Nest Thermostat condenser not turnIng on in heat mode

[Eddiejf70]

Good morning. I installed a Nest Thermostat last year and it’s been working great in AC. I noticed last year that when I select Heat the inside unit turns on but the outside condenser does not. I do have a 7 wire system with a brown wire tucked away as was it in the original configuration prior to installing the Nest. 
Right now all my wires are hooked up as follows: R-Red, G-Green, Y-Yellow, C-Blue, W-White, OB-Orange. My labels are chewed up but I have the White wire as my W2 and Orange as W1. I tried swapping the 2 (Orange to W, White to OB), that did not fix the issue. Normally I wouldn’t care but Central Florida is getting a cold snap this weekend and I’d really like to try and solve this.

Thank you.

[Markjosephp]

Hello Eddiejf70,

Thank you for taking the time to let us know about your inquiry. I'd be happy to take a look into this for you.

Could you tell us the make and model of your HVAC system? Also, please send us a photo of your thermostat's wiring.

I'll look forward to your response.

Regards,

Mark

[Eddiejf70]

Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to reply back. I have attached pictures of my Air Handler information as well as a picture of the current wiring setup on my Nest Thermostat. What I have learned is if I swap the W and OB wires, it still does the same thing. 

[Markjosephp]

Hi Eddiejf70,

Thanks for sharing your thermostat's wiring diagram. Let's sort this out.

You wired your thermostat correctly, but you might have set your system as a heat pump. In this case, update the wiring configuration from the Google Home app. Please follow the steps here:

1. Open the Google Home app.
2. Select your thermostat icon.
3. Go to settings and select "Thermostat."
4. Scroll down and choose "Wiring."
5. Tap "Update wiring" and select 2nd-stage heating or auxiliary heat. then "Save" to confirm.
6. Restart your thermostat by going to the device's settings and selecting "Restart."
7. Activate heating.

Please let me know if that helps, or if the issue still persists.

Regards,

Mark

[Markjosephp]

Hey there,

I'm checking back in. Were you able to do the steps above? I'd be glad to hear from you — I'd like to make sure everything is working.

Thanks,

Mark

[Eddiejf70]

Good afternoon Mark. Unfortunately it did not work. The instructions you had were slightly different then what my app allowed me to do. I tried circumventing that by “Removing a wire” and the “Adding a wire” from there it would allow me to only change the * which was already set up for Secondary heat. So I tried playing around and making the “W” heat as well and that did not solve the problem. 

[Markjosephp]

Hello Eddiejf70,

Great troubleshooting so far! Let's try another way. Going over these steps might help:

1. Switch the two wires (white and orange) back to their respective terminals.
2. Perform a factory reset on your thermostat to bring it back to its default settings.
3. Remove the thermostat from the Google Home app.
4. Proceed by adding it back again in the Google Home app.
   1. During the process, instead of selecting O/B, choose W2.
5. Activate heat.

Keep me posted on how it goes.

Thanks,

Mark

[Eddiejf70]

By George I think that did it. Unfortunately I live in FL and it’s 70° so I don’t know that the “Heat” is actually working, BUT the outside condenser is kicking on. I will advise tomorrow, temps are supposed to drop down to 45° so the heater should kick on when the inside of the house drops below 65°. I turned on the AC and the condenser Kick3d on then as well. Fingers crossed that this did the trick.

Thank you! I really do appreciate the assistance.

[Markjosephp]

Hey there,

Perfect! Thanks for keeping me in the loop, @Eddiejf70. At the moment, continue monitoring its behavior. Also, let me know if anything comes up, and I'd like to make sure everything is working.

Regards,

Mark

[Eddiejf70]

Good evening Mark. It appears now the AC is kicking on in heat mode, 🤦‍♂️

[Jake]

Hey there,

Sorry for the late reply. I wanted to follow up and see if I could be of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any trouble from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further. 

Best regards,
Jake

[Jake]

Hey there,

I wanted to check in and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know, as I would be happy to assist, and answer any questions you may have.

Best regards,
Jake

[Jake]

Hey there,

I wanted to check in, and let you know that I will be locking the thread in 24 hours.

Best regards,

Jake