Thermostat Installation and Repair in Oakland County

Basic, programmable or smart: which thermostat fits your house

A basic thermostat holds one temperature until you change it. It is hard to get wrong and suits someone who is home most of the day and likes a steady setting. A programmable thermostat follows a schedule you set once: cooler overnight and while everyone is at work, comfortable again before you wake up or come home. It suits a household with a regular routine.

A smart thermostat connects to your Wi-Fi so you can change it from your phone, and many learn your routine or sense when the house is empty. It earns its keep where the week never looks the same twice, and it asks more of the wiring. Tell us how your household runs and we will say which one we would put on our own wall.

The C-wire and compatibility: why not every thermostat suits every system

Older thermostats ran on batteries or drew a trickle of power through the heating wires. Most smart thermostats need continuous power for the screen and the Wi-Fi, and they get it from a common wire, usually called the C-wire. Many houses do not have one connected at the thermostat. The fix is a spare wire already in the wall, an adapter at the furnace or a new cable. Without steady power, a smart thermostat tends to go blank or restart itself.

The equipment matters just as much. A two-stage or variable-speed furnace needs a thermostat that can call for each stage. A heat pump needs a heat-pump-rated thermostat that controls the reversing valve and the backup heat. Dual-fuel systems and zoned systems each have their own requirements. We do not work on boilers or the thermostats that control them. Electric baseboard heat uses line-voltage thermostats, which are a different product altogether and cannot be swapped for a low-voltage one.

Where a thermostat should and should not be mounted

A thermostat only knows the temperature of the air touching it. Put it in the wrong spot and the whole house is run by a bad reading. The right place is an interior wall in a room you actually use, where air moves freely past it. These are the places to avoid.

• In direct sun, or on a wall that a window lights up in the afternoon
• Above, below or in the path of a supply register
• Beside an exterior door or a drafty window
• In or next to the kitchen, or near a lamp or television
• On an outside wall, which runs colder in winter than the room does

Setting a schedule that saves without making you miserable

The U.S. Department of Energy says you can save as much as 10 percent a year on heating and cooling by turning the thermostat back 7 to 10 degrees for eight hours a day from its normal setting. That is the Department's figure, not a promise from us: what you save depends on your house, your equipment and the weather. In a Michigan winter, where the furnace does most of the year's work, the heating setback is the one that counts.

One exception. With a heat pump, a deep setback can backfire: when the thermostat calls for a big recovery, the system may bring on its backup heat, which costs more to run. Smaller setbacks and a heat-pump-rated thermostat avoid that. And with most equipment, pushing the setting far past what you want does not heat or cool the house any faster.