These past couple of months we have encountered a large number of digital thermostats that have dead batteries. If your Florida home has one of these installed you need to remember to replace them at least once a year. The photo to the right shows a thermostat that uses two (2) AA batteries however some may use as many as three. When these batteries go "dead" in most cases the A/C will not run because the system is unable to detect what the actual temperature is inside the unit. Sometimes corrosion occurs when the batteries leak acid which is a worse situation….in one case we encountered there was acid….we attempted to scrape the acid off the end terminals but it is difficult to remove all the acid residue without the proper tools. This situation was bad because newly installed batteries on an acid covered terminal increases resistance and/or current leaking around the battery terminal resulting in the batteries going dead within a couple of weeks and/or rendering the thermostat defective and in the worst case scenario, in need of replacement.
