How to wire my thermostat to avoid waking up sweating and 85* in the house when it's freezing out

A little over a year ago I put in a new thermostat because the previous programmable thermostat could not handle heating. The new one does (Luxpro PSP511LC). When I installed it last year the cooling seemed to work fine during the day but then at night the heater kicked on and didn't turn off until it was a scorching 85 degrees in the house and I woke up in a puddle of sweat.

I live in Florida and it’s an AC/heat pump. I took off the cover to the AC handler and compressor to double check and I am a little confused. In my handler the R Y and W wires are each connected to the R Y and W wires for the thermostat and the compressor (W2 for W on compressor) so I think we are good there. The Green wire for the thermostat is connected to the Green wire of the handler. the C wire of the Handler is connected to the C wire of the compressor. The O wire on the compressor goes straight to the thermostat and I assume this goes to O. Diagram below.

When I installed the thermostat I connected the R Y W G O wires to the wires marked on the thermostat bracket and then had a jumper between RH and RC. Looking at the wiring diagrams that came with the thermostat not a single one shows this configuration. Does this seem right? Previously I had installed the O wire to C on the thermostat which I now believe to be wrong.

I'm in as my current thermostat is hot garbage. 

No advice, but I will state that the biggest step backwards in hvac reliability came with the death of the mercury based thermostat.

Some heat pump systems have specific settings they want. Try calling tech support for the heat pump mfg to see what they want. I installed some programmable units in a commercial space last year and it turned out the heat pump people came in after me to correct the way I had it programmed. They seemed to work when I installed them but freaked out the heat pump's control system somehow.

I just gave it a try hooking up O from the compressor to O on the termostat. AC seems to work fine but when I turned on the heat the compressor outside didn't kick on. Something else heat related must have turned on because it smelled real funky.

In reply to imgon :

I'll give that a try tomorrow. The unit is a close to 20 year old Bryant.

If it smelled funky it probably turned on the electric radiant backup/emergency heat in the unit, burning all the dust off of it in the process.

So, was it also 85 at the thermostat?

Advise from up north is that (especially if you sleep with closed bedroom doors) you can easily accidentally only heat the rooms while the living room stays cold. And if the thermostat never gets warm, it keeps running the heat.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

So, was it also 85 at the thermostat?

Advise from up north is that (especially if you sleep with closed bedroom doors) you can easily accidentally only heat the rooms while the living room stays cold. And if the thermostat never gets warm, it keeps running the heat.

Yep. Make sure the thermostat is located in the right spot - interior wall, out of direct line of fire of any of the vents. Also, not on a wall that is shared with a bathroom - our thermostat is right outside the bathroom. If we leave the door open, the bathroom vent blows more or less on the thermostat so the house is cold. If we close the door, the house heats up, but then because of radiant heat, the wall is warm and the thermostat doesn't know the house is cold. Close the vent in the bathroom, and the bathroom is freezing... but the rest of the house is more or less comfortable (with a 1927 house, it isn't ever going to be perfect)