karen and I are watching a show and she says she is warm. I just whip out my phone and adjust the temperature. I never have to leave the sofa. Couch Potatoes Unite!

No seriously I have used the ap many times. I love it!

Screen Saver
As if all of this was not cool (pun intended) enough...you can also upload your own personal Screen Saver

So now instead of staring at the temperature...I have another spot I get to see my 3 little cuties:

Best. Picture. Ever.

Furnace Removal, Furnace Efficiencies, Air Purification & More

So this is the furnace that was in the house when we moved in. It is about 15 years old and worked well. It kept us comfortable for our first winter in the new house. So of course I had to replace it. Wait! What?

See even though it was "fine"...I wanted better. I work for the RJ Murray Co., Inc. in Latham. We are the oldest Carrier distributor in the world. Since 1933 we have been selling and supporting the Carrier brand of heating, cooling and indoor air quality (IAQ) equipment. Did you know? Willis Carrier is called "The father of modern air conditioning" having invented it in 1903!

So it is understandable that this Lennox stuff was not going to last in my house for long. They are the competition...aghast!

Plus there were real life reasons I wanted to change out our working furnace. First, 10-15 years is the average life cycle for a furnace. So we were already on borrowed time...and living in Upstate NY...enough said.

The second reason had everything to do with this yellow tag. 80.0 AFUE. It is an 80% furnace. Although it is a 25% more efficient that the 64 AFUE furnaces of a few decades ago, it is still 21.75% less efficient than Carrier's
Infinity 98 Gas Furnace With Greenspeed Intelligence (Infinity Furnace for short) of today, which is an amazing 97.4 AFUE.

AFUE stands for Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. Basically it is the standard for all heating equipment to help you compare one unit's efficiency to another. The higher the AFUE the more efficient the furnace/boiler is.

To put in it real money terms - With an 80% furnace, for every $1.00 you send to National Grid for natural gas to heat your home...$0.80 is used to heat your home and the other $0.20 goes straight up the chimney (literally). With the 97.4% Infinity furnace only $0.026 is wasted.

It is easy to see the savings that will be had this upcoming winter and every year after that.

Here is the EnergyGuide tag off the new furnace:

This Carrier Infinity Furnace is so efficient it is off the charts! 

No. Really. It is more efficient than the line graph - look at the pic!

The first step before you remove the old furnace is to get the new equipment home. Luckily for me - I just had to go to the scratch and dent area and pick out the furnace...and in my case a condenser and evaporator coil since I am also adding central air (foreshadowing of future posts).

The scratch and dents are exactly what they sound like. Units that cosmetically cannot be sold as new, but will work perfectly. If you are looking to save money, you can let your hvac dealer know if the distributor has scratch and dents you would be interested...at a reduced cost of course. Ask for a comparative quote so you can make an educated decision. Some of the scratch and dents are really minor and for most homeowners - the furnace resides in a basement, an attic or in a closet...so as long as the blemish is only cosmetic who really cares?! Don't accept any equipment that has more than cosmetic damage...however this should not be an issue, because I know we don't sell them to our dealers. Hopefully all the other brands follow suit. 

Removing the furnace and plenum and more

 
So like I said, I work for the local Carrier Distributor. Just because I work "in the industry" does not mean I know what the hell I am doing when it comes to removing and installing a new hvac system. Luckily for me I work with some awesome people (friends) that do. Myself and two co-workers did the removal. They volunteered to helped me long ago when we first moved...the conversation kind of went like this...They asked me, "How's the new house?" I said, "Great." They said "How is the system?" I said, "it is an older Lennox system, but there is no AC." They said, "we can help you when the time comes." I joked, "I hope you don't come to regret saying that."  :-)   12 months later, they were in my basement helping me...and they have been back several times during the course of this project. Good guys! I am lucky.

It took 2 hours to remove the furnace, take the ridiculously large plenums off (those two oddly shaped pieces of sheet metal that connect the furnace to the supply and return ductwork) and then to place the new furnace in position to see what we were dealing with.

Another added benefit of this project was gaining a nice amount of floor space in the basement. The new furnace, plenum and connecting ducts were going to take up about half the room of the current setup. Bonus! Now we can store more stuff! <---I am being sarcastic in case that did not come across....but seriously who doesn't like having more storage?!

From This                                                        To This

Granted it is not fully hooked up and we still have a long way to go, but if you look closely at the floor in the after picture, you can see the unpainted section. That is the storage area that was gained.

Here is another view of the furnace and the evaporator coil.

Also down on the lower left you will see the Carrier Infinity Air Purifier that I am adding to the system in replace of the standard cartridge filters on most systems. This system is the only system on the market that CAPTURES & KILLS airborne pathogens such as bacteria, viruses and mold as small as 0.01 microns – that’s 18,000 times smaller than the head of a pin. And because it is attached to the ductwork - it is a whole home air purification system...unlike those towers that can only do one room. In a home with 4 people (Karen and all 3 kids) that suffer from allergies - I'll take all the help I can get. ;-) But seriously it will be great knowing that I am doing everything I can to help them all breathe easier.

BTW - this Carrier Infinity Air Purifier or its little brother, the Carrier Performance Air Purifier, can be added to any existing forced air (heating and/or AC) that has ductwork - no matter what brand.

Now that the system is in place the next step is to have some new ductwork/plenums made to connect it to the current ducts. Then we can finish installing it and the condenser. More posts to come later...

....because now I am off to the recycling yard


Want to find out more?
 

If you want to get more information on any of these Carrier products or find a local expert Carrier dealer, you can check out our consumer site UpgradeToComfort.com. It is a site I helped design to educate homeowners to allow them to make an informed decision when it comes to their heating, cooling and IAQ needs.