Thanks, Annie. I thought of that a few minutes after I made my plea. Five minute increments and I did that. But I'd still like to know the"right" way.

Is it only On and Off? You can't set a different temp for night time, morning, day, and evening? If you can, well, just set daytime at the same temp as morning.

This is what's known as a set-back thermostat, because you can set it to "go back" to a different setting at different times.

Having said that, here is what I did when reprogramming ours after I retired and didn't want the setting to change wh.en I was still going to be in the house... Simply choose "time 1" and set it for the morning temp you want. Choose "time 2" and set it for the same temp as you set for "time 1." Do the same for the remaining two time settings.

I looked at the online manual. You can in fact set the temp for each cycle. Do what Lindsey says.

Modify the Heating Schedule
1.) Slide the system switch to Heat
2.) Press Menu
3.) Press Next to enter the schedule
4.) The time icons will flash – use (up arrow) or (down arrow) to set the time for the start of a period
5.) Press Next – the set point icons will flash – use (up arrow) or (down arrow) to set the temperature for the current period. You can set it to the same temperature as the previous, or wake-up, period.

6.) Continue to press Next to advance through all periods (Wake, Leave, Return, Sleep) for all days of the week.

Note: Press Back to return to the previous setting. Once all days of the week have been
programmed the thermostat will display End. Press Exit at any time to save changes
and return to home

My thermostat works just the same as Lindsey described. I set my times to warm at 6am, a few degrees cooler at 8am (but I could set it for the same temp as at 6 if I wanted), warmer again at 6pm when I am less active, and down to my overnight temp (60) at 1030pm. The only ending time for the blocks is the start time for the next, so I don't have to worry about a minute or 5 minutes in between temp changes.

Well, I guess I AM a dunce! I just assumed I would have to take it to a lower temp when I got to the second time and back up at the third time. I've got it set now. Thank you ALL for your assistance.

Lets say that ON is 72 and OFF is 58.

so for 1, set it to 72.

for 2, set it to 72.

for 3, set it to 72.

for 4, set it to 58.

YMMV.

Fancy isn't it? I've had a similar one for four years now, and I STILL need to dig out the manual to change it from our preferred summer temps, to our preferred winter temps.

Somewhere in the setting menu I can change mine from 4 periods per day, to 2 periods per day ... but don't ask me to do it without the manual!

My thermostat works the same way. I do have to dig out the manual every time to change the time for Daylight Saving Time. For some reason I blank out on how to do that. OK...sometimes I forget until I notice the house is rather cool in the evening.

I hate the ones that only have four time periods. It is the type we have and unless I want to pay a couple of hundred dollars that seems to be the way most are. Glad the OP was able to set as she wanted but she also needs to know that she how to change the temperatures if needed. Things like if someone is sick and night time temp needs to be higher if they are sitting up.

When we moved into this home, there was a programmable thermostat. After a short, frustrating time, summer to winter in upstate NY, I had the furnace guy replace it with a manual thermostat. It is digital, but operates like the old fashioned heat/cool ones do. Peace reigns!

Most thermostats have a hold setting for times when you want to override a programmed temperature. Some will keep the hold temperature indefinitely, some will hold it for a specified time, and others will hold the the temperature until the next programming period.

You should not have to reset the programming temperatures each summer and winter. If you do then I suspect the thermostat has not been set up properly.

If you are having difficulties post the model number or a photo of the thermostat. The installations manuals can usually be found on line. A little research can solve the programming mysteries.

I had to laugh at mike's post. While many newer homes have thermostats that might actually decide when to change from heating to cooling probably many on here still have the ones that you manually switch from heating to cooling depending on the season. When you make the switch I at least have to make a decision to change the 78F that I use for cooling in the summer to the 65/58 that I use during the winter. It has absolutely nothing to do with the thermostat not being set up properly. Perhaps one of these days, probably when I am in a nursing home, the change will be made by the tiny elves that control those things.

I stand corrected. If you have the old Honeywell mechanical type with the mercury bulb then you do have to adjust the temperature between summer and winter. I used to have these when I first moved into my house and I forgot about this annual ritual. I thought by now these types had ceased to exist.

I liked the old thermostats better. You'd set the temperature to start to reach X degrees at X time and reach to Y degrees at Y time. It could be changed to HOLD at any time and would stay there until taken off HOLD.

We still have one of those, but were conned into a new $200+ one for our second furnace when the original failed to control the furnace. I have since realized that it only needed new batteries -- same as the other one that is still working. (I did get the company to take back their thermostat and bought the same thing for half the amount, but they'd taken away our old one.)

The new thermostat is an Anticipating Thermostat. You set it to REACH X degrees at X time. It starts toward that goal earlier, having 'learned' how long it takes your furnace to achieve that temperature.

I don't appreciate this 'improvement'. For winter, I had to set the desired morning temp later because our bedroom was starting to warm up much too early.

We have separate Heating and Cooling settings that have to be set separately. We do that twice a year the same day we switch the air returns on the walls for each season: Use low returns for Heating (to pull hot air down from the ceiling) and high returns (to pull cool air up from the floor) for Cooling.

You should be able to turn off the anticipation feature on your new thermostat. I did this on my thermostats. It a feature which wastes energy in my opinion.

mike -- Oh, I didn't know that. I'll have to dig out the booklet. Thank you!

Lindsey and others have helped you out and I hope you're enjoying your new furnace now. Heat is always a good thing, especially in the morning.

Oh, yes! Again, thank you all! Warm and toasty this morning. And the salesman responded to the email I sent last night, confirming that my friends at the kitchen table give great advice.

chiuse, post the model number and I will search for the installation manual. I will try to research it for you.

If/when my furnace/air gives up or I win a lottery there are so many things that take much more money than I or other currently have for heating and cooling along with some older things. Being cheap I do not want something that is always on as in this part of the country unless there was a two stage system where it automatically switches from heating to cooling on those days that it is 30 in the morning and upper 80's low 90's in the afternoon would not be workable. A constant temperature year round in this area is laughable. For heat sometimes I miss the old gravity furnace we had in the old house.

The idea of switching the air returns on the walls is interesting but again not something that I want to spend my time doing.

The thermostat that I have is only 5 years was replaced with a non-mercury one when the tech checking it saw the tube of mercury in the older one.

mike -- My booklet only instructs on HOLDing the same temperature 24 hours a day. We want it to go up during the day and down overnight without manually changing it twice a day. Honeywell RTH6350.

Walter -- The various adjustments may make financial sense where houses are vacant for more hours. We are 'at home' most of the time.

maifleur -- We only need to change the returns twice a year, spring and fall. It takes ten minutes. You have to have the ducting in place for this. It keeps every room comfortable without 'layering'.

Our thermostat is a Honeywell, but it operates much the same as described here. My brother downloaded an app on his tablet, and he can control the thermostat from that, but I believe you can normally get an app for your phone. We turn ours off completely when we go on vacation and then remotely turn it back on two or three hours before we plan to return.

Right now we are not using heat or cooling, but we were using cooling until a couple of days ago. Generally, we do not start using heat until December. I use the "HOLD" option quite a lot, especially for when I come home for lunch. For cooling, we have it normally set to 74° during the day for when we are home and 78° for when we are out. For heat, I set it to 70° during the day for when we are home and 66° at night, which essentially shuts it off.

" You should be able to turn off the anticipation feature on your new thermostat. I did this on my thermostats. It a feature which wastes energy in my opinion. "

Depends on your system. For a heat pump or a 2-stage gas system, Anticipation holds the unit in low stage for all the time that it takes for the temperature to rise from a set-back. Without Anticipation, the thermostat sees the sudden change (2* or more) and goes to high stage / auxiliary heat immediately, using maximum thrust to get the house (re) warmed.

C: I think you can program it the way I stated and it should work. This model doesn't automatically switch between summer and winter, so you'll have to switch between Heat and Cool yourself. Note that you'll need to set a schedule for BOTH Heat and Cool.

chiuse,

Here is the RTH6350 installation manual. Honeywell calls the anticipation the Smart Response. Page 21 shows how to turn it off. You need to go into settings and advance to function No. 13. Change the "1" to a "0". This will turn off Smart Response.

If you have more questions you can always call the Honeywell thermostat customer service center. They are usually good about answering questions.

weedmeister,

Have you observed Honeywell thermostats go directly into high stage when recovering from more than a 2 degree setback? If it is does then that is a bad design in my opinion. A thermostat should start in low stage no matter how big the setback.

Programmable thermostats have features to make them more useful and convenient. Some people would rather avoid change and those features aren't desirable. Great, just like the Burger King slogan from long ago, Have It Your Way. I like them because just like an auto-pay feature for bills, it's another thing that eliminates a task from my mind to think about.

I think part of the problem with acceptance comes when people offer nonsensical/non sequitur comments, such as Walter Hanson's above. For example, if someone turns HVAC on when they want it and off when they don't, a fixed time schedule on a setback stat may actually cost more money to operate. "Use High Tech" ? That's an advantage for what purpose?

mike -- Thanks. I will look for that. BTW, we have two two-stage gas furnaces c. 2001 -- East and West in our one-floor home. The supplies are in the floor. The two-stage helps, along with the dual returns on the walls. Now, if only our contractor had not hired a novice to design the system...requiring us to add a tiny boiler and under-floor hydronic in two north-facing rooms!

chisue, if you get new thermostats, they need to be compatible with the two stage feature. This isn't a Home Depot exercise. If you have annual maintenance/checkups done by a trained HVAC technician, that would be the time to talk with them in advance about a new thermostat and let them install it and take it on a test spin, to be sure everything is working.

The Honeywell RTH6350 @chiuse currently has does support 2-stage heating and cooling.

It is getting to a point that setting up a programmable thermostat is beyond the skills of the typical HVAC technician. Even when the thermostat is set up properly it takes time to verify it is operating correctly. A good tech may be able to do a proper test.

The Home Depots near me have 37 different thermostats in stock in the store. There are more models available if you are willing to wait 3 days for delivery. They are meant for DIY installation, but you have to do a lot reading to figure it out. The result is a lot of frustrated users.

I can cite three recent instances (parents, neighbor, and work) of HVAC techs not having a clue about the fancy programmable thermostat they installed.

One did three return trips on a new install and still couldn't get it right. The homeowner found user/installation instructions online and figured out the proper settings.

One told the homeowner completely wrong information about thermostat operation.

The other tech just tends to be generally confused.

Thanks, all. We had a great relationship with one HVAC company tech for over a dozen years. The day they sent someone else is when we got a huge bill or a programmable. They finally agreed to credit me when I replaced it with like for half at HD. (I know, I know. They had it on the truck.)

I am also certain that the only problem with the one that 'failed' was that it needed new batteries -- like its twin, which is going strong all these years later. It took me a while to trust this company again, but we still have them on contract to maintain all the HVAC gear twice a year -- always using 'our' tech.

Thanks, but no thanks, Franco. We have a set-back thermostat that is programmed for what time we want the house to be a specific temperature on specific days of the week. The most I have to do to it is change it from "heat" to "cool" when we go from winter to summer. I don't need to be able to do that remotely, and I certainly don't want anything that could be hacked by someone remotely.

"Franco" is a recurring spammer. His method is to bump up old threads and use misleading language for a link, consistent with the thread topic, but it's really just a link to his business website.

I find remotely accessible thermostats very useful, I have Honeywells of that description. When away on trips or away from our second house, I set heat or AC (depending on the season) to permanent hold, to come on only when an extreme temp is reached. In advance of arrival, I can use the remote access to return the thermostat to the normal cycle and the interior is comfortable on arrival.

There are many other brands like Nest, or ecobee. Some are integrated with home automation systems and/or compatible with Alexa and Google Home gizmos and are very much gaining in popularity. I'm happy with simple remote access but the trend is what it is and that's where the markets are going.

"Hacked"? I don't think that's a real risk. Do you?