[Yoda]

I am cold and I am frustrated!!!

I paid over $5000 to install a new HVAC in my house in 2012. I pay ~$150/year to belong to a "club" of the business that installed it. Among benefits of being in the club are I will get two maintenance checks each year at no cost and if I call asking for a diagnostic visit in between maintenance checks they will send a technician within 24 hours. I was supposed to have a maintenance visit and the tech came Friday. I told him the heat had been keeping the house warm but for the past few weeks it would shut off every few minutes and restart in less than a minute. It did not do that the first winter after installation.

So he said it is doing that to keep from overheating because of low air flow and mentioned the air filter was moderately dirty and advised me to keep my intake and output ducts clear (which I already do). And he remarked as leaving that the technician who will do a maintenance visit will check the outside unit, so I guess he thought his visit was a diagnostic one. Or maybe he is just lazy.

He left and the heat was working without the frequent restarts. But Saturday morning the whole damned unit was not working. It would not heat nor would the fan blow even when I switched it to 'continuous'. Their website says they offer service 24/7 so I called the answering service and told them the unit was not working and my house was cold. Several hours later I called again to make sure they had my telephone number correct. Nothing.

About six hours ago I thought perhaps a breaker was tripped and went into the garage to look at it. The circuit breakers were normal but I did notice that he had taken the air filter out of the air handler and left it lying on the garage floor and the ~two inch access panel for the air filter had been propped open with a small wrench. I thought that rather odd and do not know why he did that. I do not know if leaving that open was intentional or careless.

Then I remembered when he initially entered the garage he said there were birds in the garage. I saw two small birds that had come into the garage through a space above the garage door where I have a missing roller clamp. About the same amount of space as the opened access panel on the air handler. I hope I don't have a damned bird somewhere in my air handler or in the duct work.

I have emailed the owner. Who knows if he reads emails on weekends or ever. Maybe, just maybe, there is a valid reason that the technician didn't call or show like he had a wreck on the icy roads or something the answering service didn't know about. I will call the answering service again in a few hours and see if there is a technician available but for now I sit in layers of clothing and I am cold and irritable. I gave my son a sleeping bag to sleep in but I will just have to suck it up and be cold, I suppose. It is 25 degrees F outside now and 48 indoors and we have an incoming snowstorm Monday that will have the temps in single digits.



[/rant]

[eskielover]

Oh how I can relate to what you are going through.......when I moved into my farm I decided to go all electric & get rid of the propane heater which was all rusted anyway.....thought I was getting a new heat pump system. I only have a single unit for my 2500 sq ft home.....the gotcha was the guy that installed it was a crook.....the outside unit ended up having not only a bad compressor but a bad switching unit & then I found out when I had another company come in that the inside & the outside weren't even matching. That whole first winter I had NO WORKING HEAT PUMP other than the emergency heat strips that ended up costing me a fortune to heat my home.....I had a $1500 electric bill for 4 months that winter. Thankfully PC helped me handle that mess & the place I go to for my psychologist had special funds for people who had serious problems like I did with that....& they purchased the outside unit & had it installed.

I am not thrilled with heat pumps....they seem to blow around cold air. I can't afford to set it high...but decided this year to keep it set at 65F.....& use space heaters in the room that I'm working in.....but when we get these really cold temps outside (it's supposed to be -7F here tomorrow) the heat pump switches over to the emergency heating system.....& it gulps down the electricity. I have a little space heater in my bathroom & one next to my bed & using them this cold last December, my electric bill was was $271. Seems this way of running the heat pump with the space heaters on in the room I'm in is the most economic way to go in the winter. The space heaters keep me from getting so cold like I would if I just depended on the heat pump.

Last year I bought one of those infrared heaters to keep in the room where the thermostat is....thought it would keep it from coming on very much but I ended up with a heating bill higher than I had doing it this way this year......I will experiment until I figure out what is the most economic way.....but being cold stinks......& as I'm typing, I don't have the space heater on in my computer room.... & my hands are turning numb even though it says the temp is 69F.....I always RUN COLD.....& really like the temp to be around 90F.....but I like wrapping up in a down comforter in front of the space heater on my bed.....get a good warm sleep that way.

Hope you get this solved....especially with the temps they are warning us about being so cold........there is always some hassle we have to deal with & our comfort shouldn't be one of them.

[Yoda]

I called the answering service again just now. Twice yesterday and now twice today.

Since the problem got worse after the technician 'fixed' it Friday are they liable if my pipes freeze? I am getting mad now and I am usually very patient.

[Auntie2014]

This might not help but you might want to put new batteries in your thermostat. When they start to get low they act up with the controls. Good Luck!

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by Auntie2014

This might not help but you might want to put new batteries in your thermostat. When they start to get low they act up with the controls. Good Luck!

I had not thought of that. Good idea. It didn't work but I am trying everything.

I have a slow stream of water running in the bathroom to help keep the pipes from freezing.

I am documenting everything now. I have the cell number of the technician who came here Friday. I will be calling him direct if I don't get a phone call soon.

[Yoda]

HA!

I posted on their facebook page. Within fifteen minutes after my post someone from the company responded and said the would have the operations manager contact me asap. Go Yoda!

[Yoda]

Well horse feathers. I kind of feel like a dunce now and am glad that I was not the ***** I felt like being while talking to the people in the company.

I checked the circuit breakers last night. But I just looked at them and didn't touch them. They all looked fine. But one of the breakers had indeed tripped but it had only moved a few mm so it wasn't apparent. I had forgotten to flip them off and back on again because I have seen that happen before but I had forgotten that. As soon as he flipped it the heat came on again. *facepalm*

Nevertheless there was a breakdown in communication in the company. A simple phone call to me would have changed everything.

So now I'm gonna have to say something nice on facebook. Praise the tech but still acknowledge the lag in communication.

I liked the technician that came today better than any of the others because last summer after the third circuit board in a month had shorted out because condensation was dripping from the coils onto it I said we can either order circuit boards by the case and keep doing this or we can move it so it isn't below the coils. He agreed and positioned it onto the side of the air handler rather than bottom; problem solved. He lives near me and said today if I ever have any Q about the system just give him a call on his cell.

I am ranted out for now. Until something else pisses me off............

[Yoda]

well that didn't last long

730pm noticedheat pump not running; flipped breakers & it restarted, ran for a minute and off again; flipped breakers again X3, not coming on; called the technician who said call if you have Q and told him what happened; while on phone with him heat came on again; crap, this is going to make me nuts; he said remember you have to wait 5 min before flipping breakers on heat pump because... and then he lost me; nobody ever said 5min delay and I don't understand but too tired to process this at the moment; he said perhaps one of the breakers isn't quite right; will follow up that idea later

I need sleep, food and if this continues a whole lotta xanax <insert tired and frazzled smiley>

[eskielover]

Yes, all HVAC's have that 5 minute delay so that they don't mess up the compressor.....gives it the chance to shut down completely before starting up again.

I'm struggling with my heat pump. In this cold, the aux heat comes on...."the heat strips" that are like the super power because heat pumps use the same unit to AC as to heat.....when it gets really cold then need this extra power like thing that guzzles the electricity......well, I'm noticing that as the temperature is going down down down.....so is the temp in my house. When it was just the normal heating, I sat it at 65 & left it there & it was a constant 70 upstairs.....today as the temp is now -2....I am now sitting at 64 in the room that had been normally 70......the heat pump is running....I have some serious ducting problems that I hadn't taken care of....but it didn't phase it before this afternoon....so I'm thinking there has to be some other problem........like you....I have the upstairs spare bathroom sink dripping to make sure nothing freezes. While dealing with all the cold I have in my house over these last 6 years...I found out that microwaves don't work when the kitchen temp is in the 50's......just another aggravation to deal with. I'm living on a lot of hot tea using my hot pot & have plugged into the bathroom right next to my computer room. Those fingerless gloves are really handy to wear around the house also. You can type & text with them on while still keeping your hands warm

[Canyon]

Hope you have heat now. It must really suck going through that.
This weather alone is bad enough.

[Yoda]

Since I last talked to the tech on the phone Sunday evening the HVAC has been working as it should except for one time when I was sleeping and the breakers flipped but my son knew how to fix it.

No more stops like the way it was acting before the tech showed up Friday. At least it had been keeping the house warm then and it was only after the tech left that I lost heat altogether.

The high today was nine degrees F and the low of negative six so I have the thermostat set for 68 and it is keeping the house warm to 62. Good enough for now. I am too afraid to put the system on emergency heat because I know that the heat strips take a lot more electricity and I don't want breakers to start flipping again.

I still need my 'club' maintenance visit so I am making a list of Q for when they do that. Friday was supposed to be maintenance but since it was more involved the tech called it a diagnostic visit.

Thank you all for your support and advice.

[eskielover]

I'm curious....when it gets into the low temps (single digits)that it did this time, my heat pump automatically switches over to the heat strips ("aux heat")......there is NOTHING I can do to stop if from doing that.....that's the way the heat pump system is designed......you commented that you were keeping yours from stitching over.....?how were you doing that?

I'm going to hate to see my heat bill next month that's for sure....even one day of the heat strips costs a fortune & this has been 2 days so far......but it's supposed to be back up to 25 tomorrow.

I sat my temp to 65..before the really cold it was keeping my upstairs at around 70 when I had my space heater also going in my bedroom.....but with the heat strips.....the upstairs got down to 64....& it just kept dropping until today when it started t get warmer.....the upstairs temp is now back to 69 & holding.

[possum220]

I really hope that you are able to keep warm Yoda. Sounds like an unbearable winter over there. I even saw a kind of an Ice Tsunami rise up from lake Michigan and envelope houses. I would send heat if I could. During the next week our temps will average between 80f and 110f.

Sorry that you had such a rough start with your heating unit. Hopefully by now the kinks have been kicked to the curb.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by eskielover

I'm curious....when it gets into the low temps (single digits)that it did this time, my heat pump automatically switches over to the heat strips ("aux heat")......there is NOTHING I can do to stop if from doing that.....that's the way the heat pump system is designed......you commented that you were keeping yours from stitching over.....?how were you doing that?

When my thermostat is set on 'heat' it sometimes will kick on 'auxillary heat' to use the heat strips to increase the temperature of air it ventilates. I can choose to set it on 'emergency heat' and then it uses the heat strips continuously (as I understand it).

When the outside temperature was in the single digits my interior temperature was staying about 62 degrees F. Now that we have a heat wave and outside temps are 32 the interior temp is 68.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by possum220

I really hope that you are able to keep warm Yoda. Sounds like an unbearable winter over there. I even saw a kind of an Ice Tsunami rise up from lake Michigan and envelope houses. I would send heat if I could. During the next week our temps will average between 80f and 110f.

Sorry that you had such a rough start with your heating unit. Hopefully by now the kinks have been kicked to the curb.

Wow - 80+ degrees! I'm booking plane tickets!

[eskielover]

Originally Posted by Yoda

When my thermostat is set on 'heat' it sometimes will kick on 'auxillary heat' to use the heat strips to increase the temperature of air it ventilates. I can choose to set it on 'emergency heat' and then it uses the heat strips continuously (as I understand it).

When the outside temperature was in the single digits my interior temperature was staying about 62 degrees F. Now that we have a heat wave and outside temps are 32 the interior temp is 68.

That's exactly how mine was working through that frigid cold period....initially the heat felt warmer coming out of the vents when it had kicked over to the aux/emergency heating (heat strips)....but the temp in the house kept dropping had it set to 65F & upstairs it got down to 62F....where during our heat waves (LOL) I keep it constantly set to 65 & upstairs stays about 70F....have no idea why....but it works for me.

Did you ever/did anyone ever....figure out what was causing the overload on your circuit to cause the breaker to trip like that. When it automatically went over to the emergency heat in the real cold without you switching it over.....did it cause the breaker to flip then?.....I know that sometimes I have extra space heaters on around the house & that extra load when the heat pump goes on has caused some problems......had to be something that was causing an overload or a short somewhere.

Electrical issues are always such a tricky problem.....almost as bad as water leaks & finding where they are coming from.

UGH, the joys of home ownership (if that's what they call it)