Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Connect Nest Learning Thermostat: 3rd Gen with Lennox SLP98UH

This post covers the steps I took to setup my Nest 3rd Generation Thermostat with my Lennox SLP98UH or SLP98UHV furnace. My furnace was originally connect to the Lennox iComfort 1st Gen Thermostat.

Overview of Steps:

  1.     Turn the AC & Furnace off at the circuit breaker.
  2.     Take the furnace cover off.
  3.     Unscrew the 2 screws holding the circuit cover on.
  4.     Re-wire the wires from iComfort to standard R, Y1, W1, and G.
  5.     Setup the Nest Thermostat.

Step 1-3 are simple so I'll start with details for Step 4

Step 4 Details

At my furnace the 4 wires connected to a special terminal designed for integration with the iComfort thermostat:


I took the Red, Green, Blue, and White wires and re-wired them to the appropriate terminals: Red -> R (Power), Blue -> Y1 (Cool), White -> W1 (Heat), Green ->  G (Fan) as shown below:



Step 5 Details
At my current thermostat I had the 4 wires: Red->R, Green->i+, Blue->i-, White->C:



To hook up those wires to the Nest, I used the stickers to mark the wires: Red wire -> Rh, White wire -> W1, Green wire -> G, Blue wire -> Y1. Then I hooked those wires up to the nest back bracket:

Then I put the thermostat on. After I turned the power back on at the breaker for Furnace and A/C, I entered my WiFi information (I chose my 2.4 GHz signal). The Nest downloaded a firmware update and then I completed the setup steps displayed on the Nest.

Here's the final picture of the thermostat installed!

I hope this post helps someone else setup their Nest thermostat quickly! !-- Scripts Start -->

31 comments:

  1. I have a Lennox unit that was connected to an iComfort touch thermostat that recently crapped out. Decided to upgrade to an Ecobee3 but the wiring ended up being completely different... This guide was perfect! New thermostat works great, thanks so much.

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  2. Hi Andrew - I'm very pleased that you found this helpful!
    Seth

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    1. Ran into some problems - the fan runs but the outdoor unit isn't turning on so I'm not getting any cold air. Any ideas?

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    2. I'm not familiar with the Ecobee but on the Nest if the Nest thinks it has turned the A/C on then its screen is blue. Any idea of the Ecobee thinks it has turned the A/C on?

      If the Ecobee thinks the A/C is on then I'd double-check that the A/C wire at the thermostat (Y1) is the same color as the one you connected at your furnace to the Y1 terminal. Also double-check that you can't pull the wire out of the Y1 terminal without unscrewing it (maybe the screw didn't secure the wire).

      Hope this helps. Keep me posted.

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    3. Hello,

      I have the same system. The only difference is that I have the same colored wires on the outdoor equipment. What would I do with those wires? Thanks in advance!

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  3. I'm looking to this exact thing, but what I don't see on your install is the same icomfort wiring going to the outside unit like I have. This doesn't seem like a plug and play install, as there are also a ton of jumper switches to change how the furnace works if not using the icomfort... Did you do anything besides revert the inside wiring to the t-stat? Perhaps wire the outside the same way as the t-stat at the least?

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    1. Sorry for the delayed response. Were you able to get this resolved?

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    2. i am trying to install a nest gen 3. same lennox system. but i have the same question. my wiring on the unit is set up for outside and inside. Do i need to do anything with the outside equipment?

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  4. I followed the instructions originally provided to install a 3rd gen Nest to Lennox system and it appeared to work. Now the system is running non stop and the inside temp is not going down. Any thoughts?

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    1. Did you double-check the wires? Are you wanting the A/C on? What color is the Nest? Blue, Orange or Black when its running non-stop?

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. This worked great for me. I have tested heat, fan, and cool and on day 1 everything seems to be working. Thanks for the post!

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  7. Indoor air quality is very important factor of your home. Winter is seriously very challenging with some people having allergies issues. But it can be controlled.

    Heating and Cooling Oakville

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  8. I just bought this Nest and contacted Nest support, they told me it was not compatible, found this website and now i got my nest up and running. Thank you very much $eth

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  9. I have a Lennox unit connected to Lennox icomfort thermostat that recently broke down. I got new Honeywell smart color thermostat BUT THE WIRING IS COMPLETLY DIFFERENT: honeywell is G-C-R-WI-Y, then, Lennox is R i+ -i C, please, how can I solve this?

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    1. From what i been seeing, the thermostat uses 4 wires to communicate to the furnace using the furnace's R,i+, i-, C panel board. The furnace should have another board with the typical terminals which are: W1, W2, G, Y1, Y2, C, R, and some have DH (dehumidification), H (humidification), L
      When you take off the thermostat they may be extra wires aside from the ones already connected which means you can use an extra wire to power your new thermostat if your new thermostat needs a "C" or common to be powered. Basically you will need to move the wires at your furnace from the R,i+, i-, C to the other panel board that contains W1, W2, G, Y1, Y2, C, R, etc. on that panel you will have 2 wires already going to the Y1 and C terminals which are connected to your outdoor unit (condenser/compressor). Those need to stay there. You may also have 2 more wires going to the "H" terminal and to the "C" terminal if you have a humidifier and so on, those also need to stay but make sure your new thermostat has the option to control a humidifier.
      Keep in mind that all the wires do the same thing which is to send a signal back and forth and the coloring is just to keep the typical color convention, all the wires could be all black, yellow , or blue and still work, but for ease and standards they use different colors. You will need the white, green, red, blue, and yellow to keep the typical color convention. White = heating, yellow = cooling, green = fan, red = power, and blue = common. Plug the white wire to W1 terminal, yellow to Y1, Green to G, Red to R, and blue to C. Now shifting over to your new thermostat, do the same, white wire to W1 terminal, yellow to Y1, Green to G, Red to R, and blue to C. Y1 will be the same as Y. Y1 means first stage cooling, Y2 means second stage, your thermostat only has a Y because it only does single stage cooling or first stage in other words.

      Hope this helps

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    2. Huge thanks to Anonymous for spelling out the details. My IComfort Thermostat (connected to a Lennox 280) went out a few days ago - just a month after the 5 year warranty expired). My local Lennox dealer - the one who installed the furnace and thermostat five years ago) refused to tell me what replacement thermostats would work or how much they would cost until a technician could have a look at the thermostat ($175 just for the diagnosis, although it could be credited to the yet unspecified cost of a new thermostat) On-line reviews for IComfort had me concerned about the $800-1000 replacement, so I read a variety of reviews suggesting it was possible to connect more typical "non-communicating" thermostat in place of the I-Comfort. The differences between the wiring of the two types of thermostats made it seem complicated, but following Anonymous' suggestions it went very smoothly and I successfully installed a new Emerson Sensi-Touch thermostat that is working nicely.

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  10. Thank you! your post helped a lot, I very much appreciate it.
    I'm now enjoying my nest with two remote sensors with this setup.

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  11. Like some other folks have mentioned my furnace has wires in use for the outdoor equipment and indoor equipment so 8 wires total. Anyone find a way of making that work?

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Is there any update on if we have other wires already in the Y1 and R?

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  13. I found different blog by using this i was able to wire my house with nest thermostat gen 3
    http://mollyshomeautomation.blogspot.com/

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    1. i tried this link and no luck. Do you have a better one?

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  14. After a year of not thinking it was possible to install a nest I found this post and followed it and I'm thrilled to report that it's working perfectly. Thank you for this, it's a real game changer and I really appreciate it!

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  15. Hello,

    I have the same system. The only difference is that I have the same colored wires on the outdoor equipment. What would I do with those wires? Thanks in advance!

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  16. I have to replace our HVAC system. I'm considering a Lennox. I was reading elsewhere that Next isn't compatible with Lennox due to variable fan feature. Is this true?

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  17. Thanks so much for this guide. Besides the fact that my hvac system is suspended in the ceiling of my garage and I had to do half of this up on a ladder, this made the process of getting this working easy. Lennox need to stop with this proprietary nonsense, just makes it so much more difficult for no real reason. There's nothing that my old Lennox thermostat could do that this new nest one can't so I don't get the point of the whole R, I+, I-, C configuration. Anyways, thanks again for this info, this basically saved my life today (having our a/c down in this weather is brutal).

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  18. I thought I had left this message, but here goes again. I installed a NEST as described but the fan does not seem to be putting out as much volume as before. Any suggestions?

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  19. It worked for me! Thank you!!! It worked with my AC condenser and my heater but I think the difference is that we both only had original wires hooked up with the indoor equipment R I+ I- C and our outdoor equipment was empty so it was just an easy switch over and boom, it worked. The only downside is that the blower blows at max speed but I kind of like that since it moves the air. Thank you again for this! Super easy trasfer.

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  20. for those who have done this successfully, did you change any of the DIP switch settings on the control board? I'm on my 3rd failed iComfort Wifi thermostat and am done with Lennox and their proprietary crap. My SLP98 has the same connections as shown, and in fact both the installers guide and the labels on the inside of the unit all show multiple ways to connect, depending on whether one is using a "communicating" thermostat (aka iComfort) or a non-communication one (pretty much every other thermostat on the market). So I'm ready to switch over, but was curious if after swapping the wires around if it Just Worked, or if you had to mess with the DIP switches, and if so, did you document that process.

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  21. I don't remember changing any switches and it works well with one exception. The furnace humidifier does not work. The AC technician who regularly services our system said we would have to put a humidistat on the furnace in order to make it work. We have not done so as we have been comfortable without it. If anyone knows how to make it work with a Nest I would like to know.

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