Paid $250 for a new AC controller upgrade and it fried my unit

I thought I was being smart last August. Got a smart thermostat for my swamp cooler, a fancy wifi one for $250 off Amazon. Took me an afternoon to wire it up following the video. Two days later the cooler just stopped. No fan, no pump, nothing. Had a repair guy come out who said the controller messed with the voltage and killed the motor. That fix cost me $400. Now I am back to the old manual knob and it works fine. Anyone else have a DIY upgrade backfire on them in this heat?

2 comments

2 Comments

tarajenkins10d ago

Oh man, that sucks. My buddy Mark tried to put a wifi thermostat on his central AC last summer and the same thing basically happened. He got it wired up, thought it was fine, then the compressor just wouldn't kick on the next day. Cost him $350 for a repair guy to come out and say the control board got fried. He went back to his old dumb thermostat too. Just not worth the risk with all that fancy stuff sometimes.

hugo_nelson10d ago

Yeah that control board thing is super common with those smart thermostats if you miss any wire swap. Best to snap a pic of the old wiring before you touch anything so you can always reverse it. Honestly, unless you really need to change temp from your phone, stick with the basic dumb one and save the headache.