Thermostat Help

[DSeiler]

Sometimes I think a blind monkey with one good hand wired my house. I am trying replace my old thermostat with a new Honeywell CT87A. Popped the old one off, and what's behind it? Regular old 14.2 Aluminum wire. I couldn't believe it.

Are there any alternatives to wiring this outside of running new thermo wire or putting the old unit back on? I ran the power to the W term and the neutral to the R term and now nothing works..

Thanks in advance for the help...

[hvac4u]

14/2 to the stat? is it a line voltage tstat? what kind of heat do you have? what is the old tstat's model#?