Out With The Old Thermostat And In With The New

After way too many years I finally got around to installing a new, digital thermostat for our furnace. The lack of a Common or ‘C’ wire from our furnace to our existing thermostat ruled out, for now at least, the Wi-Fi enabled device I really wanted to get – the Nest Learning Thermostat. Instead I settled for the $94 Honeywell 7-Day Touchscreen Programmable.  This new digital thermostat will be much more efficient than our old, round mercury based device. I can’t believe I still had one of those!!

Our new Honeywell 7-Day Programmable Touch Screen Thermostat

Our old round Honeywell mercury thermostat

The removal of the old thermostat and installation of the new one had to be one of the easiest home improvement jobs I’ve ever tackled. It only took 30 minutes from start to finish and unlike my plumbing escapades the thermostat worked and the furnace is running just fine.

Just a black and white wire behind the old thermostat

Just to be safe I made sure the electrical breaker for the thermostat was turned off and after I removed the old one I saw what I expected – just 2 wires – a black and a white. Pretty simple.

The new Honeywell had a lot of connections but I only needed 2

The quick start instructions that came with this Model 7600D were pretty good. All I had to do was connect the white wire to the W and the black to the RH (furnace heat) and I was done.  I installed 2 AA batteries for backup power, snapped the cover back on and then spent a few minutes programming the thermostat for 4 different times of the day but the same for each day of the week. After that I turned the breaker back on, turned up the thermostat and voila – the furnace started up!!

The sales associate who helped me at Homedepot

It was supposed to rain yesterday but that never happened. As a result, after we went for a hike in the afternoon I had to cut the grass in the backyard before it turned into a hayfield. With the recent rains combined with a few sunny, hot days the grass has taken off again and is growing inches a day it seems. I guess I’ll be mowing lawns right into November sometime.

It sure is turning into a nice fall season here on Vancouver Island. The weather is still nice and warm but the leaves on most trees are beginning to change colors and are quickly falling to the ground. What we really need here is about a solid week of heavy rain as we’ve been in a real drought since the spring. The rivers and streams around here could sure use a good, steady, long downpour. I could live with that too as I can’t cut the lawns when it’s raining.

It’ll be a very busy day for me Wednesday starting with my 8:30am appointment at Victoria General Hospital to have the basal cell carcinoma surgically removed from the right nasal bridge side of my nose. Then in the evening, I have to go back down to Victoria again for poker with my friends. It’s going to be a long day and a late night.

Thanks for visiting!