How to Install The Ecobee3 Lite Thermostat

Ecobee3 Lite Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat

Rachel and I just bought a new house (http://bit.ly/rs_housetour) and we’ve been catching up with the upgrades that we want to do for the house! This one here is on upgrading our thermostat. We asked our electrician to set up the thermostat but they weren’t able to figure it out. I took a look at the wiring and it didn’t seem too difficult so I wanted to show you guys what I learned!

Disclaimer: Put safety first! If you aren’t sure what you’re doing or aren’t comfortable with working with electrical stuff, please hire a licensed professional. Your safety is of the utmost importance so just be safe.


Sorry I haven’t gotten around to writing out the instructions clearly yet, so I just pulled the YouTube Transcript to help the people that prefer reading instead of watching a video. I’ll get to it as soon as possible.

YouTube Transcript

what’s good youtube welcome to the

channel my name is dylan and today i’m

going to teach you how to install

a smart thermostat just a quick

disclaimer i am not an electrician so if

you do not feel comfortable

please consult a licensed professional

stay safe

the third misstep that we’re working

with today is the eco b3 light

and the reason why we chose this is just

because it had a lot more functionality

customizability and integrations with

like ifttt

and other apps uh that just made our

lives easier compared to the nest

i do like how the nest looks but just

the ecobee works with our lifestyle

better nonetheless let’s get straight

into

how to install this thermostat there’s a

few tools that you’ll probably need

the main things would be just like a

flathead a phillips

pliers are usually pretty helpful a

drill to help you mount

the thermostat onto the wall and just to

be safe i always like to have a volt

meter on hand just to make sure that you

can check

if there’s electricity running through

the wires

if you have all your tools ready to go

then we can start

taking out the old thermostat and

putting it onto the new one

so when you’re working with anything

electrical the most important thing to

do is make sure you can cut the power

off

some furnaces have this switch right

beside it so you can actually turn off

the furnace from there

while we do have that i don’t really

trust anything

so if i can shut the power off somewhere

else i like to go to the power breakers

you know it’s better to be safe than

sorry so locate your breaker switches

and make sure you can turn off the

furnace whatever you think is connected

to it so just to be

extra sure there’s no power running

through the wires one of the best ways

to make sure that you actually did turn

everything off is uh setting all of the

fans on your thermostat to pretty much

hide so that when you take a look at the

vents you can tell there’s no air moving

around

and you’ll actually hear the furnace not

working once you cut the power off

some of the old thermostats like this

one have a backup

battery power uh so the thermostat still

may be on but it doesn’t necessarily

mean that there’s

power running through the wires once

you’re pretty sure the power is off all

you have to do is take off your old

thermostat most thermostats just pull

right off like this

this one in particular i had to wedge it

from the bottom and i was

scared to break it but just go for it

and it should be okay

most thermostats come off pretty easily

this is the time where i like to just be

extra careful

and actually use the voltmeter to check

if there’s power running through it

because

i don’t want to get shocked so you know

just taking that extra safety precaution

is always nice so the number one thing

is you want to make sure that your old

thermostat was not high voltage

so if you were to see wire nuts or

anything that says 110

vac 120 vac or something you probably

can’t use

a smart thermostat so this is something

that you should definitely check before

you even go out and buy

a smart thermostat otherwise you’re

going to want to be looking for is a

c wire this is not a make or break deal

but it does make

our lives easier so if you have a c wire

you’re good to go in our case

we have a c wire and then the other

thing is the g wire which is the ground

wire

and as long as you got those three

things in check uh you can follow this

tutorial

so once i’ve made sure that all of our

wires were there that were the minimum

requirements i took a picture because

in case i didn’t mess something up or

didn’t know what to do with the ecobee

we can always revert back to the old

thermostat which is pretty important

especially in winter months when you

need to make sure you’re not freezing

in your house so now that i got a

picture of all the wires on the old

thermostat i wanted to make sure that i

could

label all the wires because once we take

that back plate off it’s going to be

hard to remember which one is what

so on most old thermostats there’s

actually labels to where the wires have

gone into if you can see right here

uh there were two labels one said

conventional and the other said heat

pump i don’t know what either of those

are but i’m just assuming conventional

is what the majority of us have so

that’s kind of

what i went with it makes it really easy

to install because they come with these

stickers and you just basically put them

onto the wires

then you’ll be able to label which one

is which once you’ve labeled all of your

wires all you have to do is take off

that back plate and you can start

installing your new ecobee

so the ecobee gives you like this

gigantic wall plate uh you don’t need to

use it but if you did ding the wall

or they cut a very large hole for the

old thermostat

you may need to use this but we just

want a clean simple look so we just put

the mounting bracket on made sure that

it was level and just drilled the mount

onto the wall the next step super easy

you basically just match up your labels

with

the holes that have the same letters to

make sure you’re installing the wires

correctly on the ecobee

back plate uh you just basically put the

wire through the hole on the side and

make sure that it

clips all the way back there’s those

tabs and

if the tabs go all the way back that’s

how you know it’s done correctly

another way to make sure that you’ve

done it correctly is you pull on the

wire a little bit

and make sure it doesn’t come out if it

can stay in there while you pull the tug

on it

then you’re good if not just do it again

and make sure it stays in there and then

once

all the wires are tucked away uh you can

just put on the ecobee

all you got to do is just match up the

metal pins with the holes

and it’ll just click into place once

that’s on there basically you want to

make sure it works

turn on the furnace uh come back to the

thermostat and just

you’ll see a really cool animation go

through the instructions over there

what we have to do here was just install

the app make sure we created a login

set up the wi-fi and then you’re good to

go but other than that

here are some of our favorite features

for the ecobee

the comfort settings that we have are

super helpful on saving on our bill

uh our bill is quite expensive because

the insulation our inner house isn’t too

thick so when we’re asleep or when we’re

away we drop the temperature of our

house around three degrees

and that way you know we’re not heating

up a house that doesn’t need to be

heated

something that i found super helpful in

this is using an app called

ifttt and it’s free so all you have to

do is set up a radius around your house

and whenever you leave that area

it basically knows that you’re away and

it automatically changes that way you

don’t have to touch my phone

and we’re making sure that we’re energy

efficient in this house

lastly ecobee just created something

called eco plus which is a smart savings

way for you to keep your house cost

effective and energy efficient

uh long story short they just basically

use the information from your utilities

company

and just help you save money there’s a

gauge on it just basically

on how the ai will take over your

thermostat

but if you don’t want to activate that

that’s fine as well now that we’ve got

that installed our next steps are

basically trying to figure out how to

hook up a humidifier because i think our

house

tends to lie on the drier side um

let me know if you guys have done that

because any tips and tricks would be

super helpful

other than that let me know if this

video has helped you out thanks so much

for watching this video

don’t forget to like comment and

subscribe and i will catch you guys on

the next one

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