I live in a house that has HVAC, Fan run hot/cold, outside cooling unit and electric heat at the furnace. The electronic programmable thermostat is in the upstairs hallway.

Problem: I live in the basement and one of my roommates is extremely cheap and keeps turning the programmed temp/time on/off and economy heat setting off. It may be 68 upstairs, but in the tile floored basement where my bedroom is (with HVAC) it may be 58-62. I know how to wire pretty well, I have done a lot of 12v circuits, but I wanted to get some advice before jumping into this project.

I found the thermostat feed off the furnace and it runs through the drop ceiling over my room. I was thinking of splicing into the wiring to install 2 switches. One switch would turn AC & Fan on so I have summer control, the other would turn on the electric heating unit and Fan so that I have Winter heat. I envision this as a parallel circuit so that flipping the switch “bypasses” the thermostat and sends the current back to the furnace relay to trigger an “on” signal. (I understand that running the wiring in “series” would only disable the thermostat, and if it was too hot or too cold I could easily do that modification! )

So, after that long winded question background…

I have 5 wires, what do I need to connect to operate each sets of devices?

----signal (+) wire----- [Switch] ====== [top Fan/bottom heat (2 separate wires) back to furnace relays]

Is my assumption of the above setup correct?

THANKS!!

You are going about this all wrong. If your current stat supports a remote sensor then your best bet would be to go that route.

You could also install an accustat instead of a normal t-stat.

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Originally Posted by MarkwithaK

You are going about this all wrong. If your current stat supports a remote sensor then your best bet would be to go that route.

You could also install an accustat instead of a normal t-stat.

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If it was my house I'd tell him to lay off the thermostat or set it how I wanted and lock in up, but I can't... and replacing the thermostat isn't very stealthy. I figured for <$20 I could rig those swithes up.

Now that being said, its not my house and I shouldn't be messing with the wiring but I've taken that into consideration...

So.. my question still remains...
Thanks for the reply

And you plan to manually turn these switches on and off?

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Originally Posted by MarkwithaK

And you plan to manually turn these switches on and off?

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Correct. I only need it for when I'm home and it gets nippy or hot. Kick it on, let it run for 20-30 min and then shut it down.

I could get all fancy and install a timer switch but I'm not getting that complicated just yet.

Again, not the correct solution to your problem. The voltage could back feed and blow out your stat, your x-former or worse.

The AC is problematic and if it's a heat pump there is all sorts of problems.

The only stealth thing that I would sanction if and only if it's a gas furnace. This would be a 15-20 min timer that would run the heater for 15-20 min.