With all that said lets get to the terminal designations and colors. These designations are for 24 volt control wiring used in most residential and light commercial equipment, line voltage stuff can be different. Never assume that a wire color is correct for the function it should perform; check it out first The same goes for high voltage control wiring and motor terminals .
- {Terminal name}, {color}, {function}
- (R), Red, hot side of transformer.
- (C) Common side of transformer (See B)
- (Y), Yellow, Compressor activity (cooling or cooling and heating on a heat pump).
- (W), (W1), (W2) White, "Heat" (gas burner, oil burner , electric heat, (auxiliary heat on a heat pump including defrost output from the outdoor unit to activate electric heat and turn on the AUX. heat lamp). Note: some thermostats require a jumper from "W" to "Y" for heat pump operation.
- (G), Green, furnace blower fan. (needed for air conditioning, heat pumps and some electric furnaces). NOTE: on most thermostats the "G" and "Y" are connected together at all times when the fan switch is in the "Auto" mode!
- (O), Orange , Energize to cool (used for reversing valve on heat pumps)
- (B), Blue or Orange, Energize to heat (used on some systems, Rheem/Ruud is notorious for this).
- (B) or (X), Blue, brown or Black, common side of transformer. Needed on some electronic thermostats or if you have indicator lamps. Do not confuse with (B) Reversing valve (energize to heat) above. York and Trane like to use (B) as common.
- (E), blue, pink, gray or tan, emergency heat relay on a heat pump. Active all the time when selected, usually not used.
- (T), Tan or Gray, outdoor anticipator reset.
Used on GE/Trane/American Standard and some Carrier Products. - (W2), Pink or other color, second stage of heat (may be same as (W) on heat pump or fossil fuel system).
- (Y2), Blue or Pink, second compressor stage.
- (L), Blue, brown, tan or gray service indicator lamp.
- Numbers, see manufacture's diagrams but can be stages of electric heat especially on York/Borg Warner/Coleman-Evcon, Frasier Johnson/ Air-pro.
- (X2), Second stage of Electric Heat on GE/Trane/American Standard. See link above. Also used as indicator lamp or misc. contacts on other systems.
- Learn more about a Heat Pump Thermostat.
