Are you wondering why you are shivering inside your home this winter, even though your thermostat clearly says it’s 70 degrees?

You’re sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and suddenly a cold breeze hits you. You check the windows—closed. You check the doors—locked. You look at the thermostat—the heat isn’t even running. So where is that freezing air coming from?

I decided to use Gemini.Google.com, the free AI, to ask it what to do. I took photos of my thermostat’s screen displays, attached them to my AI chat so Gemini could view them, and was amazed by how well it knew what thermostat I had and what to do.

The answer is my house was built too well!

Your Home’s “Sealed Envelope”

Most of the homes in Cobblestone Farms, including mine (finished in 2021), were constructed with spray foam insulation in the exterior walls and roofline. This is fantastic for energy efficiency because it creates a practically airtight seal, keeping our expensive conditioned air inside.

However, a house that “breathes” zero air is actually dangerous—stale air, CO2, and cooking fumes get trapped. To meet building codes, our builder installed a device to force the house to breathe: the AprilAire Fresh Air Ventilator.

The Problem: The Secret Thermostat Settings!

The ventilator is programmed to bring in fresh outside air for a certain number of minutes every hour. Ideally, it should do this while the furnace is running, so the fresh air gets heated before it blows onto your neck.

But here is the glitch: Your thermostat might be using factory settings. If so, when your home needs fresh air, it pulls in 30°F air from outside and dumps it straight into your room!

You don’t need a technician to fix this; you just need to tell your thermostat, “Don’t bring in fresh air if it’s freezing outside.” But the trick is you won’t see a thermostat setting unless you know how to access the hidden Installer Menu on AprilAire touchscreens to fix the drafts:

1. Go to your thermostat and press Menu.
2. Select Settings.
3. The Secret Step: Look for the button labeled Installer (or sometimes “Setup” but in my case “Contractor Info“). Normally pressing that just shows the name and phone # of the installer. The secret is: Press and hold that button for about 7 seconds.

1. The screen will change to the Installer Menu!
2. Find the section for Ventilation Settings (or Fresh Air).
3. Look for Outdoor Temperature Low Limit.
4. The factory default is often 10°F. Change this to 40°F or 45°F.

What this does: Now when it is colder than 45°F outside, the fresh air vent stays closed. No more cold drafts!

Bonus: Stop Manually Switching Heat/Cool

While you are in that secret menu, you can fix another annoyance: having to manually switch the system between “Heat” and “Cool” during those weeks when Georgia weather can’t make up its mind.

1. In the same Installer Menu, look for Thermostat Settings (or System Setup).
2. Find Auto Changeover.
3. Set this to Enable (or “On”).
4. Exit the menu.

Now, when you tap the “Mode” button on your home screen, you will see a new option called Auto. Select that instead of “Heat” or “Cool”, and your system will automatically switch between heating and cooling to keep you comfortable year-round.

Why did my installer and the later HVAC techs who service my system never catch this?

Thank goodness for Gemini AI, which is also solving many other issues in my home and yard, like the mystery of why my bathtub was filling with cold instead of hot water. But that’s another story…