Change the Batteries in Your Programmable Thermostat

By

dwutz

Thank You for the info never knew there was a battery in there!

By

PupperMom

This tip could not be more timely for me,too!
Just last week, my DH was away on a business trip to Illinois ( average temp that week a snowy 30-ish) and I was home in S. Florida where we're up to fairly humid mid 80's.

Most of the winter our AC's been off, no need for it. But that week it was time to put it back on. The digital display on the thermostat was morphing from dark numerals to nearly transparent and the room temp was off by about five degrees, so the AC wasn't kicking on when it should. So it wasn't completely dead, but the thermostat was definitely doing some strange things.

When the hubby called me one night I told him what was going on and that's when I got my battery reality check. He said I was lucky he told me what to do because I'd been busting his chops about freezing up there in the snow while we were back to tropical mode down here.

Probably would have served me right, LOL.

Anyhow, Everett, great tip!

By

chef4u

Everette, you are so right. I work for an HVAC company and get a lot of calls for this very reason. We don't always have time to explain it to them over the phone, but many times we do and will walk them thru it so they can avoid a $79 service call. Our techs explain this to the customers when we install them, but people forget or people have them installed by others and they don't get the explanation. Not keeping the instructions that come with the stat could also save a lot of people time and headaches and $$$$ Kathy

By

Beth

My poor husband has been called away at 3 in the morning as well as lots of other inconvenient times because someone called about their furnace not working and it was only the batteries in the thermostat! Now he asks them to check that first while he has them on the phone. But you are so abolutely right that many people don't know this. These thermostats usually also have a low battery indicator on the display.

By

mamie11152

I wish I had seen this post 3 days ago! I came home from work at 10pm to no heat and a blank thermostat, I thought it was electric, had NO clue it was battery operated! Thank God a friend stopped by and showed me what to do! I will take your advice and change the batteries once or twice a year. Thanks!