On my quest of self improvement, one of my goals was to be more self sufficient. This includes learning how to work the thermostat in our house. I will admit: The confounded contraption is confusing and not at all user friendly. My husband set the schedule on it, and I have just always left it. If I wanted to turn the heat up, I would just press buttons until I either gave up or something happened.
No more! I not only learned how to set the schedule and adjust the temperature, but I created instructions and added to my home procedure manual for future reference (I don’t trust myself to remember how to do this in the future).

Honeywell Thermostat Programming
- System: Used to turn on the thermostat settings.
- Fan: “On” means the fan will run all the time. “Auto” means the fan will only run when the heat kicks on.
- Set: Used for setting the schedule.
- Hold: Used for setting the temperature apart from the schedule.
- Run: Used for taking the temperature off of manual mode and back to schedule.
- Arrows: Used to set the day, time, and temperature.
How the Schedule works
Before setting the schedule, I had to wrap my brain around how the programming worked. This was the part that was most confusing for me, since the system assumes that nobody is in the house during the week day. Pretty much, you set what time you want the heat to come on in the morning and at what temperature. You then tell the time you leave the house, and at what temperature you want the house to stay at while you are away. Then you tell it what time you will come home, and have a temperature set for the rest of the evening. You then tell it your bedtime, and what temperature you want the house at while you are sleeping. It will stay that temperature until you are “awake” again and they cycle completes. You may want to set all your schedules 30 minutes early, so the house is warm before you are awake/home from work. Knowing that ahead of time might help with setting the schedule.
Setting the Schedule
- Press the “Set” button
- Set the time that you get up in the morning (or what time you want the want the temperature to come on in the morning): Use the up and down arrows anytime you would like to adjust the time
- Press the “Set” button again
- Set the temperature you would like it to be for the morning: Use the up and down arrows anytime you would like to adjust the temperature
- Press the “Set” button again
- Indicate what time you will be leaving the house
- Press the “Set” button again
- Set the temperature you would like it to be during the day
- Press the “Set” button again
- Set the time that you will be coming home (or the temperature you would like it to be for the evening)
- Press the “Set” button again
- Set the temperature you would like it to be for the evening
- Press the “Set” button again
- Set the time you will go to bed
- Press the Set button again
- Set the temperature you would like it to be all night while you are in bed.
- Press the “Run” button.
Setting the Temperature Manually
- Using the arrows, adjust the temperature to where you would like it to be. If you don’t do anything else, it will stay that temperature until the next time the schedule kicks in. For example, if you set it manually to 79 degrees at 4:00 pm, and you have it set on the schedule to go to 71 degrees at 6:00 pm, it will stay at 79 degrees until 6:00. At that point it will adjust down to 71 degrees.
- If you do not want it to revert back to the schedule, press the “hold” button after you set the temperature.
- If after pressing the “hold” button you want it to revert back to the schedule, press the “run” button.
Hope this is helpful for anyone else struggling with their thermostat!
-Aurora