Snow Birds: Beware!

[harringtondav]

We've been spending a lot of time at our river house this winter while I continue to work on the basement finish project there. Yesterday ended an eleven day trip away from our main home < 2 hrs away.

When I opened the door at home I knew something was wrong. It was cold inside. A quick check showed our battery operated thermostat had dead batteries. I changed them and saw it was 49 deg F. Two AA cell batteries could have caused a catastrophe with frozen pipes, etc. It was 16 deg F when we returned, -3 last night.

When it gets warm enough to do it, I'll replace the old four wire 24V cable with a new cable with a 'C' wire to operate the new WIFI thermostat that I'll also install.

No more batteries, and I'll be able to monitor the house's temp on my smart phone.

....just sharing my lesson learned with those who leave their cold climate home for extended periods of time.

 

[Scott Danforth]

remember, if you can see your thermostat and other devices on your smart phone, others can too. my step son hacked all the "smart" devices the other day with an app he was playing with

What my father did when he was alive and would come to FL to visit for weeks at a time. he installed a wall mounted space heater in the basement of his house. one with a pilot light. that would run all winter. He did this as a backup to his main furnace because his failed more than once due to a power outage by winter storms. Then after that, it failed twice because the igniters today dont last more than a few years and once because ice covered the exhaust once.

He set the space heater to 50 degrees. if the main furnace failed to start for what ever reason, the basement would be kept at 50, which kept all the rooms above it at about 58

 

[sangerwaker]

@harringtondav,​

Have you seen these? They're called wire savers, eliminating the need to pull a 5th wire. I used one at our lake place when I installed the new wifi stat as I had no way to pull a 5th wire because the basement is completely finished.

Link is for Amazon, but you can find for less elsewhere by searching for the p/n.

https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-THP9045A1023-Wiresaver-Wiring-Thermostat/dp/B0060ASWPE/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=honeywell+wire+saver&qid=1611932846&sr=8-1

Also, most of the wifi stats (mine is a Honeywell and has it) have an alarm feature that lets you set what temp it will send you alerts at. If you want to keep the place @ 50 while away, set the alarm for 48 or 49. Saved our butt 2 winters ago when the ignitor on the furnace went out.

 

[harringtondav]

@harringtondav,​

Have you seen these? They're called wire savers, eliminating the need to pull a 5th wire. I used one at our lake place when I installed the new wifi stat as I had no way to pull a 5th wire because the basement is completely finished.

Link is for Amazon, but you can find for less elsewhere by searching for the p/n.

https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-THP9045A1023-Wiresaver-Wiring-Thermostat/dp/B0060ASWPE/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=honeywell+wire+saver&qid=1611932846&sr=8-1

Also, most of the wifi stats (mine is a Honeywell and has it) have an alarm feature that lets you set what temp it will send you alerts at. If you want to keep the place @ 50 while away, set the alarm for 48 or 49. Saved our butt 2 winters ago when the ignitor on the furnace went out.

Good to know. Thanks. I saved the link. ....I'm not looking forward to fish taping a new cable. ...I suspect the original is stapled on a stud.

 

[isaacs]

We've been spending a lot of time at our river house this winter while I continue to work on the basement finish project there. Yesterday ended an eleven day trip away from our main home < 2 hrs away.

When I opened the door at home I knew something was wrong. It was cold inside. A quick check showed our battery operated thermostat had dead batteries. I changed them and saw it was 49 deg F. Two AA cell batteries could have caused a catastrophe with frozen pipes, etc. It was 16 deg F when we returned, -3 last night.

When it gets warm enough to do it, I'll replace the old four wire 24V cable with a new cable with a 'C' wire to operate the new WIFI thermostat that I'll also install.

No more batteries, and I'll be able to monitor the house's temp on my smart phone.

....just sharing my lesson learned with those who leave their cold climate home for extended periods of time.

I bought a Honeywell WiFi thermostat for that exact same reason and I absolutely love it. I ran a new cable with enough wires for the "C" and also to take advantage of the two stage capabilities of the furnace.

 

[harringtondav]

I bought a Honeywell WiFi thermostat for that exact same reason and I absolutely love it. I ran a new cable with enough wires for the "C" and also to take advantage of the two stage capabilities of the furnace.

Our home furnace is less than three years old. I'll check the manuals, but I believe it has two stage capability. If so I'll do the same.

I'm also installing a new heat pump with air handler electric heat at our river house. I'll be installing a top end dehumidifying thermostat to utilize the two stage capability and also the dehumidifying capability.

Home system is gas heat. So I don't know if it has a dehumidifying mode. If so I'll get a thermostat to control this too.

 

[tpenfield]

Lots of folks use freeze alarms that call you when the temp gets too low. Now it is more common to have WiFi thermostats. I have a Nest T-Stat in the summer house ( 9˚ F here today BTW ) but 2 devices have crapped out in the past 2 years, so I'm switching to Ecobee brand.

On sunny days, the summer house seems to generate its own heat. It's those cold snaps (like we are having now) that are cause for concern.

When we go to FL, we have to keep an eye on both houses (Summer & Primary residence)

 

[PITBoat]

remember, if you can see your thermostat and other devices on your smart phone, others can too. my step son hacked all the "smart" devices the other day with an app he was playing with

Yep. The hip old folk don't care, it's practically all the young folk have ever known, and some of us in the middle still resistant. Unlock my house with my phone? I'm thinking not...

 

[ahicks]

As a snowbird with quite a few years experience, I can share that although the thermostat (t-stat) has an important function, turning off your water (city supplied or pump) is an even more important function. This won't avoid burst pipes in the case of heat (or power) loss, but it WILL avoid resulting catastrophes that the insurance company won't pay for (flooding!). They'll pay to repair the burst pipe, but they WILL NOT pay to repair the resulting damage.....FYI

 

[harringtondav]

As a snowbird with quite a few years experience, I can share that although the thermostat (t-stat) has an important function, turning off your water (city supplied or pump) is an even more important function. This won't avoid burst pipes in the case of heat (or power) loss, but it WILL avoid resulting catastrophes that the insurance company won't pay for (flooding!). They'll pay to repair the burst pipe, but they WILL NOT pay to repair the resulting damage.....FYI

We are double vulnerable this winter. Normally I drain the river house and shut off the heat. This winter we've kept it open so I can continue to work there. The new forced air HVAC will have a WiFi thermostat for monitoring from home.

Your idea of shutting off the water is good. Draining & purging is fairly easy if you have an air compressor, even a small one. I shut off the city/well supply and attach a male air hose coupler to an outside garden hose bib, or thread one into the thermal relief on the water heater. The thermal valve will flip up and hold open. Water heaters are pressure tested to 200 psi, so a 120 psi air compressor won't hurt a thing.

After the water heater is drained I shut off all faucets, valves etc and let the air compressor charge up the water heater until the compressor shuts off. A 50 gallon reservoir at 120 psi will blast the water lines clear at each faucet.

 

[bruceb58]

We own two homes in the montains. Web accessed thermostats have prevented multiple occurrences of possible freeze damage since we have friends use one of the houses and I vacation rent the other. Also nice to be able to turn up the heat as we drive up the mountain to them.

We always turn off the water at one of our houses including draining the hot side since it has galavanized pipes still and we don't trust them. Water is always turned off at that house when we aren't there.

 

[harringtondav]

Also nice to be able to turn up the heat as we drive up the mountain to them.

We've had fiber optic WiFi at our river house for a couple years now. So remote temp adjustment will be a $saver once I get the new HVAC up. <2 hrs travel time is plenty to get it comfortable.

Until now I've farted off this kind of thermostat at home. ...a near miss has changed this. We'll have the same remote control temp benefits when we are away.

 

[sam am I]

@harringtondav

FWIW, I picked up one of these a year back or so at Costco and so far so good and BONUS!!, it comes the the "Power Extender Kit" (PEK) for your "C" wire install. The extra room monitor works pretty cool too if for example it's just you and the wife each night in the bedroom, idle the whole house down a few degrees, but keep tabs on the bedroom temp, works pretty slick!!

Installing your ecobee4

In most homes, installing an ecobee thermostat takes about 45 minutes. Visit the ecobee4 installation page for your installation questions.

www.ecobee.com

https://www.ecobee.com/wp-content/themes/ecobee/dist/files/e4_installation_guide.pdf

See page 31

 

[bruceb58]

@harringtondav

FWIW, I picked up one of these a year back or so at Costco and so far so good and BONUS!!, it comes the the "Power Extender Kit" (PEK) for your "C" wire install. The extra room monitor works pretty cool too if for example it's just you and the wife each night in the bedroom, idle the whole house down a few degrees, but keep tabs on the bedroom temp, works pretty slick!!

Installing your ecobee4

In most homes, installing an ecobee thermostat takes about 45 minutes. Visit the ecobee4 installation page for your installation questions.

www.ecobee.com

https://www.ecobee.com/wp-content/themes/ecobee/dist/files/e4_installation_guide.pdf

See page 31

Another thing you can do if you are missing the C wire is to just wire up the fan at the heater to come on when the heat comes on. I rarely use the fan by itself and then you can repurpose the fan wire to become your C wire.

 

[tpenfield]

I just installed the ecobee t-stat this morning. I had only Rh and W wires, so I had to get a 'C-wire' adapter. Basically a 24v power supply.

Everything seemed to go fine . . . just waiting to see that the heat cycles in a 'normal' fashion. I'm heading to the summer house later today to install another ecobee there. Same issue with the wiring and I'll be installing an adapter there as well.

I did enable 2-factor authentication, which is probably a wise thing to do. . . .

The summer house has gone through 2 Nest thermostats in 2 years . . . probably because of the C wire thing, but the Nest instructions indicated that it would work. . . it did for a while

 

[sam am I]

@tpenfield

So far so good with mine......I have an old Lenox Pulse and the "fan only" circuit would draw too much current for the ecobee.....I just used a relay as a work around.

You can use the "fan only" as a "air turn-over" as i call it feature. Meaning.... that the ecobee can be set to have just the fan only come on automagically for like 10 min/hr. for example......For me, this helps not only bring in another small % of fresh air at times and filter, but also it mixes up the cooler air spots with the warmer air spots throughout the house every hour......sorta equalizes/moderates things amongst some heat cycles..

 

[aspeck]

About 3 months ago I changed my house thermostat to a Honeywell. So far, so good ... and liking being able to check temps remotely and change temp settings from the phone. I went kicking and screaming into the "smart" devises, now my wife says I have gone off the rails with everything getting changed over when it needs replaced (and sometimes when it doesn't).

 

[harringtondav]

Another thing you can do if you are missing the C wire is to just wire up the fan at the heater to come on when the heat comes on. I rarely use the fan by itself and then you can repurpose the fan wire to become your C wire.

Yea. I looked into the Honeywell "wire saver' per @sangerwaker 's post #3.
I couldn't figure out their wiring diagram, so I called their tech support. Turns out it only works with Honeywell stats with a 'K' wire terminal. But the guy was good enough to tell me about the G wire workaround. ..same solution as yours @bruceb58 .

I was over stressing the wire pull. I just pulled an 8 wire cable for my new HVAC at the river place. 2" hole saw hole under the approximate location through the floor and plate of the stat mounting stud. Dropped a string with a weight right through it. Done and wired.

I've got an Aprilaire 8620W hooked up. I'll go with the same brand at home so I only have one app to deal with. I've plenty of the cable left, or I can just pull a single wire to make up the C ommon connection at home. The G wire workaround would work, but I keep the fan running constantly. ...thinking it gives more consistent temps.