Amusement: I ordered my Nest gear via BestBuy.com because Nest's own web site had melted down shortly after they went live. I just got the following email:



Needless to say, I'm confident I don't need help installing these things, but it might be entertaining to have somebody out to help. Frankly, the hardest part of the installation is that I'm going to want to paint the wall under the mounting plates of our original thermostats. The Nest gear is much smaller and I want it mounted without their big base plate.

"Hi, Mr. Installer Guy. Here's a brush and some paint. Get to work!"

(More seriously, I suppose I really should do the prep and paintwork in advance of installing the new thermostats, but that requires detaching the original thermostats and leaving them off for a day while the paint dries. And when exactly are we going to have a day when the weather is so absolutely perfect that we need neither heating nor cooling for a day? Should I just hope there's some slack wire in the wall, pull everything out, and let the thermostat dangle from the wires?)