Residential · Smart thermostats
Smart thermostats: Nest and ecobee installation
The thermostat decides when your furnace, heat pump and air conditioner run. Apollo installs the Nest Learning Thermostat and the ecobee, wired and staged to the equipment they control.
Chapter 01
The thermostat runs the system
Everything the furnace, heat pump and air conditioner do starts with a signal from the thermostat on the wall. A thermostat that is wired wrong, set for the wrong kind of system or never programmed makes good equipment behave badly, and most people never touch the schedule that came on it.
Heat pumps show this best. In a cold Tri-Cities winter, a heat pump needs a second stage of heat below about 35 degrees, and that stage should come on by itself. When the thermostat is set up right, the Emergency Heat setting stays what it is meant to be: a switch for the day the heat pump itself fails.
A smart thermostat is the easy way to get a sensible schedule. It is also one more thing that has to be wired and configured properly, which is where the installer matters.
Apollo technician adjusting a wall thermostat
Nest Learning Thermostat and ecobee
The Nest Learning Thermostat learns your schedule from the changes you make for the first few days, then programs itself. It connects over Wi-Fi so you can adjust it from a phone, tablet or laptop, it can drop to an away temperature when the house is empty, and it watches the weather forecast. You tell it what system you have and its System Match feature turns on the settings that fit.
Apollo also installs the ecobee. One customer, Tom Mileson, wrote in his five-star Google review after a heat pump replacement: “I really like the ecobee thermostat that I can control with my phone anywhere.”
On the day, the work is wiring and staging. The technician checks for a common wire, wires the thermostat to the system, and sets the heat pump stages so the second stage and the backup behave as intended.
Chapter 03
Teaching it your house
A learning thermostat needs a week or so of you using it. Change the temperature when you would normally change it, and let it watch. After that it builds the schedule, and you can still override it from the wall or the app whenever you like.
Setup does not end when the technician leaves. Sondra Edwards wrote in her Google review that her installer took the time to show them how to use and adjust the systems once installation was complete. That walk-through is part of how Apollo finishes a job.
If the thermostat is acting up on a cold night, 24 Hour Service answers the phone.
“I really like the ecobee thermostat that I can control with my phone anywhere.” Tom Mileson, Google review.
Around the thermostat
Thermostat work in Kennewick, Pasco and Richland
A new thermostat can go in on its own visit, or with a new furnace, heat pump or air conditioner. Call (509) 396-2653 and tell the office what system you have. Apollo runs 24 Hour Service out of 1119 W. Columbia Drive in Kennewick.