Evaporative Cooler Thermostat Troubleshooting

[Angie Gregory]

We just replaced our evaporative cooler. We turned on the thermostat, the pump started fine but when the blower came on the thermostat made a popping noise and shut off the cooler. It didn't throw the breaker but the thermostat had a terrible smell and was brown on the back so we figured it burnt out. It was ten years old so we bought a new one but the same thing happened with this one when we turned the blower to high. It didn't burn out the thermostat this time but I want to see what the problem could be before turning it on again. Any thoughts?

 

[Jadnashua]

If you use a low-voltage thermostat with a line voltage device, you'll burn it out quickly. Is the thermostat switching low voltage (24vac) or high voltage (120 or 240vac)?