Usually the person presenting skips something that seems so obvious to them but is unknown to the viewers. This was thorough and extremely clear. No information was omitted. Thank you.
I have been binging these HVAC thermostat wiring videos in prep for installing a smart thermostat, and this is easily the best breakdown of the wiring that I have seen. Thank you!
If you are installing a smart stat make sure you have a common wire! If not, make sure you get a smart stat that doesn’t require a common wire at the thermostat but will have a separate distribution panel that goes on top of the furnace or air handler.
Most decent thermostats will need that "C" or 5th wire to run them. Battery powered thermostats don't however, batteries leak, they will eventually need replaced at an inconvenient time unless you change them on a schedule, plus the cost over the years. There's really no gain to use a battery powered thermostat unless you want to avoid having to update your home with a 5 conductor thermostat bell wire to the attic or to the furnace. One day, all HVAC systems will require that 5th wire so may as well put it in for the day its needed.
I noticed that there has been a device “Google Power Connector” to gain the common wire, I suppose this is short of running that 5th wire up to the Nest thermostat. I think they are creating more of a hassle for people than to just requiring them to run a new cable. Usually the thermostat cable does have a spare wire but once they tell the public to install this Google Power Connector people just follow the instructions. It works but in my opinion it is hacked.
AMAZING explanation from EVERYONE else on youtube who have confusing, misleading, and contradictory guidance. FINALLY, someone who actually posts "How to" videos; knows exactly what the heck he is talking about and others have no business posting about subject matter that they can't even teach it... Thank you brother
Love your video I have a question that I hope that you can help me with. I have a large wood burner in my house that I have a stand alone blower on it is 120 volt how can I control the blower with a thermostat this just the blower to circulate the hot air
Use a Ford starter relay 6070s 80s even 90s. The big post on the relay Will be for your fan motor at 120 V. The thermostat will need a transformer at 24 V that will work with your two smallWire leads on the solenoid. Also wire and a five amp fuse on the thermostat side, you're 120 V circuit is already fusedAt the breaker box.
What a clear explanation for this thermostat wiring and furnace wiring as well as to the air conditioner outside. You are a very good technician that should be teaching. Thanks for this video.
What a fantastic video. Thank you so much. I just installed my own AC/Heat pump and not being an HVAC tech, i need more in depth explanations about why certain things do what they do, as opposed to just following guides on how to hook something up. Your explanation cleared up the whole thermostat to air handler to condenser wiring confusion I had.
An electrician for over 50yrs--enjoy your show---Very pleased with how you train your kids!!---PLEASE watch them, you are teaching them dangerous training with a very limited experience, -++--worked maintenance at a children's home for 37yrs. [wish I had more time when I was teaching them----hope I didn't hurt them] thanks again---Jim
You have a gift to be able to explain things so clearly and simply. Exactly what I needed to fix the AHU in a rental without having to call in a technician. Thanks!
This is one of the VERY best videos on HVAC wiring. No BS...straight nuts and bolts for guys...and ladies doing their own repairs. Very informative...will be using this info tomorrow. I have a 5 year old Trane that is an electric heat and A/C package combined w/ 2 240 shutoff panel boxes. It has worked flawless, but now...for some reason it is putting out heat from the vents when the thermostat is on auto and the COMMAND is for cooling.
Demonstrate and Explanation,what and how you can help to apply is very important for the person who are receiving the information, and you did a very great job on this, thank you.
You're video is clear and concise. I've been a tech on various types of systems for many years, and have seen presentations from trainers good, bad, and terrible.... yours are good! this video explained more in 10 minutes than most people can do period... a good example the Y terminal and exactly why you need to use the terminal, and the explanation of Rc. Many thanks!
I never comment and typically don't even browse while I'm logged in BUT I felt compelled to because your video is so good. Seriously - thank you! Thank you for taking the time to make the video, but even more importantly, thank you for being clear, concise and acurate. I went through a ton of trash infomation (some youtube, some HVAC manufacture's videos, countless google & bing articles) and had pretty much gave up. Then I found this - PERFECT intro to how these systems work.
You would be surprised at how many guys are out there installing and attempting to repair AC units that have no understanding of this video. All they know is the colors of wires used. Nothing else.
Best Video I have ever seen You explained everything so I could understand ...Just found all the videos you have made now i have some great video to watch and please make more ...Thanks
Excellent job explaining the circuit logic! I'm building my own solar hot water heating system and needed to understand what voltages to supply to the smart thermostat and which control signals coming back from the thermostat to use to turn on the pump. You've done a great job of simplifying things and now I understand what all of those terminals are for!
Very nicely done!! Thank you. You have made many things very clear compared to lots of other videos that simply force you to memorize things without clearly understaning the full system operation.
Great video! I'm researching a new thermostat and had a ton of questions before I choose the best fit for our HVAC setup. This answered all my questions and will make set up a breeze. Thank you!
What would be a problem with a C wire not being able to send a signal to the ac but I have power at the thermostat. I take off the c wire and put batteries in and now the ac works
@@BenjaminSahlstrom Got a question when my heat kicks on, the thermostat will turn off just the display but the heat and everything is still running like normal what do you think is causing that? I have a Lux CS1 thermostat. Thanks
That was perhaps the best video ive ever seen in regards to hvac wiring. if someones got a bit of a inclination towards wiring up their own then this is the video they want to watch, and watch again. nicely done.
Bro, I never comment on videos but this was way too sweet to not to. Thank you so much for this explanation. The drawing, the video on components, and just the simple explanations made this very easy and straightforward. I will definitely be subscribing to your channel. Thank you very much.
Very well done young man. As an electrical engineer seeking help with understanding the internal workings of a thermostat, you did an excellent job of detailing the contact logic contained within the thermostat and how those contacts ultimately control the external devices, such as the fan, compressor, heat system, etc. Well done, best explanation I have found. God Bless you
One of the best informative videos I've ever watched. A couple things were a little redundant for me but as far as the thermostat itself was mind-blowing compared to all the other videos out there. Thank you!
You make it so easy to understand the basic components of the air conditioning system, along with explaining the color coded wires and what their function is. Great video. Thank you .
I know this video is a little older now but its still helping people with their home systems and projects, thanks alot! Im making my own smart thermostat and this is such a great rundown of everything.
I agree that your style of explaining is super clear and easy to install, absolutely excellent style of explaining while incorporating diagrams, video clips that all pull everything together. Immediately subscribed. Wish my mind was as organized as yours.
Great job explaining basic wiring and theory but the additional explanation regarding why wires must terminate on the "Y" terminal made this outstanding. I don't think I've seen another video explain this.
Ben, you are an amazing teacher! Clear diagrams, crystal clear explanation it is extremely helpful. Thank you very much for sorting out the HVAC wiring so easily!
Great video. I’ve changed quite a few thermostats in my life, but never really looked at the wiring. Since I do electrical as well, this really explained the schematic of the how the current flows and returns to the source.
Thanks for the video I was going crazy after I installed my Honeywell Wi-Fi system and I didn’t know where to put the red and white wire for the AC. Thank you
I needed to troubleshoot an issue after installing a new ecobee thermostat. The furnace was getting a signal to call for heat even though the thermostat was off. Turned out that the wires behind the wall were damaged and were shorting out. I couldn’t have sorted out the problem your great explanation. Thanks. You saved my bacon.
Great Video! I am a retired electrician and stumbled on to your Video. Perfectly explained plus you have a very calm demeanor. You should go into teaching. Great job!
Thanks for such a great video, you're the best teacher I found, straight to the point with demostrations. Man I learn a lot, you answered all my questions.
Omg, you are my hero. My ex-husband did some awful rewiring in the house I now live in. He passed away last year, and I am left with the mistakes. The AC unit didn't work until your wonderful wiring diagram lesson!
Thanks. I watched several other videos and your video really made sense to me. You not only connected the heater/thermostat while explaining the air conditioning/thermostat function, you really tied it all together the best possible way. I got my wires all prepped for installation now. I already have the circuit breaker off.
This has to be the best tutorial I have seen... both diagrammatically and with the actual devices shown virtually at the same time than isolated. Keeping this one bookmarked .Thanks for taking the times ot put it all together.
Totally agree, anyone can explain how to attach what color wire to what terminal, but this breakdown of EXACTLY what each wire does is invaluable, and just as important, easily understandable. And as you state, the diagram and devices make it even better, definitely bookmarking also.
Excellent explanation of everything including the why’s and how’s of each component. No second guessing or speculation about function. Great troubleshooting advice as well and pointing out the fuse should a mistake happen. Well done!
you did awesome explaining this! I install home automation systems, and when installing thermostats it's really nice to know what those wires do. very handy! thanks :D
I recently tried changing an old mercury dial thermostat (4 wire R,G,W,Y) with a Honeywell T6 WiFi ( requires c wire ) ... I failed.. This great video has enlightened me and I will try again. I will jumper the Rc to R and also use the cut off blue wire as my C wire. Hopefully it will all work. Thanks
Bravo, excellent video. I am a retired electrician and have never seen this subject covered so masterfully. If anyone asks me how a thermostat is wired I send them a link to this. Thank you very much. Btw love the brief history of older units.
Thanks to you I was able to connect with great certitude the c wire for my new wifi thermostat. I bought 2 smart thermostats a while ago, one for the family room and one for the basement. I installed the one for the family room without a problem. It had all the required wires but I could not do the same for the basement as it did not have the c wire. Today I decided to try again thinking that if there is a c wire upstairs there should be one downstairs and sure enough it was tucked wrapped behind the wall and it wasn't connected in the furnace. After I came across your clear explanations I understood what needed to be done in order to have the c wire connected. Thank you very much, not only did you teach me something but you also saved me some $$ since I was getting ready to go to the big bucks store to get an adapter for the c wire.
This really helped me figure out the wiring in my thermostat. Mine had only four wires going to it, and the blue wire was connected to the Y terminal. Looks like when the previous owner had cooling put in, the technician used the common powering the thermostat to control the cooling, instead of running a new wire to the thermostat. The thermostat was using battery power only.
Hello Benjamin, your video was very excellently explained with diagrams, video and involved with loads of information and with slow and clear English, great job buddy.
I like the video but I think I have a few things to add. I believe the senario you gave about the y terminal affecting the speed of the fan might be only on whatever type furnace you are working on because I am not familiar with it. In my experience, the green terminal always energizes the high speed fan ( regardless if the y terminal is energized or not) for cooling or for air circulation alone with the fan switch on the thermostat. The low speed on the fan is actually part of the W terminal operation. On a call for heat, as the burner fires up the furnace delays the operation of the low speed fan until the burner comes on and runs for a minute or two which allows the unit to blow warm air from the start when the fan finally comes on. Low speed fan is used for heating because any type of high speed fan causes a cooling effect, something you do not want on heating operation.
@ibrahemnaser2309 Most indoor fan motors have a common wire and also three wires that can be energized by the hot side for low, medium and high speed. Only one can be energized at a time! Most of the time only high and low speed is used with medium being a spare. On a normal furnace you can just exchange the high-speed lead for the medium speed lead at the circuit board or relay. If you know the sequence of the fan operation you can write a program to control all three speeds thru WiFi modules. For the fan in cooling operation, it energizes immediately but runs for a minute or two after the compressor shuts off so it can blow all of the residual cooling effect out of the coils. VERY IMPORTANT - Modern furnaces have several very important safety and limit switches in them. I have seen them bypassed by people who did not understand them, and a system failure could cause a fire without those safeties and limits working properly. Be very careful or do not try any modifications!.
Howie... different question if you feel like answering.. i have a summer/winter change over (which i'm not even sure means). oil burner that has baseboard radiators for heat but no a/c. will a fancy new thermostat like the nest work with this set up?
@@unclefreddieDied Not familiar with oil burners or radiators but if your system currently works off of a standard thermostat now it should have no problem working with a nest. All a nest or a standard thermostat does is close an electrical circuit when you need heat. May need to run a common wire from the transformer to the nest to give it a constant 24-volt power to operate. As far as a summer winter changeover, if you have no AC then that would not even apply for your application. Not sure how your system is actually wired so I can't get specific about wiring.
@@Howie875 thanks for the fast reply! I haven't even looked at it yet.. just dreaming right now. Probably take a look this weekend. Just that all the nest videos seem to be for houses with central air/heat. Oh well. thanks again!
You are a terrific presenter! Kudos on making an obscure topic clear and in an engaging and easy-to-follow manner. The information you presented here will help me diagnose a problem of where the Air Handler's blower/fan is not being actuated when heat is called for. Thank you.
Kudos. Of all the videos on RU-vid about this topic, this is the best one I have ever seen. I only wish it was around before I installed my smart thermostat. I had to infer a lot of what was presented in a very straight-forward way here. Thanks.👍
Thank you for your easy to follow videos. I am not an electrician... but have always done my own outlets, switches, and other light electrical projects. It's great to have a more in depth knowledge of the why-fors of this stuff. I've worked in the electrical dept at a home center for years. I've had many cringeworthy moments with customers who have no business doing their own work. I have told not a few people they need to ask or hire a qualified electrician.
Great job. You not only have an understanding of your trade but you do a good job explaining. I was getting ready to change to a Digital Thermostat and was looking for info about the C pad.
Thanks for the info. I had a repair guy come out and replace my board. A week later my outside unit wouldn’t come on. Looks like he didn’t connect one of the wires for the outside unit to the c terminal. You just saved me several days of sweating. Again, thank you.
Thank you so much. Never installed anything electrical but wanted to install my own nest thermostat. The video makes it seems quite simple. But until I saw this video I wasnt sure which switch turns off the power to the thermostat. Now I know the switch on the boiler also turns off the power to the thermostat.
I dont comment much on things but this is a master class. Great birds eye view on how it all works. Awesome content. I've learned a lot from your other videos.
Very thorough explanation. You should mention that some thermostats do not use the 24v, but use batteries instead. The only reason I mention this is if you ever need to then install a thermostat that uses the 24v from the furnace, sometimes the C wire is not there or is not connected at the control board. Keep making great videos!!
@@BenjaminSahlstrom Ben please do. I tried installing a ecobee t-stat and it was only a two wire thermostat, oil burner. The zone relay control board is only controlled by dry contacts I think. I know some control boards have an optional 24 volt supply but this one didn't. After watching this video, am I correct to assume I would need to power the Rh terminal with 24 volts and also use the common or C terminal with a separate transformer?
Thank you for this tutorial. You just saved me a call-out fee and the cost of a contactor . All was good except for the two leads going from the air handler to the outside unit.
Super helpful. I had no idea when wiring my thermostat as to what the letters meant, I just mimic them to what was there before and what they were tied into the furnace. Now I understand what each means. Now to go back and figure out what the two cut wires were and why they were previously cut...
Exactly. Its really fairly simple once you think it through a few times. Really makes troubleshooting a lot easier if you have a little understanding of the basics. Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for your explanation of the thermostat wiring. I'm trying to install a new thermostat and the manufacturer's video was very confusing. I now understand that R-wire is red wire, Y-wire is yellow wire, G-wire is green wire, W-wire is white wire but C-wire is black wire. The C meaning black wasn't explained by the manufacturer. Follow-up: After watching your video, I was able to properly install a new Honeywell thermostat that relied on using the C-wire that had previously been unused. Unfortunately, when I flipped the switch it was dead. I was sure that I had killed my new thermostat and furnace and would need to call the repairman in shame. Before doing this, I decided to open the furnace up. Apparently, whoever installed the furnace never saw your video. For some reason, he had installed the C-wire to the wrong terminal. After correcting his mistake, it works perfectly.
I installed countless smart thermostats, in place of existing over the years. Your explanations were simple and precise. Very old heat/AC systems might not have a "C" wire available to power the thermo programming. About 30% of my smart thermo installs, require installing an additional cable to produce the "C" connection between the air handler and thermo. For DIY people, Shut the power, I work live. I been doing this 40 years. If you make one mistake on the printed circuit inside the air handler, the 3A fuse will protect printed circuit, but there is a very good chance, you could short a circuit board, then the entire control board inside the blower will need replacing. My helpers caused this problem by not following my detailed instructions
After watching your video , I don’t need to call an HVAC guy anymore. I just hook up the thermostat wirings myself to my new furnace from watching your video and that saved me $500. Thanks my good man for the good lesson of the thermostat wiring.
You just literally walked me through fixing the old wiring in my 40 year old house that now has modern HVAC equipment and a Nest thermostat that I couldn't figure out why it was going dead. It didn't have the C wire to power it!
Man, your video is so good. It is very useful. I learned a lot from it. Thank you so much. I am trying to replace my thermo. My current TRANE thermo is not backed up by battery. Each time the power gets off, the thermo setup will be lost.
It took 8 previous videos (worthless info) to find THIS GUY! Absolutely TO THE POINT, VISUAL REFERENCES AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND! I do all my home fixes and a/c with a new wi-fi thermostat wanting a C-wire (when I only had 3 (R G Y) at the old thermostat. Now I need to run a new 5 wire and use R G Y B (B=C). I was HOT (angry) before viewing this video and now COOL AS A CUCUMBER with A/C working and wi-fi thermostat ‘talking’ to system. THANK YOU - KEEPS THESE VIDEOS COMING. How about a video on old steam boiler and replacing the old blow off strainer (filter silt, gunk out). Also, replace blow off mechanism with new one. I’ve done both and people need to see they can do this with basic tools but MUST get the CORRECT (BOILER MODEL) PARTS PRIOR.
