Until I can have it checked out, can the heat strips be disconnected at the thermostat? Does the defrost controller tell the thermostat to turn on the heat strips? Last year the repairman said that the thermostat was calling for aux heat. It could have been the defrost controller telling the thermostat to do that?
We might have replaced a perfectly good thermostat last year because of this. And the old one was a lot better than the ones available now. The old one had a lot of buttons and switches to use. The new one has few buttons and a lot of menus on an LCD screen. The stuff is very hard to read too - I have to get out my reading glasses and shine a flashlight in there in order to even see it.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net (Jud McCranie) writes: | On 29 May 2009 20:55:36 GMT, ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani) wrote: | | >Probably, but I'd still be concerned about what is turning them on. | >If it is a damaged defrost control as I previously suggested it might | >return to its behavior of shutting off the outside fan. | | Until I can have it checked out, can the heat strips be disconnected | at the thermostat?
It depends on how the wires are run. On my system (ignoring for the moment control wiring that I've added) there is a wire from the outside unit to the inside air handler and another from the thermostat to the air handler. To disconnect the secondary heat I'd have to unsplice the wires at the air handler.
| Does the defrost controller tell the thermostat to | turn on the heat strips?
That's very unlikely.
| Last year the repairman said that the | thermostat was calling for aux heat. It could have been the defrost | controller telling the thermostat to do that?
It could have been the defrost control turning on the heat strips directly. Keeping track of such things is why I have the extra LED hooked up...
Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com
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