How to force fan "on" 24/7 on a forced air system with GA02082-US?

[Jimmy176]

I have a new GA02082-US (Gen 4) thermostat that I have installed to replace a previous thermostat that had the fan switch as on/auto/off.  I need to run the fan 24/7 to properly circulate the air in the home.  I can not find a solution on this thermostat. 

The only way I can find is the option where I can only schedule on for 7 days then is goes back to auto.  Using the App If I go into the All devices, schedule, then Fan, and set the use fan schedule to "on" then set time From 12:00 AM to 12:00AM with duration each hour to be 60 min. it still does not run the fan 24/7.  What am I doing wrong?

I am about ready to jumper the fan wire but I really do not want to do that. 

[CoolingWizard]

@Jimmy176 ,

Since what wish to do is spend several dollars a day by continuously running your fan, can provide you some information to allow that. First do you have access to the air handler?

If so, get a  single pole single through toggle switch and wire it to R and G in the air handler. Drill a hole and mount the switch on a side panel of the air handler.  Turn it on and the let blower fan run 24-hrs a day. 
So lets see, the fan will consume say 9amps and at 120 volts that is 1080Watts, and that is 25,000 watts per day. divide that by 1000 and get 25 kilowatts At say $0.30 per kilowatt that would be an estimated $7.77 per day for just the fan running 24-hrs per day, seven days per week.  Are you absolutely sure the air needs to be circulating 24-hrs per day every day?

AMPS x VOLTS=WATTS, 

The Cooling Wizard

[Jimmy176]

Your estimate has to be wrong because that estimate is more than my monthly electric bill.

I also take advantage of the air filtering. This is no different than running a ceiling fan to circulate the air.

But anyway here are the facts in my case as I measured actual motor current and voltage. I am an EE. I don’t know where you live but I am paying 0.11 per kWh.

Here’s a quick estimate (assuming the motor actually draws 3.3 A continuously at 110 V):

1) Power draw
- P = V × I = 110 V × 3.3 A = 363 W = 0.363 kW

2) Cost per hour
- Rate = $0.11 per kWh
- Cost/hour = 0.363 kW × $0.11/kWh ≈ $0.0399 ≈ $0.04 per hour

3) Time spans
- 8 hours: 0.363 × 8 × 0.11 ≈ $0.32
- 24 hours: 0.363 × 24 × 0.11 ≈ $0.96
- 30 days (continuous): 0.363 × 24 × 30 × 0.11 ≈ $28.80

[CoolingWizard]

@Jimmy176 ,

your 3.3 amps (363 watts/hr) has a daily consumption of 8.71 kWh. Monthly power consumption is 261.36 kWh. Annual power consumption is 3179.88 kWh. Daily operating cost of 0.11 kWh is $0.96 and monthly $28.75 and annually $349.79  This is why there is no need for a fan switch.  In case you need extending fan run time, google provided minutes, hours, days and a week.

Keep in mind that most people pay more like $0.27 kWh to a power company. And, that would be $2.44 a day, $73.18 a month and $890.37 annually. 

The Cooling Wizard

[silent_sausage]

> So lets see, the fan will consume say 9amps and at 120 volts that is 1080Watts, and that is 25,000 watts per day. divide that by 1000 and get 25 kilowatts At say $0.30 per kilowatt that would be an estimated $7.77 per day

Watts are a unit of power, not energy. It's a rate of work. You can't add up the units like that. That's like saying driving at 40mph for 4 hours adds up to driving 160mph.

You probably Watt-hours (Wh) and Kilowatt-hours (kWh).

[CoolingWizard]

@silent_sausage ,

The calculations are industry standards.  As I showed you AMPS X VOLTAGE = WATTS. Your electricity is billed in KiloWatts.  A blower fan consumes an average of 7 to 9 amps per hour.  Therefore 7x120=840. And 840x24=20,160. Your fan will consume 20,160 watts per day on average to a maximum of 9x120=1,080 and 1080x24=25,920 watts. Divided the watts by 1000 and you get daily kiloWatts.  Multiply the kiloWatts by you electrical company rate and you get your daily charge.  25,920/1000=25.92 and 20160/1000=20.16. My Electric company charges $0.273627 per kWhr. So 20.16x0.273627=$5.516 per hour up to 25.920x0.273627=$7.09 per hour. Look at your power bill and find your kilowatt rate. Get an amp clamp and measure your running electrical draw of the fan.  Make the calculations yourself.  Do not be,I’ve me? Call your electrical company and tell them your hourly watts draw and they will tell you how much it will cost you.  My math is sound and accurate.  But who cares.  Just get the toggle switch, wire it to the air handler, turn it on and let it run for 24hrs per day.

Now, to convert BTUs to watts, 1 BTU = 0.293 watts. And natural gas therms: 1 therm equals 100,000 BTUs.  

The Cooling Wizard

[silent_sausage]

---

Your electricity is billed in KiloWatts.

---

Electricity is billed per kilowatt-hour (kWh), not per kilowatt. A kilowatt is a unit of power (equivalent to 1,000 joules/second or approximately 1.341 horsepower). It's an instantaneous unit, the rate at which energy is converted or transferred at any given moment. A kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy (equivalent to 3,600,000 joules or approximately 3412.14 BTUs).

A blower fan consumes an average of 7 to 9 amps per hour.

---

Likewise "amps per hour" isn't correct, amps are an instantaneous unit of current – a rate of charge flow (equivalent to 1 coulomb/second). There is an amp-hour which is a unit of electrical charge (equivalent to 3600 coulombs). It would be technically correct to say 7 to 9 amp-hours per hour but it would be redundant because it's basically 7A * 1 hour / 1 hour. The time unit is in both the numerator and denominator and it simplifies to 7A.

Note that both watts and amps both already have an implicit time unit (joules per second, coulombs per second). Watt-hours and amp-hours are the derived units you get when you multiply by a given 1 hour, canceling out the time dimension. That's different from a unit like "amps per hour", which would be division by 1 hour – representing the current change over unit time (a less commonly encountered unit).

It's equivalent to mixing up mph and miles:

• kW (kilowatt) is like mph (speed), it's an instantaneous unit. A speedometer in your car tells you how fast you are currently going at a given instant, but nothing about the total distance traveled. You'd probably don't say "miles per hour per hour" very often (which would be a unit of acceleration) in the same way it usually doesn't usually make sense to say "watts per hour" (joules per second per hour) or "amps per hour" (coulombs per second per hour).

• kWh (kilowatt-hour) is like miles (distance traveled), a quantity that accumulates over time when traveling at a given speed. In a car, this is the quantity displayed by the odometer. Similarly, total energy usage accumulates at a given rate of energy usage over time (power).

[MplsCustomer]

@CoolingWizard 

I don't follow your calculations, but we run our circulating fan 24/7 to keep the air in our house circulating and filtered. (Our installer said he does the same at his house.)

We are not paying $7.77 per day for the fan; that alone would exceed our highest electric bill in a peak summer month with A/C running a lot. We are able to run our fan continuously--even with heat and cooling off--with a simple button push on our basic non-Wi-Fi-enabled, non-Nest, programmable thermostat.  The lack of such an option keeps us from getting a Nest thermostat.

[Jimmy176]

Exactly!  See my response to @CoolingWizard above.

Yes this is very disappointing to pay so much for a Smart Thermostat that wants to out smart me on how to run it.  That should be my decision and option without having to hard wire it.

I have to believe I am missing something in the instructions.

[CoolingWizard]

@Jimmy176 ,

smart thermostats do not have that fan on switch because the cost is so high.  You can run it for 7-days over and over or write a script in automation and run it continuously.  

The Cooling Wizard

[Jimmy176]

Here is a response from Google Nest Support but it does not work for me as I stated in OP.

For the Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen), you can set a daily fan schedule in the Google Home app to achieve continuous or near-continuous airflow:

• Open the Google Home app.
• Tap Home > All devices, then touch and hold your device's tile.
• Tap Settings > Schedules > Fan.
• You can set a schedule to run the fan for 60 minutes per hour between a specified start and end time. For example, you can set it to run for 60 minutes from 12:00 AM to 12:00 AM to cover the entire day.
• If you want the same fan schedule for all days, turn on Run every day. You can turn this off if you want a unique schedule for a particular day.

While the manual fan setting lets you run the fan for up to 1 week, setting a daily schedule of 60 minutes per hour throughout the day is the best way to keep the Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) running continuously.

So if it acted like support says I would be happy.

[CoolingWizard]

@Jimmy176 ,

What was the original reason you decided to replace your old thermostat with a smart thermostat? Mind you that the Google Nest Learning thermostat is much more than a smart thermostat.  

The Cooling Wizard

[Jimmy176]

I purchased it to be able to cut the temperatures back or forward while I am away and remotely change it on the way home.  Also to be able to use Alexa to verbally change the settings.

This is like a smart car without a steering wheel if the operator can not control it.