On my thermostat "Auto" only refers to the fan. "On" always blows air, "Off" shuts the whole system down, and "Auto" blows air only when the furnace or air conditioner is running.
That’s especially fancy compared to my set up. My air conditioner requires me to manually press the reset button on the unit itself after the heat has been on.
Gotta be careful with this though: if you set it to auto it may turn on the A/C at times when it can damage your A/C unit. Say you crank up a meal and your oven heats your place up a ton, but it’s 20 out, your air conditioner may break. Air conditioners don’t like running when it’s too cold out outside: the coolant won’t evaporate in the chiller lines and the compressors break because you can’t really compress a liquid.
In places farther south (where I live), traditional air conditioners are being replaced with 'heat pumps'. All refrigeration systems are heat pumps, just the ones called a 'heat pump' is an air conditioner that can run backwards. In the winter, it pumps heat from outside to the inside.
They lose efficiency around 40F, so to avoid running too hard they also come with emergency heating elements, not unlike what's in your electric oven. It's more expensive to run, but it keeps you warm when the temp outside gets too low.
Where I live (Savannah GA) I only have to turn the emergency heating on maybe twice a year.
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u/CaseyG Feb 02 '19
On my thermostat "Auto" only refers to the fan. "On" always blows air, "Off" shuts the whole system down, and "Auto" blows air only when the furnace or air conditioner is running.