We installed this programmable thermostat 18 years ago and it STOPPED working. I don't get it. The air conditioning came on, but would not turn off. I pushed every button on that thermostat and nothing happened. The only way it turn off was to flick the switch on the electrical panel. Fortunately, it was on it's own power source, so I didn't have to cut the power to the entire house.I put the little tabs on the wires and every thing is cool, so I thought.
Well, I couldn't find a screw driver in that huge tool box of mine. I have my own, because my husband's shop is, shall we say, less than organized
, and I can't find anything when I'm looking for a specific tool, so I just created my own tool box. I finally checked my basic little tool box I keep in my sewing room. This one only has a few little tools in it, but it was exactly what I needed to get the job done, I thought. (I won this little box at an office Christmas party many years ago.)
I get the old unit off the wall and compare the new unit and it was smaller than the old unit, so one thing calls for another. I'm making another trip to Hubby's work shop for material to patch the screw holes, sand paper to smooth the paint ridges created when painting around the old unit and paint to cover the unpainted dry wall. I was able to procure all the necessary materials to get the job done, I thought. Finally, I realized sanding those paint ridges wasn't going to work, so now I'm looking for one of those things with the razor b
lades used to scrape paint off windows. Now, those little things work well on lots of jobs and I should have used that little first and saved a lot of time sanding and creating all that dust.So, I get the wall preped, patched all those old holes and I apply the paint. It matched. I was so relieved. It hasn't been too terrible long ago that we painted the upstairs hall and the only can of wall paint I had actually worked. However, I had to wait until the paint dried before attaching the frame of the new unit to the wall. That's when the REAL fun began.
Can you see those wires coming out of the wall? Those very SHORT wires? Oh my goodness. It took a while to get those little color coded wires attached to the new thermostat. The old one had screws that you just twisted the wires around and tighten. The new unit had these tiny slots where you had to insert the wires and push down these very tiny little button things to secure the wires for proper contact. I'm telling you, that was HARD! I finally had to call in backup--my sweet Hubby.
A day or two later Hubby said, "you did a really good job on that new thermostat, you can't even see where th
e old one was."Why I though I could change this thermostat in just a few minutes is a mystery to me. I should have know when you start a project one thing leads to another. It took three hours to get this little thermostat installed. The good thing? It works so well.
1 comment:
I know this is an old post, but your toolbox story made me think of my parents & tools - They used to share two, big tool/part boxes until Dad got mad about not being able to find something one day, and secretly bought a small, red toolbox which he hid in his closet. Mother acted like she did not know it was there.
In what was no surprise, Dad forgot to put tools back in that box, too. But since the box was a "secret", he could not blame anyone.
They're now back to the original toolboxes.
I enjoy your blog,
Tom
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