Paid $60 for a smart thermostat, forgot it needs a C wire I don't have

Bought a wifi thermostat last weekend in Portland thinking it would cut my heating bill. Got it home, opened the box, and realized my 1980s system has no C wire, so the thing just sits in a drawer now. Anyone else figure out the hard way that retrofitting old homes for smart tech costs way more than the gadget itself?

2 comments

2 Comments

anthony_jenkins614d ago

Classic move, the $60 thermostat becomes a $200 project real quick when you factor in the adapter and your sanity. That drawer's probably warmer than my house right now.

harperschmidt4d ago

Honestly, the real kicker is that a lot of those smart thermostats just switch your furnace on and off faster, so they don't even save that much money in an old house with bad insulation. Tbh, you might be better off putting that $60 towards a cheap programmable one from the hardware store that runs on batteries and calls for heat less often. The wifi stuff is cool, but it's mostly for people with newer systems that already have the wiring. Ngl, Portland winters aren't that harsh anyway, so you're not losing much by leaving it in the drawer.