Venstar T1800
The latest update in the “Greening” effort was to replace my old X10 Thermostat (TXB-16) with a new Venstar T1800 7 day programmable thermostat, and then hook up an INSTEON adapter to it that will let a product called Indigo on my home control computer run it.
By itself, the new thermostat is considerably more powerful than the TXB-16 was, and with Indigo I can do much more. And in a rare example of me actually planning “forward”, it will support the dual-zone, multi-stage furnace/AC I want to put it next year to replace the again, cheap, and highly inefficient York furnace they put in the house when it was built.
The installation wasn’t too hard but I found out that the house builder had not really connected all the control wires in the furnace/AC control ( but at least they didn’t clip the wires they didn’t use). They just left ’em hanging inside the furnace. A little crawling around in the dust and all that razor sharp sheet metal connecting all the wiring, and voila!? All told, the whole upgrade took about an hour, including programming.
And, my favorite part ? The Solar System doesn’t interfere with the new INSTEON communication method (on both electrical wires and RF boosted)… Finally, I have control of my house temperature back under computer control. It only took me 11 months to do it… 🙂
You might also like
Leave a reply