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[rickeysprocket]

Thermostat is a Honeywell RTH8580WF wifi enabled programmable. Furnace is single stage gas forced air with central air.
I simply put a jumper wire from terminal (g) to terminal (w1) and moved the white heat wire to terminal (w2) and set thermostat up for dual stage heat.

[rickeysprocket]

This allows first stage heat to be the fan only but controlled as first stage heat. Only the jumper from the (g) terminal to the (w1) terminal gets hooked to the (w1) terminal. The wire that was on (w1) terminal or just (w) terminal on your old thermostat gets hooked to (w2) terminal. This causes the fan to come on first and if the temp of the room does not rise in a predetermined time the thermostat calls for second stage heat and fires the burner in the furnace by applying power to (w2) terminal which used to be your w terminal on the old t-stat. Hope thats clear enough.

[rickeysprocket]

I should mention that the (g) wire is connected as well as the jumper to the (g) terminal. Fan on or auto will still work as normal when the boiler is not hot of course.

[RSI]

Did you make sure the AC compressor isn't running? Putting the jumper on there will make it run on most cheaper thermostats. Might not on the one you have.

The reason I prefer two thermostats is if you turn up the temperature to make the house warmer (especially if you run at different temps at different times of the day) it will turn on the furnace and burn gas if it is more than the differential between the two.
Also, most people would rather have the house cool down than pay for any gas. I have never used that thermostat so maybe it can be setup better than other 2 stage thermostats I have seen.

[Scott7m]

There is so many variations with thermostats it's hard to say if it will work for others or not, there are things we do that work for most, but def not all

[rickeysprocket]

The a/c compressor does not run as this is a two stage heat set up not a heat pump set up. Heat pump set up is a different setting in the thermostat. This is why i used this specific stat. Very flexible programming. Also second stage does not turn on unless the temp fails to "begin" to rise such as stat calls for heat and temp drops one more degree or does not rise in a given time. Also this stat is wifi enabled. I can turn it up or down or off or to a/c or change fan setting to on or change the schedule at anytime from my smartphones or computer via the internet. So if i wish to let the house cool instead of use gas i can makr that choice at any time. This is a solution if you buy the specified thermostat. I'm sure the non wifi stat that is the touch screen from Honeywell would work the same but without the ability to make changes remotely. This may not be the setup "everyone" wants but it is a "solution" for a single thermostat with a boiler added to a standard single stage gas furnace and allows great flexability.

[Homerglide]

Hey Rick:  Thanks for the post. In my planning I assumed to use two thermostats but this approach offers remote adjustment in one unit. Very nice option.