Any HVAC Pros or Folks with Geothermal Heat Pumps? Thermostat Suggestions.

RabbitTroop

Mayor of Southtown, ,
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2000
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13,852
Long shot, I know, but there is just so much misinformation scattered around Google, and product reviews, that it gets exhausting.

I'm looking to replace my thermostat with something a little nicer. I've got a PSG Medallion, installed by the previous owner of this place, and it simply isn't working correctly with my A/C unit.

I have a geothermal heat pump, and the Medallion will control it fine as long as its left on and running. Once the a/c is turned off, or there's a loss of power, it's a 50/50 shot whether or not my a/c will work on the next power on, or if I'll have to do a circuit breaker flip and reset of the unit to get it back in sync again.

Completely ludicrous, and it's time to replace the PoS.

I was looking at a Honeywell WiFi Smart Thermostat, simply because it has good reviews, and looks pretty decent.

I don't need, or really want a learning thermostat as I'm a set it and forget it kind of person, and have a dog in the house I don't want sitting in 85F temperature if the thermostat thinks we're away. I mean, he is a basset, so... He basically turns to furniture most of the time.

Reading online that they don't really handle the geothermal heat pumps very well, though, and usually great with air-source, but don't know what do do with geothermal units and can rely on AUX heating way too much if you need it (I'm in SoCal, so that's rare, but I may need it from time to time) and will end up costing you a fortune because they don't properly run the system and can run too long, or incorrectly causing inefficient heating and cooling.

Other people say NEST are good for Geothermal. Still others say NEST SUCK! for geothermal. So, I'm at a loss.

I'm just looking for a good thermostat that won't get out of sync with my unit every time it losses power, and looks halfway decent on the wall. Anyone have experience in this area? Any suggestions, save for calling an HVAC specialist?
 

eek

Mature's Make-up Artist
15 Year Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2006
Posts
1,373
Zero experience with geothermal units, didnt know people use them in socal (I'm in socal too).

Have you taken a look at the Sensi? https://sensicomfort.com/features/ Seems that it says it works with geothermal but it says it doesnt have a humidistat, no clue if having a humidistat is a requirement for geothermal units.

I recently came upon that while I was looking at this https://www.ecoventsystems.com
 

RabbitTroop

Mayor of Southtown, ,
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2000
Posts
13,852
Zero experience with geothermal units, didnt know people use them in socal (I'm in socal too).

Have you taken a look at the Sensi? https://sensicomfort.com/features/ Seems that it says it works with geothermal but it says it doesnt have a humidistat, no clue if having a humidistat is a requirement for geothermal units.

I recently came upon that while I was looking at this https://www.ecoventsystems.com

Yeah. I wouldn't imagine they're very common here, but this is an old 1929 building, so we had to make concessions with what could and couldn't be cut/added to keep the Mills Act tax break in place, since it's a historic landmark building. The geothermal heat pump is pretty rad, and should save a bunch in heating/cooling costs over its lifetime, but I just need to find a good thermostat to control it.

I'll probably hit up an HVAC guy locally, and see what he thinks about the Sensi and Ecobee units. Seems like it's going to be something like that, because Nest and Honeywell just don't have the support for my system yet.
 

eek

Mature's Make-up Artist
15 Year Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2006
Posts
1,373
Yeah. I wouldn't imagine they're very common here, but this is an old 1929 building, so we had to make concessions with what could and couldn't be cut/added to keep the Mills Act tax break in place, since it's a historic landmark building. The geothermal heat pump is pretty rad, and should save a bunch in heating/cooling costs over its lifetime, but I just need to find a good thermostat to control it.

I'll probably hit up an HVAC guy locally, and see what he thinks about the Sensi and Ecobee units. Seems like it's going to be something like that, because Nest and Honeywell just don't have the support for my system yet.

Historic building? nice. Hope you didnt have to spend too much money on renovations/updates. One town over had a bunch of retrofits done so they can standup to earthquakes and that can't be cheap. There were a lot of damage back in the 80's from what I was told.

Geothermal requires drilling down like 10+ ft or something right?
 
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