Nest thermostat frustration

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Microduck17

Burning Hunk
Dec 21, 2017
241
New Concord Ohio
We'vehad this smart thermostat for about a year now and it has been aggravating from day one. We use the wood furnace for our heat source with forced air electric for backup when the wood fire burns low or we're not going to be home for a while. I've went around and around with this nest smart thermostat. Even after I've went through all the settings and turned off every automatic function it has It still decides randomly to set the temperature to something in the mid to high 70s and runs the electric furnace. The only to prevent it from turning on the electric heat is to switch off the breaker to the electric furnace. I just did a factory reset on it, if that doesn't help I'm going back to a mechanical thermostat. Anyone have any idea how to correct this problem?

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Solve it by dropping it into the trash.
One of my HVAC guys told me he makes a fortune taking them out of houses and installing a Honeywell system. I'm a huge fan of the Vision Pro integrated with RedLink.
 
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I was told the other day by a customer that theirs would randomly be really high or really low. Not sure it was the Nest brand but how he described it was enough for me to forget about using any of them for the time being.
 
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I was ready to toss it in the wood furnace the other day. I was already assuming that it was more or less junk. Thanks for the confirmation. I kept my old mechanical thermostat, going to reinstall it later today.

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Nest pro learning thermostat. Don't really know anything else about it. I already unhooked it and reconnected the old mercury bulb mechanical thermostat until I figure something out.

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I wonder if it’s the auto schedule stuff. This is how mine is setup, no schedule, the temp I set is the temp it stays. I got mine through my energy provider for a reduced rate. I’m assuming you don’t have a schedule set.
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I had all that stuff off and it still liked to turn the heat on whenever it feels like it. Thought about calling nest but figured it would be a nightmare to reach a human being. Thinking of hooking it up again around Christmas and tinkering with it.

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This is two wire setup for the thermostat? The nest like all programmable thermostats requires constant power which is not possible with two wires unless it has a battery. Most use replaceable batteries but the Nest has a small rechargeable battery. It charges the battery when the heat cycles on, if it's not cycling enough it has to turn the heat on to charge it.
 
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I have 3 Nest thermostats.. At our lake cabin. One is in garage for the gas heater but I leave it off as the emergency setting kicks it on at 38 which is what I want to keep my pipes from freezing in the living space above the garage. I use the heat-cool settings on the other 2 so it kicks on when we are not there. I never use the learn mode so can't comment on that. I thought they were easy to install and can remotely set the temp before we arrive.
 
This is two wire setup for the thermostat? The nest like all programmable thermostats requires constant power which is not possible with two wires unless it has a battery. Most use replaceable batteries but the Nest has a small rechargeable battery. It charges the battery when the heat cycles on, if it's not cycling enough it has to turn the heat on to charge it.
There are only 2 wires in use but there are extra wires in the cable. Wonder if it would be possible to set up an extra wire as a ground for the thermostat.

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The red and the white wires should already be connected to it. Go see where they are connected to the heating system. I'm not all that familiar with electric heat but I'd assume it's just a relay controller. Note the model number and look up the manual, if you can utilize third wire it should be in the wiring schematic.

The black wire if present is for the C connection, if you don't have a black wire you use one of the others but commonly the green wire which is used to independently operate the fan on a furnace.

Most imporatant before opening the controller box turn off the power to the system.
 
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