Home Improvement → Re: Heat Pump won't come on

Apparently that purple? looking wire in the thermostat base is not really connected to anything and there is a white wire underneath that really connects to W1 (using a white wire for W or W1 is normal).

No control wire (any wire other then R,Rh,Rc or C) should ever be connected to C (common, ground). G is the fan control wire (when connected to R it will turn on the in-house fan in the air handler).

I took off the cover on the heat pump itself. Here is the wiring to the control board at the heat pump:

Black = C
Yellow = Y
Orange = O
White = W2 (this might be the problem?)
Red = R
Blue = E

On my thermostat, the white wire goes to W1 and there is nothing on W2. There is no W1 at the heat pump board. I have some pics but they didn't turn out great.

The model is CH30M-1S

thanks!

That's why you need to do what I suggested. That's the only way the outside unit is going to run in the heating mode.

Just so I don't screw up too bad, keep the white wire on W1, then a small jumper wire from W1 to Y? I want to make sure I"m not to move or disconnect the white wire.

The white wire is not connected to anything at the outside unit, so it won't matter. Yes, a small jumper.

The white wire is connected to W2 on the outside unit. There is no W1 connector on the actual board outside, only a W2 and that is where the white wire goes.

The white wire at the thermostat is connected to W1. I can't tell from the photo, but what is that white wire connected to at the air handler?

Looks like at the air handler, the white and blue wires are bundled together with a brown and orange that goes into the handler.

That's your problem. I'm guessing the orange and brown wires in that twist-on wire connector are going to the electric heating element controls (sequencers or contactors). If so, the white wire at the thermostat connected to W1 should be connected to W2. Then, install a jumper between Y & W1 and you should be good to go.

Great! I will do that tomorrow and let you all know. The orange and brown do go into the electric elements. So the blue wire at the stat is on E for emergency heat. When I put the stat switch to emergency (which should be rare from what I understand) the blue wire gets energized and tells the electric elements to kick on? With the white wire on W2, it is basically the same thing, except this is the unit itself calling for AUX heat when the regular heat pump alone can't keep up. Blue and White are tied together at the air handler because they do the same thing but at different times or circumstances. With W1 and Y jumpered, that is the first stage of heat with heat pump only, telling the compressor to kick on, and then the orange wire tells to either heat or cool? Am I close?

Thanks a ton for the help! At some point I want to get a decent programmable thermostat so I'd like to make sure I sort of understand a little about how this works so I know what to do when I get a new one.

You have a firm grasp of how it works.

Everything seems to be working! Thanks again. When it calls for heat, the outside unit now kicks on and the "big" tube in the insulation gets hot. However, after a few minutes it went into AUX heat. I am guessing that because the room temp was 82 degrees at the time and I set the thermostat to 85 degrees, the heat pump alone couldn't possibly get the room that warm without aux. The good thing is the outside unit is actually coming on now and doing what it is supposed to do.

Normally the auxiliary heat will come on if your set point is 2 or more degrees above the room temp. If you set it one degree above the room temp, the aux heat should not come on.

Glad you got it working.