I posted this a long time ago.
Warm weather's here.
Time for a reminder.
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I just got home.
I was only gone for a few minutes.
I thought that I had a crisis looming overhead and that my heating / air conditioning unit had a serious problem.
It's getting cold (hot now since I originally posted this) and I began worrying about the breaker, the possibility of failing or faulty hardware and expensive repairs.
I examined the thermostat and realized that the batteries had conked out !
When the batteries inside the thermostat fail none of the HVAC features are accessible, which include fan controls and thermostat settings for heat and air conditioning, and that might lead you believe that your package unit went bad, broke down and gave out.
Not necessarily so, as the song goes !
It's a Honeywell thermostat that I installed myself exactly a year ago this week, and, as luck would have,
the batteries in the thermostat have to be replaced once a year, and the timing was great.
So I drove over to the dollar store, bought a package of four AAA batteries for a buck, came home, popped two in the thermostat,and voila !
And I have two batteries left over for the tv remote...how 'bout dat !.
It's painful to think of the thousands of people that'll call an HVAC company only to be swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for new equipment that they don't need, pay ridiculous service charges, inspection fees and truck mileage charges for companies that make those calls when all they need to do is look at the battery indicator on their thermostat, if they have an electronic thermostat that requires batteries, and spend only a few cents to replace them.
Don't misunderstand... there are great heating and refrigeration service technicians, and I have several good friends in the business here in Memphis. There are many legitimate problems that arise in HVAC that are attended to by very good, honest, reliable, safe, secure, insured, and integrity-minded technicians. There are many who work pro bono over the holidays to insure that our financially challenged and needy families have safe heating and that their homes are free from the dangers of gas and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Many thermostats work from a dedicated power source, or a phantom source that trickles voltage to the display constantly, and when these components fail they need servicing by competent and qualified professionals because some hard wiring to your electrical grid may be necessary, which includes the possibility of the need for a code permit and an inspection
One dollar and two fresh triple "A" batteries solved my problem and saved me hundreds of bucks !
A shady HVAC service technician tried to pull a fast one on me by trying to sell me a Honeywell thermostat for 300 bucks that sells for less than 25 bucks at Home Depot; one that any third grade kid could install.
Here's a picture of the thermostat in the original packaging:
That swindler wanted an additional 120 bucks (which incidentally would have pumped up the charge to 420 bucks before taxes and service call charges) to remove a couple of screws to replace the old bracket with the new one, which, incidentally, already lined up perfectly with the old plate guide bracket and original holes for the screws, so nothing had to be done but simply snap one off and snap one on.
I politely threw that con artist out of my house.
Be vigilant.... !
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