Video: Installing a New Thermostat

SAN JOSE — Host, Sarah Rutan: In caring for your home’s HVAC system, its important to know how to install a new thermostat. Today, we’re in San Jose with Diamond Certified Expert Cindy Faulkner of Valley Heating, Cooling, Electrical and Solar to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Cindy Faulkner: If your thermostat is broken or you’re ready to upgrade, it’s fairly simple to replace it yourself. The first step would be to determine what thermostat is compatible for your system. The most common for a 24-volt system would be a universal thermostat. This will not work for baseboard heating; that’s a different application.

The second step would be to read the manufacturer’s instructions completely. Make sure that you’re very clear on that. Turn off the power to your heating unit next. There is a switch that’s either located on your furnace or on the wall next to the furnace that you can just flip off.

Next, you’re going to remove your old thermostat from the wall and you’re going to make a map of where the wires go. So, it’s going to be R to red and W to white. Make sure you make that clear because it’s going to be the same when you put the next one back on.

Completely remove it from the wall and then mount the new thermostat to the wall using your manufacturer’s instructions. Now you’re going to connect the wires back to your thermostat as per the map that you made and the color designation.

Once you’re done with that, you’re going to put the cover of the thermostat on and you’re going to restore power to the furnace by flipping that switch back on. Now to the last couple of steps, which are easy.

You’re going to want to test your furnace and make sure it operates properly, and if you have air-conditioning, you’re going to want to test that, too. Once you’ve determined that everything is working great, then you are pretty much done other than programing your thermostat. You can refer to the manufacturer’s instructions and set that up exactly how you prefer when it comes on, when it goes off, and so on.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.