thermostat help

[iron]

we have an electric furnace with a heat pump - single stage, single zone. fireplace is on main level along with thermostat. basement has been mostly unheated in the past year+ after burning full time in the winter.

what i would like to do, if possible, is to split the thermostat wire so it has two wall mount locations: one upstairs and one downstairs. the thought here is that in the winter, i'd move the thermostat unit downstairs so the furnace occasionally comes on; then in the summer, move the thermostat back upstairs for the 1-2 days/year that we might actually use the air conditioning.

as far as i can tell, my current thermostat does not have a wireless remote thermostat that i could simply put downstairs. if it did, that would be the easy solution.

what i kind of have pictured is a j-box near the furnace, then splitting the thermostat wire and wire-nutting two feeds to the two wall locations.

will this work?

i see a similar thread here, but i think the post was a little confusing, so i just wanted to verify:
http://www.contractortalk.com/f6/can-i-split-thermostat-wire-50927/

additionally, i'm open to other ideas. trying to save money by not just buying a new thermostat that is capable of additional thermostats on the system.

 

[semipro]

It sounds like you want to wire 2 thermostats in parallel which I think could result in problems as the signal from one thermostat back-feeds into the unused one.
I'd suggest rather that you simply put a 6 conductor connector at the furnace and with matching connectors on each thermostat cable. That way you can just unplug one and plug in the other seasonally.
Another possible option, wireless controls as discussed here: http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?668371-Wireless-thermostat-Do-they-exist but I'd best this stuff is not cheap.
Also, in my thermostat the thermistor that is used to sense the room air temp, though mounted to the PC board stands off enough where it could be cut loose and wired remotely. The you'd have to run some wiring from you thermostat to whatever other location you want to measure temp at (and where you'd place the thermistor). If I'm not mistaken, the resistance of the thermistor will be so high that the added small resistance of the wire won't impact operation or even calibration.

 

[fbelec]

if you have a heat pump you are going to need how many wires are used on the original tstat. the tstat along with the heat pump figure out how to heat your house. it's not as simple as just a red and white wire. if you can get a tstat base from a similar tstat you could just unplug your tstat from downstairs and plug it in upstairs. if it's a nest tstat good luck. they are a great tstat but learn where they are mounted.