Now That's Some Mercury

With the heating season, I got called in to fix a thermostat that would heat but only if it was either on or off --- it didn't work as a thermostat any more.  It was an old round themostat and it operated using a big ball of mercury.  Considering all the concern with millionths of a gram of ethylmercury (from thimerosal), this was a fair bit.

It got replaced with a programmable thermostat that doesn't use mercury, the cheapest one I could find.  Honeywell says that it can be installed in 15 minutes.  It took me an awful lot longer.  Amongst other things, they supply you with plastic shield and screws, but they don't tell you the size of drill you need --- now that is stupid.  I even called Honeywell as it wasn't clear where one of the wires went.  Eventually I learned that I should ignore that wire.  Anyhow, eventually I got all the wires hooked up and I set it to turn on the air conditioner.  Nothing happens.  Turn off and turn it back on.  Nothing happens.  Read the instructions and find in the smaller print that this is a precaution to prevent cycling the compressor on and off --- and it can take 5 minutes before the thermostat will turn it on.  After 5 minutes, it does work.

Tada--- considering how unhandy I am, I'm pleased with my work.  Thermostat should pay for itself very, very quickly with lower energy costs.