I'm having heat issues at my Mom's house. New unit last January. First sign of trouble was when I would set a new temp on the remote and the unit would come on for about 5 seconds and quit. The Nest was set on AC/Heat, and setting to Heat only seemed to fix that for a day. The unit would heat, but it wouldn't heat to a degree or two above the setting like normal. Finally, last night it went into the delay mode loop of death on the Nest and adjusting the temp would not turn the unit on for more than 5 seconds, then start the delay mode loop again.

I have green and orange flashing lights on the Nest and have run the troubleshooting items on this page https://www.smarthomeperfected.com/nest-thermostat-blinking-lights-explained/#Nest_Thermostat_Blinking_Orange_Light

I just turned the unit completely off for about 30 minutes to see if that lets it reset. Beyond that I'm out of ideas since I can't seem to get a hold of the A/C people who installed it....

Any Ideas I can have my 76yo Mom try remotely?

Thanks in advance

It seems like the Nest itself may be having some issues, based on the flashing lights you mention. Outside of that, it sounds like there could be an ignition or flame sense issue with the furnace. Have any of her neighbors been having issues with low gas pressure?

If the furnace itself has issues with ignition or flame sense, it will usually go into a multi-hour lockout after several attempts. The only way to reset this faster is to cut power to the furnace itself (turning the thermostat to "off" does not accomplish this). You need to manually cycle the disconnect switch or breaker that feeds the unit.

Do you have a C wire going to the Nest? That seems to fix a lot of issues. Also, did you reboot the Nest? My Nest was in a delay loop yesterday and a reboot fixed it.

It's possible that the Nest's internal battery is depleted. Did you take it off the wall and attempt to charge it?

helgs said:

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Do you have a C wire going to the Nest? That seems to fix a lot of issues. Also, did you reboot the Nest? My Nest was in a delay loop yesterday and a reboot fixed it.

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had this issue last night. Woke up to the house temp being in the 50s. had to reboot/restart and then the heat kicked back on.

akaggie05 said:

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It seems like the Nest itself may be having some issues, based on the flashing lights you mention. Outside of that, it sounds like there could be an ignition or flame sense issue with the furnace. Have any of her neighbors been having issues with low gas pressure?

If the furnace itself has issues with ignition or flame sense, it will usually go into a multi-hour lockout after several attempts. The only way to reset this faster is to cut power to the furnace itself (turning the thermostat to "off" does not accomplish this). You need to manually cycle the disconnect switch or breaker that feeds the unit.

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It's an electric unit. I did the "press the ring" for 10 seconds reset on the nest which appears to be a "soft" reset as I didn't have to set anything back up after it came back on. I've popped the breakers on the heat and AC for a bit, while Mom eats her lunch, lol. I'll reset the heat once she gets done.

helgs said:

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Do you have a C wire going to the Nest? That seems to fix a lot of issues. Also, did you reboot the Nest? My Nest was in a delay loop yesterday and a reboot fixed it.

It's possible that the Nest's internal battery is depleted. Did you take it off the wall and attempt to charge it?

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Battery is 3.96v and 3.7 is the minimum. I had a C wire installed with the new unit as it was having power issues before the new HVAC was installed. I did the "press the ring" for 10 seconds reboot...

I reset the breakers on the AC and Heat, left them off for a few minutes. Running the fan only for 30 minutes then I'll try to turn the thermostat back on... <shrugs>

Try to turn on emergency heat on the thermostat. An electric heat pump won't be able to handle these temperatures in normal settings. It will use more electricity to run it in emergency heat mode though.

TxAgg07 said:

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Try to turn on emergency heat on the thermostat. An electric heat pump won't be able to handle these temperatures in normal settings. It will use more electricity to run it in emergency heat mode though.

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I'm guessing I don't have that option as I'm supposed to see it on the nest settings if I do. Fortunately the house seems to be well insulated, and I put in double pane windows to keep the heat out last summer. Well they are doing a good job of keeping the heat in as the temp still hasn't dropped below 63 with the heat really not working at all for most of the last 24 hours.

Nest Thermostat
[ol]

Open the Home app and tap your thermostat.

Tap Settings Thermostat. Emergency Heat.

Tap the switch to turn it on or off.

[/ol]
this assumes you have a heat pump / aux heat.

Thanks. I saw that online, but it doesn't appear in my settings. It's also a 1st Gen Nest which may be why.

Outside temp goes up 10-15 degrees and problem solved! ugh

Right before that, the upstairs neighbors main pipe gives out. Thankfully ours did not, but Mom has been doing the drip, drip, drip.

If I ever get down there, a new Nest is in order, to start with, the other HVAC guy posting here has had a ton of calls on similar issues with Nest owners. Mine is a 1st gen Nest.

Try an Ecobee. We made the switch to that when we moved into a new house and have been happier with it over the Nest.

TxAgg07 said:

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Try an Ecobee. We made the switch to that when we moved into a new house and have been happier with it over the Nest.

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I'm considering it, but I have 7 other nests that work fine. This particular one is the oldest generation of the bunch so I'll probably just upgrade to avoid another app in my phone.