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Motronic posted:You can turn it off. I truly did not think of this. After your post I unplugged the humidifier (the big black power cable) and then waited to see what would happen. I have a thermometer / humidity sensor (govee) in the living room where the thermostat is, and another one of those in the back bedroom, plus a third (thermopro) in the master bedroom. The back bedroom sensor shows a pattern that the temperature and humidity rise and fall together, but in the living room the humidity drops as the temperature rises (and vice versa). The master bedroom has the same pattern as the back bedroom, but it's not as pronounced of a match. What's up with that, and does it provide useful information in terms of having everything level out?
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May 6, 2024 02:59
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Hungry Squirrel posted:I truly did not think of this. Sounds like your house doesn't have great airflow, and perhaps the leakiest sport from the outside is the living room so makeup air is being pulled through doors of windows in there. Relative humidity is going to fall as air warms, and pulling cold air from the outside and warming it up will decrease the measured relative humidity without removing a single drop of water from the air (that's the relative part). Bedrooms will also hang onto humidity because of big sponges in them (mattresses) so it can take days to meaningfully impact humidity in either direction.
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May 6, 2024 13:58
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not HVAC but there’s ducts so I suppose it counts but I finally installed a panasonic exhaust fan and wired it to a timer switch and gd it’s quiet lol even on 110cfm in my tiny bathroom it’s quieter than the original that was just venting into my attic lol
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May 7, 2024 19:01
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Yeah, its nice that Broan and others have finally got around to updating fan designs that have not changed since the last time we went to the moon.
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May 7, 2024 22:55
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Is there a major difference between the MHK1 (https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Remote-Controller-Reciever-Kit/dp/B008MB3UM4) and MHK2 (https://www.amazon.com/MHK2-RedLINK...ols%2C74&sr=1-1) thermostats? I am trying to understand why the older technology is so expensive - are there some features that people want that the MHK2 does not have?
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May 17, 2024 18:10
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In this industry older stuff gets marked up as an incentive to move to the newer stuff.
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May 17, 2024 19:10
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I got a new HVAC unit installed and it was supposed to come with the MHK2, but they installed the MHK1. When I asked them about it they said they would come out and replace it (the MHK2 was supposedly back ordered / did not arrive in time), or refund some money for the older tech being used. I am trying to make the decision but cannot tell if there is anything 'wrong' with the older tech other than it is older. As far as I can tell anything you are back to do with the MHK2 can be done with the MHK1.
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May 18, 2024 01:20
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Not sure if there's a better thread for this, but what is a good fan that is quiet(ish) and don't break the bank? I bought some cheapo tower fan from Canadian tire years ago, and honestly it almost feels as loud as just running my window unit air conditioner, and feels like it barely gets a good breeze unless I get it really close to me. Also curious if portable ACs have gotten any better - I'm to understand they're kind of not great because you got the hot bits in the place you wanna cool, and they rarely split up the intake/outake tubes, which might mitigate the previous problem. (Paraphrasing some criticism I remember learning about in a youtube video) My situation currently is the area around my PC tends to get pretty warm, or I think my apartment in general just gets pretty warm because of the PC + just very rarely getting much of a breeze, so it's not uncommon for it to be/feel warmer in my apartment then outside. I don't really like running the window unit AC I have currently because its a bit of a hassle to install (I take it out come winter and only put it back in when we start getting real hot days) and it's kind of unpleasantly loud, so I try to only run it when I'm desperate enough. It feels like I should just need a good, quietish fan to help on the days where it's a little warm but not unbearably hot, but electricity is included in my rent, so I don't know if I should just spring for a good, quiet AC, if ACs can even be particularly quiet?
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May 18, 2024 17:39
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Oxyclean posted:Also curious if portable ACs have gotten any better - I'm to understand they're kind of not great because you got the hot bits in the place you wanna cool, and they rarely split up the intake/outake tubes, which might mitigate the previous problem. (Paraphrasing some criticism I remember learning about in a youtube video) Portable AC units/a.k.a. spot coolers have always been available with discrete evap and condenser fans and inlets/exhaust. They just cost a lot of money. It's not about "hot bits in the place you want to cool". That's easily manageable. It's that the cheap ones are using air from the area you are cooling to blow across the condenser to send the heat outside. What do you think that air is getting replaced with? That's right: all the hot air in the rest of your house and/or dragged in from outside as this gigantic fan puts your space into negative pressure, while its literally using air it's just conditioned to blow outside. It's a no-win situation. They are basically useless unless they have a discrete outside air intake and exhaust for the condenser with a seperate pathway and fan for the evap (the cold side).
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May 18, 2024 17:58
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I want a dual hose portable A/C in my bedroom for the three weeks of the average year when it gets hot enough to warrant it for that exact reason, but they're rare as hen's teeth. The single hose stupid ones are everywhere but I can't bring myself to get one of those because they're stupid. Window units aren't really a thing where I live, partly because out windows don't open the same way as they do stateside. In reality a two-stage swamp cooler would probably do me just fine, but I haven't built one of those yet nor sourced evaporator media for one, summer is kind of here and I have plenty of time sucking obligations right now to keep me from tinkering with such a setup this year. I guess I'll be a sorry basement dweller when I can't stand the heat, just like last year. I'm more than a little jealous of bro's geothermal A/C we installed a few years back, it's been working flawlessly since a few bugs got sorted last summer. (the plushie shark is still plugging the inlet during winters. If it's stupid but it works and so forth)
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May 18, 2024 19:23
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Oxyclean posted:Not sure if there's a better thread for this, but what is a good fan that is quiet(ish) and don't break the bank? I bought some cheapo tower fan from Canadian tire years ago, and honestly it almost feels as loud as just running my window unit air conditioner, and feels like it barely gets a good breeze unless I get it really close to me. After giving in and getting a DC Vornado fan I have come to the reluctant conclusion that fans are yet another "buy once cry once" item. The thing moves a stupid amount of air even at lower (nearly silent) speeds.
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May 18, 2024 22:17
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I have a danby one that has a single hose, but its really wide, and the hose has another hose inside of it. I think costco was selling it last year, it was $500, which is about the same as all of them. https://www.danby.com/products/portable-air-conditioners/dpa120b9ibdb-6/
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May 20, 2024 00:00
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That looks like a very nice one. Inverter and everything.
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May 20, 2024 00:08
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My devil downstairs A/C has crapped itself again, just in time for it to get hot. The compressor fails to start, and so the blower just blows room-temperature air. In the past, at the start of a season, the fan motor in the compressor would sometimes be a bit seized and a mild dose of percussive maintenance right on the motor hub would be needed to get it to start, after which it would be fine the rest of the season. That fun trick no longer works. The history of the system is that the refusal to start problem started last year sometime, and I called out a local HVAC place to investigate. When they showed up, it was on a day where it was deciding to work, and so they didn't find anything electrically wrong with the compressor itself. They did observe that the system was missing about half its refrigerant, which led to a leak test that found a leak in the original coil. The system was serviced last month to replace that leaky coil. I already called them to ask them to come back and see if they can find the problem (being that it may be related to something that was overlooked when buttoning things up after replacing the coil), but obviously they're getting a lot of calls right now and so I will have to wait. On the day they installed the coil, it wasn't a hot day and I couldn't set the thermostat low enough to start the A/C the normal way as part of the post-installation test, so they used their HVAC trickery to get the system going, I guess by jumping Rc and Y together or something? I wonder now if maybe somebody forgot to reconnect something after doing so, though since the compressor occasionally got up to the won't-start antics before they ever touched it, maybe not. In any event, it is now hot in my house and I probably won't see the installers for at least a couple of days. What obvious things can/should I check myself? I'm not adventurous enough to go dick around with the start capacitor because I don't want to find out what it's like to get blasted across my back yard, but I know how to use a multimeter. Things I already checked:
chutwig fucked around with this message at 01:18 on May 23, 2024 |
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May 23, 2024 01:16
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Is the contactor (really big relay) on the outdoor unit pulled in? if you dont want to mess with live line voltage you are at your limit. if you want check voltage going in and out. It is likely that, if you are getting voltage, and given the units history (condenser fan failure) the thermal safety inside the compressor is broken. New compressor at least. recommend new condenser at that point.
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May 23, 2024 02:03
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First check is if there's 24v at the coil to see if it's being properly called if the contactor isn't pulled in. But based on that history the compressor was running witout a condenser fan and it's (finally) toast. There is nothing to be done that doesn't involce taking off covers and being right next to high voltage at this point.
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May 23, 2024 02:13
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My best friend the HVAC guy showed up at 9 PM. After spending a while poking around the compressor and the guts of the furnace, he concluded that probably the furnace control board is slowly descending into madness and needs to be replaced, because it was engaging in all sorts of peculiar behavior while the thermostat was consistently calling; it started right up when he got here, then refused to restart even after waiting out the compressor restart delay, but the compressor would start just fine if he pushed the contactor plunger in. He also suggested that I should save some money and order the part myself, take pictures of before and after, and replace it without incurring the cost of another visit. I think I can handle that, so I found the part, ordered it NBD, and will spend some time on Friday replacing that board.
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May 23, 2024 02:53
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That's a good first repair item to try out. Low voltage, not a big deal. Just make sure you shut the power off, work clean and detail oriented, and you'll be fine.
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May 23, 2024 14:19
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take multiple, good pics. it sucks when the only reference you have for a wire position is obscured by another wire.
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May 23, 2024 22:17
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That's a good tip. Also, where possible don't just unplug everything swap mounted boards and plug it back in. If there's enough wire slack swap connectors over from old to new with one or both unmounted, one at a time from board to board. It's not always possible, but it keeps you out of trouble even when paying minimal attention.
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May 23, 2024 22:21
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Alright, so the place I ordered from originally changed the ship date for the control board to the middle of next month. I cancelled that order and am now falling down a rabbit hole of trying to find a place that might have a local parts counter I could get it from. Unfortunately it's a Comfortmaker which I understand is not an extremely common brand. Any hot tips on really great hole-in-the-wall HVAC parts counters in the NYC metro area before I just order it from Amazon and wait a week?
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May 24, 2024 15:38
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If you want a 100% OEM swap (and you do in this case) I don't see the harm in ordering from amazon. At least you've got some manner of return protection. If this board really is unobtanium you may need to go with something generic and get your hvac buddy back over to help you install it.
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May 24, 2024 15:43
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chutwig posted:Alright, so the place I ordered from originally changed the ship date for the control board to the middle of next month. I cancelled that order and am now falling down a rabbit hole of trying to find a place that might have a local parts counter I could get it from. Unfortunately it's a Comfortmaker which I understand is not an extremely common brand. Any hot tips on really great hole-in-the-wall HVAC parts counters in the NYC metro area before I just order it from Amazon and wait a week? Not pickup, but probably ships from NJ so should be there quickly. https://www.supplyhouse.com/Heil-Quaker-ICP-1186024-Control-Board
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May 25, 2024 15:01
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Motronic posted:They're probably talking about the A2L mandate in 2025. R-454B is pretty much gonna be the thing for residential fixed install cooling. I don't see why you'd have to wait until 2025 to get that - the equipment already exists. Perhaps they are aware of a specific model line coming out? You should probalby ask them. Reaching way back for this one, but as someone involved in the industry, everything around A2L refrigerants is a huge pain in the rear end right now. They use left-handed fittings, so you need to get adapters (that nobody ever loving has in stock) to do refrigerant handling. Places that handle refrigerant recovery don't accept A2L refrigerants, they're expensive as poo poo, and appliance recyclers won't take equipment that contains them. Yes, the lower GWP is important, but as a consumer, I wouldn't rush to be an early adopter. I could easily see headaches arising if you need to get it serviced next season because your service tech doesn't have the equipment to use it, or won't touch it because they can't dispose of the refrigerant. If I were the homeowner and had to make a decision, I'd spend the money nursing my current system along and then wait till the mandate kicks in to replace it, like the contractor advised. My company (SF bay area) had to find a recovery business that would take A2L refrigerants and it was an enormous pain in the rear end.
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May 26, 2024 07:49
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I finally chased down the source of a variable inaccuracy in temperature sensed by my Ecobee thermostat. Turns out Ecobee engineers have managed to create a Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning control unit that doesn't work right in non-stagnant air. The thermistor is at the bottom edge of the enclosure but there's still a thermal connection between it and the thermostat control board, screen, and relays. They use a compensation algorithm to correct for heat coming from those components, but that algorithm doesn't involve actually measuring the temperature of the heat sources and instead makes assumptions based off of current draw and expected self-generated convection upwards. So if you have air movement from a ceiling fan and you change the fan direction seasonally (like you are supposed to) in the summer the measurement will be low because of fan air returning up the wall cooling the components more strongly and in the winter it will be high because the fan air going down the wall fucks up the expected convection. So it fails to cool in the summer and fails to heat in the winter. Ours was off by 5°F at times. Ecobee's "solution" is to send you a stand-alone remote sensor to attach to the wall about a foot from the unit and exclude the internal sensor from all programmed control set points. The only thing missing is a little clown nose to mount on the thermostat.
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May 26, 2024 13:55
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5f is pretty horrendous pick your poison between that or fail closed SSRs i guess
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May 26, 2024 19:50
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Or how about - an I'm just spitballing a potential solution here - don't use a smart thermostat at all. Even with my zwave stat hooked up to a full blown home automation whyzzyjig I could do the same things that I do now with a basicl 7 day programmable stat that I'd have to touch twice a year at most. Stats with occupancy sensors exist as well if that's a concern. For that last 1% who need to turn the heat up at the vacation house so it's warm by the time they get there well......I guess that's the cheapest way to do that thing for now (you used to have a thing that you'd call with a phone and type DTMF into it).
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May 26, 2024 22:15
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