Why Isn’t My Ecobee Fan Turning Off? Why is it Always On?

Ecobee Smart Thermostats are one of the best smart devices you can get for your home. It has just about every feature you could want, but therein lies the problem. Problems can arise if the settings aren’t just right, or if you forgot about one. One of the common issues I see is that Ecobee always has the fan on. It won’t run off!

If your Ecobee won’t turn off the fan and it is always on, start by checking that the fan mode in both the quick changes menu and the comfort settings menu. If you want the fan to be off when your heater or air conditioner are not running, the correct setting is “Auto”. Lastly, check “Fan Runtime”.

Those are the most common reasons that the fan isn’t turning off, but if those settings are correct and your fan is still running there are a few more things we can check. In this article, I will show you how to check the fan mode in the menus I just mentioned, as well as other issues that could be causing the fan to run.

This article is intended to debug the problem when the fan is always on. It is not intended to debug why the fan keeps running for a few minutes after the heat turns off (That is heat dissipation setting, which Ecobee no longer allows users to change).

Ecobee also has a Smart Recovery mode which will start running your HVAC system so that your home is at the desired temperature when a specific comfort setting is scheduled to start. For example, when its switching from Away mode to Home mode, the air might turn on a little bit before Home mode is actually scheduled.

Here is a summary of the topics covered in this article.

How to Check if Ecobee is Causing my Fan to Not Turn Off?
How to Check Fan Mode in Ecobee’s Quick Settings?

How to Check Fan Mode in Ecobee’s Comfort Settings?
How to Check Fan Runtime on Ecobee?

Let’s dive in!

How to Check if Ecobee is Causing my Fan to Not Turn Off?

This one is easy, so we’ll start here.

You can check if Ecobee is at fault for keeping your HVAC fan running by removing the Ecobee from the wall. Here is my article on how to remove Ecobee from the wall: How to Uninstall & Remove the Ecobee Thermostat & Sensors from The Wall

If the Fan turns off, Ecobee is causing the fan to run. If the fan keeps running, the problem is elsewhere in your HVAC system. Here is a example where it was a fan relay.

If you are using the Power Extender Kit (PEK), and your fan keeps running, you should also make sure that the PEK was installed correctly. A quick way to check this is to remove the PEK wires from the furnace control board, while the Ecobee is removed from the wall. If this causes the fan to turn off, it is an indication that the PEK was not installed correctly.

If your fan turned off when you removed the Ecobee, plug it back in and proceed to the following troubleshooting steps.

How to Check Fan Mode in Ecobee’s Quick Settings?

There are a few places where you can tell Ecobee to keep the fan on. This one is quick to get to (Hence the name “Quick Settings”), so we’ll start here.

Open the Quick Settings Menu
When you walk up to the Ecobee thermostat, it will change from the Stand-By screen to the Home Screen. To open the Quick Settings Menu, you will need to tap on the icon that looks like a gear with three little parallel lines, located in the lower right corner.
Select “Auto” for Fan
The third row will say “Fan” with two options to the right of it: Auto or On. The selected option will be highlighted with a white background. Make sure Auto is selected. Also, under where it says Fan, it will state if the fan is in auto or on mode, as well as a number of minutes per hour.

If the fan was in “On” mode, and the heater and air conditioner are not running, changing the option to “Auto” should turn off the fan.

Secondly, if it says anything other than “0 min/hr”, and you didn’t set the fan runtme yourself, you should check out the section for how to check your fan runtime. Anything other than 0 means Ecobee will run your fan for that many minutes in a given hour.

How to Check Fan Mode in Ecobee’s Comfort Settings?

Comfort settings are the different modes, or activities as Ecobee calls them, that you place into your schedule. Ecobee comes with three comfort settings by default: Home, Away, and Sleep. You can add or remove comfort settings as desired.

Inside each comfort setting are two options for the fan mode, one for cooling mode and one for heating mode. Like we saw in the quick settings menu, you have the option to set the fan to Auto or On.

Here is how you get to this comfort setting screen

Open the Main Menu
When you walk up to the Ecobee thermostat, it will change from the Stand-By screen to the Home Screen. To open the Main Menu, you will need to tap on the icon that looks like three parallel lines, located in the lower left corner.
Select “Comfort Settings”
This option is just about right in the middle of the list.

Select a Comfort Setting

If you use more than one comfort setting, which most people do, I recommend starting from the top and working your way down. If your fan is always on, you will need to check the fan mode in each of your comfort settings that you use.

Make sure that you check both “Heat Mode Fan” and “Cool Mode Fan”. The selected option will be highlighted with a white background. Make sure Auto is selected.

How to Check Fan Runtime on Ecobee?

This one is kind of a stretch because this setting can’t actually make your fan run all the time, but it can make your fan run 55 minutes out of an hour. That is pretty darn close to all the time, so I thought I would include this in the list of things to check.

Steps to Check Your Ecobee Fan Runtime

Open the Main Menu
When you walk up to the Ecobee thermostat, it will change from the Stand-By screen to the Home Screen. To open the Main Menu, you will need to tap on the icon that looks like three parallel lines, located in the lower left corner

Select “System”
This is the second menu option on the firmware version I have.
Select “Fan”
This will open the page where you can see what the current fan runtime is set to
Tap on “Fan Runtime” to change the fan runtime
A screen will pop-up allowing you to select a runtime between 0 and 55. There are times when people want there fan to run every once in a while, but if you want your fan to only run when the heating or cooling system is running (or just finished), then you want this setting to be 0.

Conclusion

Okay, I’ve covered all the reasons why your fan could constantly be running. If you determined it was the Ecobee causing the problem, and these steps did not fix it, you may have a defective Ecobee. You may need to call an HVAC professional to get it sorted out, but it might also be worthwhile to go buy a new Ecobee and see if that fixes the problem. IT would be about the same price as having a HVAC service technician come out.

Also, Ecobee support is very responsive. You can call, chat, or e-mail and they will get back to you. They also have the power to check certain parts of software that we don’t have access to. Plus, they can help you out if the Ecobee is defective and still under warranty. The Ecobee Support page is located here.