How to Configure and Troubleshoot a SmartStat Thermostat

Hello, today we're going to talk about things that you may see on your thermostat that you might construe as an error or something like that. We'll also show you how to set up the thermostat to fit your particular needs. The first thing about the thermostat to keep in mind is that there are 2 doors on the thermostat, and a lot of people don't realize that there are doors on here and there’s one on the left side and one on the right. There are different buttons on different sides to allow you to program the thermostat or to set the time.

Setting the Time on Your Thermostat

The first thing that you'll have to do is you'll have to set the time, and to do that you can do it on this side. You'll see the day, the hour, the minute. The instruction manual will show you how to do that. If you have any questions you can give us a call, but that's done over here on this side.

If we look on this side, this is a side where we set the temperature points up and down for the vacation mode, for the economy mode, and for the warming mode or the sun mode. If you take your thermostat out of the box, you'll notice that the time is flashing. You'll just need to set that with these buttons over here and you'll set the day at the same time.

Understanding the Thermostat Display

Let's go over a couple of things you might want to know about this thermostat to help you set it up. Let's take a look at the display on here, and what you'll see is you'll see the time, you'll see the day, you'll see the current temperature, you'll see the hand. The hand appears when you press the mode return button. You can see as we change and push the mode return button, it goes from the timer icon to the hand icon. The hand icon means that you are in the manual mode at that time.
If you look over here, you can see the F, that stands for floor. It's sensing the temperature of the floor. If this were an A, you would see an A there. If we want to light up the display, just press the big with button directly under it, and that will give you a backlight. When you take the faceplate of the unit off, it hinges from the base. When you're ready to remove it you'll lift it out from the base and up and it will allow you take the faceplate off.

The Thermostat Faceplate

Okay, let's take a look at the back of the faceplate. If we were to take the faceplate, you can see the front. We're just going to turn it around and direct your attention to this, on the lower left corner. You'll see that here we have 3 little micro switches, 1, 2, and 3 with an On button. You can move the micro switches with your fingernails or with a screwdriver, just like that.

First we want to take a look at number 1, that is C24H, which stands for Celsius 24-Hour. If you're in Canada, that's probably what you're going to want to check it for. That is going to be in the down position. If you move the micro switch to the On position, you'll set up for Fahrenheit and a 12-hour clock.

Number 2 micro switch has ES Off and the other one is ES On. ES stands for Early Start, that means if you set your program for the floor to be warm at 7am, it will figure out how long it takes to get the floor up to the temperature you've requested, and after about 7 days it will have the floor warm for you at the time you've chosen. That is Early Start.

If you turn Early Start Off, and you program it for 7am, that's when the temperature will begin to warm up and it won't reach the actual temperature that you've asked it for. That won't hit until a little bit later. We suggest, if you set the program time for 7am, you want the Early Start On so it is warm at 7am. You don't have to try to figure out how long it takes to warm up.

The next one, number 3, is the A/F Mode or F Mode. F mode is what you'll try to use in every case because that is the Floor Mode. The A/F Mode stands for Ambient Mode or Ambient with the Floor Limit Mode. Ambient means it will set the temperature of the room. If you set it to F Mode, it will set the temperature of the floor. That's where you would like to set it in most cases with this thermostat.

Common Issues with Thermostat Configuration

ER Message
Let's take a look at the most common issue that we have calls about out in the field. When installing a brand new system, if you see the ER message, the ER message is telling you that the thermostat wire is not being seen, the thermostat sensor is not being seen by the thermostat. The first thing you do when you get the ER message is you pull the faceplate off and verify the location of the wires going into the power base.

The number one problem we see here is that these little wires get put into the wrong terminal. Remember, the thermostat sensor goes into terminals 1 and 2. The odds are if you have an ER message showing on your thermostat, one of these wires is in the wrong place. It is supposed to be like this, in 1 and 2.

Random Numbers Flash on the Faceplate

Now, sometimes you will see that you will have a display that looks like this, where it lights up, it goes 14, 15, then all kinds of stuff flashes on the faceplate. If it does that repeatedly, it tells you that you probably have a loose connection when you're placing the faceplate on to the power base. If you don't get it tight, it will reset like this continually.

All you have to usually do is just reset the faceplate on to the base and push the bottom in. It should then do that, and that point you'll get the flashing time, the temperature. If we take a look here, we can see that we have the hand appearing as for the Manual mode. To change that you press the Mode RET button, and that puts you in the program.

If you look here now, we have an A and an F. That means that the system now is calling for Ambient temperature with the Floor Regulation temperature. If you see an AF here, you probably have to take the faceplate off and set that little micro switch that we talked about to F for Floor Mode.

Now, if you notice it says AF, that means it is set for Ambient but the sensor is still plugged in. If we take the sensor wires out and put the faceplate back on, we should see the resetting and the A for Ambient temperature. That's what the A means, Ambient temperature, meaning air temperature. To get into the Manual mode once again, you press the Mode Return button.

Temperature & Clock Settings

Let's take a look at the thermostat if it's set up for Celsius. All right, let's say that we want to put this thermostat into Celsius. The simple way to do that is if we notice here all 3 of these micro switches are in the On position, which if you're in the United States this is probably where you want them set.

If you're in Canada, you would want to set this to Celsius and 24-hour clock. To do that, you use micro switch number 1, it corresponds with the print here on the printed circuit board. You move it back to the Off position, that will give you Celsius and 24-hour. Then you put the unit back on the power base.

Now we'll watch the unit reset. We could see that we're on the Floor mode, but we can also see that we are getting a C, which stands for Celsius. What we can do then is we can set the hour using the hour button. It gives you 24-hours clock. You set it to the correct day. Then we're done.

All right, if we take a look at the display, we can see now that we have the hand which tells us that we are in the Manual mode, we have the F which tells us we are in the Floor temperature sensing mode, and F means that we're in Fahrenheit and our time and day is displayed. These little wavy lines on the screen tell us that power is being sent to the floor to make it heat up.

GFI Message

Sometime you may notice that the red light is lit on the top of the thermostat and you will see a GFI on your screen. If you see GFI, that means that you probably have a little power spike or something like that in your home and it's caused the ground fault interrupter to kick in on the thermostat. You'll also notice, if you look at the top of the thermostat, you'll see that there is a red light present, that tells you that you have a GFI.

The simplest way to get rid of that GFI is to open this door on each side and take a look here. Here's where the On/Off button is, turn the unit off. Then what is also a good idea is to go to the circuit breaker that powers the floor, turn it off, let it sit for about 15 seconds or 30 seconds, turn the breaker back on, and then turn the power back on at the power switch behind the left door. At that point, you should see the red is gone, and you should see the GFI is gone. Now you're back into normal operation. If that doesn't work, please give us a call.

All right, well that wraps up the most commonly seen issues we have with the thermostat. Hopefully you've learned a little something today. If you do have a problem with the thermostat and this video was unable to help you, please give us a call at 800-875-5285 or you can always check us out at WarmlyYours.com. Thank you so much for watching.