Should You Get a New Thermostat With a New HVAC System?

It depends. Your thermostat is the brain of your HVAC system, regulating your home’s temperature and managing its energy usage. It plays a vital role in how much you pay for utilities each month. If your existing thermostat model is outdated, incompatible with your new HVAC system or lacks the necessary features to accommodate you and your family, upgrading it along with your new HVAC system can elevate your home’s comfort levels.

Benefits of Getting a New Thermostat with Your New HVAC System

• Improved Energy Efficiency: Smart thermostats can save energy by allowing precise temperature control and learning your daily habits to fine-tune performance, using less energy for heating and cooling and helping you save more money. They also make it easy to schedule heating and cooling usage, as operating it becomes as intuitive as using a smartphone.

• Enhanced Comfort: Smart thermostats can learn your daily routines, automatically adjusting to your preferred temperature when you're home and conserving energy when you're away.

• Compatibility: An HVAC system is only as effective as its thermostat. Even if you upgrade to a highly-efficient HVAC system, if the thermostat isn’t compatible, it can’t communicate effectively with the unit, meaning – regardless of its SEER and HSPF ratings – you won’t get an optimal performance.

• Automated control: Smart thermostats allow unmatched, automated control, along with tons of other advantages. They can learn a household's temperature control patterns and adjust heating and cooling according to when a home is occupied or is about to be occupied, reducing the use of heating and cooling systems when nobody is home.

• Zoning Capabilities: Some modern thermostats support zoning, allowing you to set different temperatures for various areas of your home. This can be especially useful if your home has multiple stories or if certain areas are typically unoccupied, as you could make your master bedroom colder than your spare bedrooms during the hot summer months.

Signs You Need to Replace Your Thermostat

Thermostats can last for more than a decade – usually around 10 to 15 years – but that isn’t always the case. If yours is starting to malfunction, such as not displaying the right temperature on the readout or turning on and off at random, you should upgrade to a newer model.

Even if your thermostat isn’t faulty, replacing it has other benefits. Older thermostats may lack smart features – such as customized temperature schedules and heating and cooling cycles – that can prevent you from optimizing your HVAC system's efficiency, or they may be too old to be compatible with newer HVAC technology.

These advancements provide convenient ways to manage your home's temperature and monitor energy usage so you get more effective heating and cooling for less money. Replacing your thermostat can ensure your new equipment performs to the best of its abilities.

Is It Necessary to Upgrade My Thermostat When Replacing My HVAC System?

No. If your current thermostat works with your new HVAC system, you don’t need to replace it yet. However, it’s still worth considering a replacement if you’re interested in maximizing your energy savings and enhancing your comfort and convenience with the latest technology. An experienced HVAC technician can provide their expertise and advise you on whether it needs to be replaced or not.

Hire HVAC Experts That Put You and Your Heating and Cooling Needs First

At Tom’s Mechanical Inc., we’ve been providing Arlington residents with first-class service for over 60 years. Whether you need repairs on your AC or heating, you can rely on our technicians to get the job done right the first time. We’ll let you know if you need to replace your thermostat along with your HVAC system or if you can save on the extra expense and hold onto your current one. Either way, we’ll work fast, installing your new HVAC unit with your budget and schedule in mind.

We’ve earned an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau by making thousands of customers’ homes more comfortable, and we’ll do the same for you. Reach us at (817) 277-4493 to learn more about our services or to receive a free HVAC system replacement quote.