Honeywell Thermostat Not Showing Heat Option [Fixed]

Today I am going to discuss some common issues that will cause your honeywell thermostat not to show the heat option and how to fix this problem. It is not uncommon for the honeywell thermostat not to show the heat option and in this guide, we’ll provide you with the fix.

If your honeywell thermostat is not showing the heat option, this could be caused by a thermostat that is not properly configured for your type of system. To fix this problem go to your thermostat advanced setup and reconfigure your thermostat and or/ ensure that the W wire is securely connected to the thermostat terminal.

In the advanced setup configurations, you need to make sure that functions 2000 and 2010 are set to conventional or Forced air and Forced air or heat pump as shown in the table below. But before you start any form of troubleshooting, start by resetting your thermostat first and see if that solves the problem.

Function	ConfigurationSetup Name	Function
2000	System type	• Conventional Forced Air Heat • Heat Pump •Radiant Heat •None (cool only)
2010	Equipment type	Conventional Forced Air Heat• Standard Efficiency GasForced Air• High Efficiency Gasforced air• Oil Forced Air• Electric Forced Air• Hot water Fan CoilHeat Pump• Air to Air• GeothermalRadiant Heat• Hot Water Radiant Heat• SteamNone (cool only)

Troubleshooting a honeywell thermostat not showing heat option

Let’s go through the troubleshooting procedure you will typically follow when you won’t see the heat option on your thermostat.

If this is a new installation, the thermostat will try to detect the thermostat wires connected and will display the cooling or heating options based on the wires detected.

So if during initial setup the wires responsible for heating are not connected or loosely connected the system will not detect them and hence thermostat will not display the heat option.

Method 1: Reconfigure your thermostat

So the first method to fix your thermostat that won’t display the heat option is to reconfigure the thermostat itself.. This is the quickest and easiest method. Simply follow the steps outlined below to reconfigure the thermostat to match your existing system.

Step 1. Touch the menu icon (can be 3 horizontal lines at bottom of display)

Step 2. Scroll down and touch “Advanced setup”

Step 3. Then touch “modify configuration”.

Step 4. Click through the steps until you reach “Equipment Type” and select the heating type that matches your system.

Step 5. After selecting the correct option for each setting, Touch NEXT at the bottom of the display to advance to the next option.

Step 6. To see a list of all setup parameters, go to “Configuration settings” starting on the next page.

Step 7. Select the efficiency or subtype that matches your system and click “Done” to go back to the main menu

Step 8. To finish setup and save your settings, TOUCH “Done” in the upper left of display

Step 9: That should be it. Click Mode and the Heat and Auto options should now be available

If this method does not restore the heat option for you then there is a high chance that the problem is with your thermostat wiring which takes us to the second method for troubleshooting this problem.

Method 2: Check your thermostat wiring

So if system configuration does not solve the problem, make sure you wire your thermostat properly. You can remove the display from the wall and on the base of the thermostat that mounts to the wall, you will see little wires of all different colors going onto the terminals with a letter beside them.

Make sure that these colored wires go to the right terminals.

The red wire (power from the transformer) coming out of the wall should go to the RC/RH terminals. Ensure there is a little jumper across these two terminals.

Then the Y terminal screw should have a yellow wire, if you don’t have a yellow wire it will most likely be the blue wire.

G screw terminal goes to green wire, W or W1 screw terminal will go to the white wire, (if you have a heat pump use white wire/orange to the o or b terminal if the maker is goettl/ruud,rheem equipment.)

See our complete thermostat wiring color code here

Final thoughts

To wrap up, I hope you have fixed that honeywell thermostat that wasn’t showing the heat options. If not, there are other unlikely causes for the problem that you may also have to look at, such as the master unit not set to heat if you are using a zone controller.

All in all, if you need more information on troubleshooting this problem, you might want to check out the other guide on troubleshooting a thermostat that’s not showing the cool option.

More resources