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My new furnace has been oil canning when starting up. Hvac guy says I need another return vent. I can provide pics if it helps, but essentially he suggested an 8" run that comes off the main return, 90 degree turn down, then a 90 to hit the wall next to the main return, which is shared with a bedroom. So, basically just a 2 or 3 foot run. I just don't love the fact that it's got two 90s - Am I over thinking this? I think I could probably just do a straight run like 6" long by cutting the hole for the vent in the bedroom, and working from that side, but it would be more of a hassle and the vent would be in a less aesthetically pleasing spot. [Edit: Reason I'm doing it myself is his estimate was 600 bucks. Even *he* said that was high, but that was the pricing his office gave him] Slugworth fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Nov 4, 2017 |
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Nov 4, 2017 04:02
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:Asking more so I can figure out how hosed a friend is... she's in a rental, but she's responsible for all maintenance and repairs (hosed up situation on that, she's moving as soon as she can). Sounds like it might be low on charge. Suction line should be cold to the touch, liquid line should be warm. If they're both feeling kinda lukewarm, I'd wager it's low on charge. If the coils were impacted enough to restrict airflow, you'd know it, liquid line would be super hot if the condenser is plugged. Likewise, the suction line would be icing up if the evap coil is plugged up.
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Nov 5, 2017 05:01
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When I swung by to pick her up, she mentioned it not working. Looking through the hole where the lines went in to the evap coils, they (coils) definitely had some ice on them, but air was moving through the vents. One of her kids had cranked it down to 50 overnight, and it had a pretty clogged filter (also, soaking wet filter... bottom intake furnace with the coils on top). Changed the filter and had her run the fan overnight (she said the filter was only a week old too  ).I'd say the condenser coils are about 1/4 blocked - most of one side is pretty bad (the side facing the house), the rest looked pretty much new. I thought it would have a low pressure cutout that would keep it from running when it was that low, but I guess maybe it's more of a no pressure cutout? I can definitely hear refrigerant moving through the lines when it's running and shortly after it shuts off, but that's not saying much. Hopefully for her sake it's just low, but she hasn't had the money to call someone out to look at it yet. Big line (suction I guess?) was a little above ambient, small one was a little below ambient. At both ends.  Anyway, it'll be mystery solved once she has the cash to call someone out (probably Friday).
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Nov 6, 2017 09:11
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Sounds pretty likely that it's low on charge then. Most low end systems don't bother sticking pressure controls in. Or if they do, it's usually just a high pressure switch.
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Nov 7, 2017 02:59
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Hokay, so. I bought a house, and the natural gas needs some work. Long story short, house was flipped by a master electrician, and it looks like he got his contractor buddies to help with this stuff. Nobody I've had in there has called anything as being wrong, just weird. Lots of mismatched parts, probably stuff leftover from other jobs. I've got a 1 inch natural gas line coming in, goes about 8 feet before it splits off for a 1/2 inch line for the fireplace insert (which has the old style key shutoff valve). That line has also been cut, and capped with a crimper, and no longer runs all the way to the top of the fireplace, so it pretty much just needs to be replaced. All three contractors I've had look at it say that they'd pull the old separate key valve and run a shut off valve into the fireplace itself. The 1 inch line immediately reduces to 3/4ths, and continues another 15 feet or so, and then T's off to a 1/2 inch line for a 100k BTU furnace. Immediately after that T, it reduces down to a 1/2 inch line, goes about 6 feet and then Ts off into a 1/2 inch for the 40k BTU water heater and another 14k BTU stove. The line up to the stove is about another 10 feet. In a perfect world, I'd like to fix the fireplace, split off the 1/2 inch for the stove and run it outside for a grill, and split off somewhere near the furnace for a dryer line. I've had 3 contractors come out, and gotten wildly different opinions about what should be done. The first guy suggested just running the CSST flexible tubing from where the fireplace splits off, since it'd be easy to tag another T onto it, and run one to the fireplace and another to the dryer, and doing another short CSST line where the stove is for the grill. He quoted me about 400 bucks. The second guy wanted to fix the fireplace with black iron, T off the 3/4ths inch line to a half inch for the dryer, and run a short black iron line off the stove for the grill, he quoted me 600-700. I just had another guy out, he wants to replace the 3/4ths and 1/2 inch line with 1 inch all the way across and run 1/2 inch black pipe everywhere. I'm waiting for him to email me a quote, but just offhand does anybody have any thoughts on the math here? Is the CSST flex stuff as easy to install as it looks? Am I going to blow my house up or not be able to run the water heater and the grill at the same time?
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Nov 8, 2017 00:20
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I have something weird going on with one of the thermostats in my house and I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. For some background, I have two completely independent HVAC systems in my house each controlled by their own ecobee3 thermostat. We’ve had the two thermostats for about a year and a half now, but we’ve just recently completely replaced both HVAC systems with brand new ones that are two stage heating and cooling. Now we’re having two problems with our upstairs ecobee (and only he upstairs one). The first problem is that we’ve noticed sometimes the ecobee seems to get stuck on a temperature (in this case 66, with the heat set at 67) and the temperature upstairs just gets hotter and hotter until we finally relent and turn the AC on, at which point it starts cooling off and the temperature on the thermostat starts rising finally. This has just started happening recently (I’m not sure if it was happening before the replacement of the HVAC or not but I think it started happening around the same time). The second problem occurred today, when the furnace was running second stage heat and it got stuck again, this time at 65. However I couldn’t turn on the air to 64 because the min temperature for the AC is 65, so instead I just turned the thermostat off and figured it would just cool itself off. 30-40 minutes later I’m noticing that not only does it not feel like it’s cooling off, but it feels like it’s even hotter now. I take a look at the ecobee and it agrees it is set to off, but it also says that 2nd stage heat is still running. At this point I go to the basement and just turn off that entire furnace to get it to stop roasting me. I called ecobee support and they blamed the second problem on the furnace. They said that the tstat signals the furnace to stop but if it doesn’t stop there is nothing they can do about that. On the surface that seems reasonable but when I thought about it more the ecobee was indicating on the display that 2nd stage heat was on. It is my understanding that the way a HVAC system works the furnace doesn’t have any way to tell the thermostat this, and the thermostat just calls for heat by completing the circuit on two of the wires (and you can override this by twisting the two wires together bypassing a tstat entirely). Is that accurate? If so it seems to me that the ecobee *must* have been calling for 2nd stage heat for it say that 2nd stage heat was running on the tstat indicator (and it was indeed running). For the first problem they asked me to physically switch the upstairs and downstairs tstats to try and isolate the problem. I went ahead and did that and at the same time I picked up two cheap temperature monitors from Walmart and put each one about two feet away from each respective tstat. The first problem has since reoccurred upstairs (with the downstairs thermostat in place in the upstairs) and I’ve verified that while the tstat claims it’s 66 in here it is really 72-74ish. This isn’t off by a consistent amount because when it’s not stuck at 66 the two devices are within 1 degree of each other. This doesn’t make any sense to me though. Since the problem is only occurring upstairs and has with two different tstats that would indicate an issue with the new furnace (especially given the timing) however I didn’t think that he furnace itself had any control whatsoever over what temperature the tstat currently thinks it is. Ecobee support is supposed to be calling me back tomorrow, but can anyone enlighten me here about wtf might be going on? Can these issues really be caused by the furnace itself or do they have to be something janky with the tstat?
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Nov 28, 2017 07:45
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Steampunk Hitler posted:I have something weird going on with one of the thermostats in my house and I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. There are thermostats that communicate with the furnance, but the ecobee works exactly the way you're saying here (essentially twisting wires together). The ecobee has no idea what the furnace is actually doing.. just what the ecobee is telling it to do. If it said 2nd stage heat, then the ecobee was telling the furnace 2nd stage heat. The temperature issue is pretty weird though. Do you have any of the remote sensors connected? Maybe try removing them if so? Is there a massive hole behind the ecobee where the wires come out? I'm wondering if your furnace is somehow pulling air from the attic or basement when it's running, through the hole behind the thermostat.. making the thermostat unaware of what temperature it is.
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Nov 28, 2017 14:54
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devicenull posted:There are thermostats that communicate with the furnance, but the ecobee works exactly the way you're saying here (essentially twisting wires together). The ecobee has no idea what the furnace is actually doing.. just what the ecobee is telling it to do. If it said 2nd stage heat, then the ecobee was telling the furnace 2nd stage heat. Cool, so when I talk to ecobee again I'm going to challenge them on this then, since that seems broken (I can understand it waiting a few minutes if it just turned on to prevent short cycling, but 30+ minutes seems like it's too long for just that). devicenull posted:The temperature issue is pretty weird though. Do you have any of the remote sensors connected? Maybe try removing them if so? I did have remote sensors, but I pulled the batteries out of them all when I noticed this starting to happen with no change in symptoms. I don't believe there is a large hole behind the thermostat, it's maybe the size of a quarter or so. I called the company who installed the new HVAC unit and gave them the rundown and they're coming out later today to check to see if they can diagnose anything. I was sure it was just the ecobee going bad... until swapping them had no effect and the upstairs was still acting funny. That being said, the only return duct for the largest part of the upstairs (the upstairs is 4 bedrooms with a hallway that is open into the foyer, but the master bedroom is easily half of the footprint of upstairs) is right near the thermostat but they're offset about a foot or so. I guess it's possible that the new furnace is pulling more air down the return duct and is sucking air in through that quarter sized hole? I dunno, hopefully when the HVAC tech shows up he'll be able to figure something out! Thanks a lot for at least verifying that I was thinking along the right lines for how the ecobee itself works, I'm going to see if I can get them to at least replace that unit since calling for heat for 30+ minutes after I turned it off seems just flat out broken.
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Nov 28, 2017 17:20
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Last night I installed a Nest Thermostat E, replacing a basic Honeywell thermostat. System Natural Gas Forced Hot Air The Honeywell had W Rc Jumper to Rh Nest said I only needed W and R. The nest is installed, and the heating is working, however: With the Honeywell when the heat came on it was very hot, the system wasn't on for long, and it heated up fast. With the nest when the heat comes on it isn't as hot, runs for longer, and heats more slowly. Nothing what changed with the system other than the thermostat. Is this normal? Could the Nest change the behavior of the furnace/blower? Another potentially relevant piece of information: the gas company was doing some work last night, but I'm not sure if it impacted my gas. I didn't get any notice, and the gas meter was increasing when the heat was on. Do I have anything to be concerned about?
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Nov 28, 2017 18:15
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So to be clear, you only have two wires coming in to the thermostat, W and R? (Rh and Rc being bridged is normal and it's just called R in that case) As noted in the above post about the Ecobee, a standard household thermostat is just basically an automatic switch that puts power on different wires to activate the various systems. R is the 24vAC supply. W is the signal line that requests heat. Connecting R to W tells the heater that you want it to do its thing, and it's going to stay on until that connection is broken. Without a C line Nest devices can sometimes run a small amount of power through the available connections to charge their batteries if they're not kicking on enough to leech power normally, this can cause components to kick on unexpectedly but there's no way for it to cause the heat to run slower. If you also had a G line I could see the potential for weirdness if the way the fan was operated was different between thermostats, but with a two-wire heat-only system you should be able to just literally twist the wires together and the heat will kick on normally. Everything else is under the control of the heater itself.
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Nov 28, 2017 20:38
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Yes, W and R wires only. Strange! My wife also noticed the heat being cooler, so it wasn't just me. Is it possible the gas company got air bubbles in the lines or something and the concentration of gas wasn't as high as normal (I have no idea what I'm talking about) I did look like they were using compressed air to do something last night.
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Nov 28, 2017 21:06
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You could always bypass the thermostat altogether and just connect R to W directly for a few minutes and see how things feel. That's all a dumb mechanical thermostat would be doing.
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Nov 28, 2017 21:53
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vamp thermostats can cause weird issues. I would recommend if you have additional wires available you connect a "C" or common wire at both the stat and furnace.
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Nov 29, 2017 00:54
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So I have a 3rd gen Nest that's been acting... odd... with a/c. For background: 4 wire setup, but everything except the wires and ducts has been replaced, behavior has continued. I took the Nest out for awhile and used a new Honeywell digital (the very basic version), and I'm back to using that again. Occasionally, while the ac is running, I'll hear it (very quickly) cycle off and on several times in 1-2 seconds. I can hear the relay chattering in the air handler when this happens, along with the fan in the air handler turning off/on. This also causes the outside unit to shut down (condenser fan keeps running, compressor says "NOPE"), until I turn off the thermostat for at least 5 minutes (cycling it off and on at the thermostat doesn't work; that puts in a 3 minute delay, which apparently isn't enough for the compressor to cycle back on). Any ideas beyond a defective thermostat? This doesn't happen with the basic digital Honeywell thermostat that it replaced. It also seems to be a bit off in its temp readings compared to the Honeywell - both via display (Honeywell with batteries installed sitting next to it, but not hooked up) and how the room feels. My HVAC runs often enough that it shouldn't be needing to cycle any relays to charge up (and I thought Nest tended to go for the heater relays while the system wasn't running, correct?). It's annoying waking up to an 80 degree apartment when I keep the thermostat set at 70, and I doubt it's doing the compressor any favors. Doesn't happen on heat, but since I'm in a top floor apartment, and I'm in TX, I'm still having to run the ac during the day.
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Nov 29, 2017 12:13
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:So I have a 3rd gen Nest that's been acting... odd... with a/c. If the basic honeywell is working fine, then the nest is broken (or won't work with your system). Nests are actually pretty awful at the actual business of turning on and off equipment properly, so it's not unbelievable that it might not be fully compatible with your furnace board. Ecobee at least gets that part right.
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Nov 29, 2017 15:07
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If by four-wire you mean RGWY then that fits pretty well with the HVAC system not being friendly to Nest's power trickery and adding a C wire if possible should solve the problem, otherwise you'll need something not Nest. If it's RWYC then that probably just means the Nest itself is broken.
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Nov 29, 2017 15:29
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So now that it's winter again, it's time to start doing battle with my steam boiler and radiators. When I bought the house, the previous occupant told me to drain the boiler once a week. But my friend that is a plumber told me that's not right. The boiler has three drains: 1) skimmer drain up top 2) middle drain that taps the bottom of the basin itself 3) lower drain right by the floor that probably drains the return lines Doing some googling tells me that you don't want a bunch of sludge and rust building up, but googling also tells me that draining water and adding fresh water a lot is bad since it keeps reintroducing all the bad stuff in your water and oxygen that is bad for the boiler. I really don't know what to do. Last winter I religiously drained it almost completely out once a week and refilled, but not I'm not so sure. I do know that since I haven't been doing that, the sight glass is getting a lot dirtier. I hate this boiler, it's completely robbed me of peace. The problem is that it works well, and it has no problems but it's always nagging me that I'm going to do something wrong and it's going to blow up.
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Nov 29, 2017 17:32
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Do you have a picture? I know commercial steam boilers better than residential ones, but you do want to blow down some water out of your boiler on a regular basis. You want to keep scale and dirt out of your boiler and draining will help that. You don't drain the entire boiler though, I would say run the drain for a minute, as long as you stay on it consistently. Do you have hard or soft water? Soft water is better for boilers. So if you have hard water, you may want to look into a water softener for the boiler.
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Nov 29, 2017 19:02
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I'm trying to install a smart thermostat and the first step is to turn off my HVAC system. I made sure the heat was definitely on, went outside and opened the breaker-type box right next to the HVAC unit (big compressor thing with fans and blades) and switched it off. The fan on the unit definitely stopped spinning. However, inside, I'm still getting hot air blowing through the vents. I've never done this before, so maybe it's a dumb question -- but how can I be sure it's "off" enough? Is there just leftover hot air blowing through? Is there a fan that still runs, and is controlled by the thermostat, even with the main unit off? Currently I'm still playing with the thermostat settings because I'm trying to verify that I've actually turned off what I need to. (I don't have a heat pump or oil or whatever, it's just forced air.) Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Nov 29, 2017 |
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Nov 29, 2017 19:35
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There should be a switch on the side of your fan inside the house. It'll be in the basement, or a closet somewhere. It should look just like a regular light switch. That's what you want to turn off. You didn't need to do anything with the outside unit. edit: This guy 
Bird in a Blender fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Nov 29, 2017 |
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Nov 29, 2017 19:48
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Bird in a Blender posted:There should be a switch on the side of your fan inside the house. It'll be in the basement, or a closet somewhere. It should look just like a regular light switch. That's what you want to turn off. You didn't need to do anything with the outside unit. Yep, it was in the crawlspace. Thanks!
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Nov 29, 2017 21:30
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Bird in a Blender posted:Do you have a picture? I know commercial steam boilers better than residential ones, but you do want to blow down some water out of your boiler on a regular basis. You want to keep scale and dirt out of your boiler and draining will help that. You don't drain the entire boiler though, I would say run the drain for a minute, as long as you stay on it consistently. Should I run it until the water comes out pretty clean or just the most sludgy first bits?
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Nov 29, 2017 21:34
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Yea, I would say run it until it's mostly clean looking water. How big is the boiler? Something to be careful of too is shocking the boiler. If you dump a lot of hot water, and then start making it up with a ton of cold water, that can cause problems too. If you have a big enough boiler, that won't really be an issue, but if you're having to dump like half the boiler it could be. Might be a better service tech who knows better about this, like I said, I've only dealt with very large industrial/commercial steam boilers, and those had automatic valves to blow down the boiler at regular intervals.
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Nov 29, 2017 21:40
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Qwijib0 posted:If the basic honeywell is working fine, then the nest is broken (or won't work with your system). Nests are actually pretty awful at the actual business of turning on and off equipment properly, so it's not unbelievable that it might not be fully compatible with your furnace board. Ecobee at least gets that part right. Seeing as it's persisted across two different systems (complete changeout - furnace, condenser, etc; wiring and ductwork are the only things that remained the same), and only happens on the AC side, I'm very heavily leaning toward the Nest being the issue. I was basically just looking for confirmation that the Nest was hosed. Current system is just as basic as the original early 80s system - single stage electric heat, single stage 2.5 ton refrigerated ac, plus fan control. drat thing was hilariously inaccurate anyway. The basic Honeywell keeps the place a lot more consistent, and thus, more comfortable. wolrah posted:If by four-wire you mean RGWY then that fits pretty well with the HVAC system not being friendly to Nest's power trickery and adding a C wire if possible should solve the problem, otherwise you'll need something not Nest. Yup, it's RGWY. Adding a C isn't much of an option; the existing wire is stapled to studs. I could MAYBE fish new wire into the wall (I can get a little into that space via the return air duct), but it's more trouble than it's worth, to be honest. Plus, I rent, and as it is, the landlord tried to blame the old system dying on the Nest. It probably hastened its demise with the relay chattering, but the existing unit kept popping the breaker from the day I moved in until it went out, and went through 5 start caps in less than a year (it kept popping the breaker after "maintenance" kept throwing in larger and larger breakers on the same 12 gauge wire... they got up to a 50 amp breaker at one point, dataplate on the old system said max 20 amp breaker). I only had the Nest connected for about 6 months of that. The issue has persisted across 2 systems now (entire HVAC was changed out this spring), and only happens when the AC is on. So I'm just gonna go with hosed Nest. I'm on a weird rear end power plan where if I use more power (well, between 1000-1500 kwh, which is a LOT for a 1 bedroom apartment), I get a huge discount on my electric bill, so in my case, the Nest was more just so I could control it without getting my fatass out of bed, off the couch, etc - not for saving energy.
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Dec 3, 2017 09:01
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:Seeing as it's persisted across two different systems (complete changeout - furnace, condenser, etc; wiring and ductwork are the only things that remained the same), and only happens on the AC side, I'm very heavily leaning toward the Nest being the issue. I was basically just looking for confirmation that the Nest was hosed. Current system is just as basic as the original early 80s system - single stage electric heat, single stage 2.5 ton refrigerated ac, plus fan control. Things like these exist: https://www.amazon.com/Venstar-ACC0410-Wire-Accessory-Thermostats/dp/B01IF3QXMC/ The Ecobee thermostats come with something similar.
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Dec 3, 2017 20:19
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I’ve been having problems with my furnace overheating and have recently learned that my return air ducting is undersized for the furnace. This makes sense to me, especially since air intake hole on the side of the furnace is a couple inches larger than the return air drop (and as such is covered flat with metal). Would replacing the drop with one the same size as the furnace intake solve my problems, or would it be fixed pointless without adding additional ducts?
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Dec 8, 2017 17:22
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If your furnace is in an area that is temp controlled, Add a cheater grill into the return duct. This will pull air from the basement/crawlspace/wherever to make up the difference. get one with a damper and adjust as necessary.
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Dec 9, 2017 00:12
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MRC48B posted:If your furnace is in an area that is temp controlled, Add a cheater grill into the return duct. This will pull air from the basement/crawlspace/wherever to make up the difference. Would multiple grills make a difference? There is already one cut into the side of the drop (which has me concerned about potential gases, but one step at a time). There’s a good two or three inches on one side of the filter that is alway immaculate when I change it out.
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Dec 9, 2017 14:06
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Questions on installing an Ecobee thermostat I have Natural gas for heating through a furnace (American Standard Freedom-95 Comfort R)and an electrical AC system (Furnace in the basement, AC unit outside). At first glance, it seemed I had a C-wire when I took off the old thermostat:  When I went downstairs to the furnace, I saw that the C-wire was not installed to the circuit board, but there's two other wires not a part of the harness going to the thermostat:  The two additional wires (not on the thermostat) in that picture are a Red wire going to the B/C and a White wire going to the Y. The red and white wire are part of a separate harness which I followed as much as I could, but it's not going to the furnace...as far as I can tell and guess, based on the last direction I see the wires headed in the basement is it's going outside to the AC unit. For the questions: 1) Total guess, but any ideas why they didn't just connect the C wire to the circuit board on the furnace? Everything appears rigged up for it... 2) I ran the extended power kit on the furnace circuit board instead of connecting the C-wire to the circuit board. Should I go back and redo it where I would hook the C wire to the circuit board? It seems like it would be less messy and I'm guessing the wire is there for a reason-to use it. 3) What do you think those other two wires (Red/White) are for?
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Dec 11, 2017 15:01
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Installers dont like doing extra work. If the stat doesnt require a common wire to run, they arent going to waste time hooking it up.
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Dec 11, 2017 15:25
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Red and white go outside to the contactor on you condensing unit. And go ahead and hook up the C wire for your tstat. No reason not to.It gets hooked up on the B/C terminal there.
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Dec 11, 2017 17:24
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I find the appearance of the Ecobee displeasing and I think the Nest just seems to have more features I want like automatically learning my schedule. Is there a difference between the cheap and expensive Nest? What other options should I consider for something that looks good, has auto change over between heat and cool, easy to program, and has wifi that plays nice with Google Home? My current thermostat (Honeywell TH8320U) has R, W Y G and C wires and a jumper from Rc to R.
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Dec 11, 2017 21:22
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Crotch Fruit posted:I find the appearance of the Ecobee displeasing and I think the Nest just seems to have more features I want like automatically learning my schedule. Is there a difference between the cheap and expensive Nest? What other options should I consider for something that looks good, has auto change over between heat and cool, easy to program, and has wifi that plays nice with Google Home? My current thermostat (Honeywell TH8320U) has R, W Y G and C wires and a jumper from Rc to R. Aside from the obvious display and physical construction differences, the cheap Nest doesn't support multi-stage heating/cooling or humidifier/dehumidifier control. This won't matter for you or most people with standard forced air systems.
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Dec 11, 2017 22:04
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We moved into this much-larger-than-my-old-house house in April, and as expected it was nothing but problems, but at this point most of those have been fixed or replaced. Got a new HVAC unit for the upstairs which was very efficient keeping it cool in the Summer, in terms of electric costs this 4,100 sqft house wasn't much more than my old 1,500sqft. Now that things are cold I got hit with a $450 electric bill last month, and realized that the thermostat wasn't set properly to gradually ramp up the heat pump, so it was defaulting to auxilliary heat. So we got that sorted but when it gets cold it's still resorting to auxiliary a fair amount. I'm keeping track of Pepco's daily usage on the website and it's definitely less than last month, but not by as much as I was hoping. So my first question was just does that sound normal for a large house built in 1957? I probably need to have the insulation in the attic redone and that might help. My main question is the downstairs level has a gas furnace, and when I transition down the stairs I smell it faintly for like a few seconds, but then don't notice it. So it's not like a full on gas leak I don't think, but I'm not used to having a gas furnace. Do gas furnaces just smell faintly like natural gas (or whatever it is they add to natural gas so you can smell it), or should it smell no different than an HVAC because hot air is hot air and I need to troubleshoot some small leak?
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Dec 12, 2017 18:37
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davebo posted:We moved into this much-larger-than-my-old-house house in April, and as expected it was nothing but problems, but at this point most of those have been fixed or replaced. Got a new HVAC unit for the upstairs which was very efficient keeping it cool in the Summer, in terms of electric costs this 4,100 sqft house wasn't much more than my old 1,500sqft. Now that things are cold I got hit with a $450 electric bill last month, and realized that the thermostat wasn't set properly to gradually ramp up the heat pump, so it was defaulting to auxilliary heat. So we got that sorted but when it gets cold it's still resorting to auxiliary a fair amount. I'm keeping track of Pepco's daily usage on the website and it's definitely less than last month, but not by as much as I was hoping. So my first question was just does that sound normal for a large house built in 1957? I probably need to have the insulation in the attic redone and that might help. Sometimes you can smell some burning dust the first few times you run a gas heater for the season. If you smell gas or fumes get a qualified hvac guy to check your heat exchanger for cracks sooner than later, if you smell fumes, you could be breathing carbon monoxide. As far as your first question, where do you live? Us knowing the current outdoor air temperature for your area is important for the answer you want
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Dec 12, 2017 22:41
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iForge posted:Sometimes you can smell some burning dust the first few times you run a gas heater for the season. If you smell gas or fumes get a qualified hvac guy to check your heat exchanger for cracks sooner than later, if you smell fumes, you could be breathing carbon monoxide. Also buy a carbon monoxide detector if you don't already have one.
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Dec 13, 2017 01:53
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Yeah I've got carbon monoxide detectors up and downstairs, one being right outside the utility room with the vented door where the furnace is. I'm in Maryland just north of D.C. so it's been around 40 degrees during the day here lately, getting a bit below freezing at night. I'm pretty conservative with the thermostat, so I tend to leave it at 66 then have the HVAC with the programmable bit dip to 64 while we're away at work or sleeping. It was normally in the 50's last month when I got the big bill, so I'm thinking that even though it looks like the coming month's bill isn't going to be a whole lot less, that the fact it's significantly colder makes sense. I guess part of that is just sticker shock going from a home that cost at most $190/mo in the winter for electric everything (water heater, kitchen range) to this much larger house where it costs a ton more AND there's a gas bill on top of that, which I don't really know what to expect since we shut that off when we moved in. All I know is the jackasses who flipped the house stiffed the gas company for over $600 which has now gone to a collections agency. Ultimately it costs what it costs, I don't want to freeze to death, I just want to make sure I'm not overlooking something completely stupid that would cut a third off our electric bill because stranger things have happened. Looks like I should get another hvac person over for the gas one though, thanks. If it's something I smell in-between up and down stairs or when I walk into the basement from the garage, but not concentrated near the actual unit, is that safe to say its some crack inside the unit and not in the gas pipes going through the house to the unit, since it's being blown around through the vents?
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Dec 13, 2017 02:58
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You should NEVER be able to smell gas, unless you have a really old stove or oven with a standing pilot and you've just turned the gas back on (and have yet to light the pilots). The first few times the heat runs for the season, you'll smell dust burning, but shouldn't smell anything else. If you smell natural gas inside (technically you're smelling Tetrahydrothiophene, the odorant added to natural gas and propane), something is very broken, and needs attention immediately. The CO detectors are a great idea, but they won't pick up a gas leak. I'd be a lot more concerned about a cracked heat exchanger vs a leaking gas fitting, to be honest. The heat exchanger would be circulating carbon monoxide, with no smell. A leaking gas fitting will be smelly and get noticed, but it usually takes a large leak for them to do anything beyond make the area smell funky (USUALLY.. if you're used to the smell, the house might be full of it). If there's any question at all about a gas leak, contact your local gas company and mention you smell gas inside. If you're on propane (or your gas company doesn't care), contact your fire department. Most FDs carry equipment that will pick up on gas/propane leaks. They may seem annoyed, but they'd much rather deal with finding a gas leak vs dragging your dead body out after a house fire. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 13:23
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I have a trane XL16c at home, which I think I understand is a 2-stage heat pump with 2-stage natural gas aux heat ("dual fuel"). The honeywell (american standard branded, came with the unit) thermostat looks like it's wired as a "multistage two-step scroll heat pump with two-stage variable speed gas furnace" (according to the thermostat manual). Wiring is: R,O,Y,G,B,W1,X2,Y2 (there's also a pair of sensor leads...) I'd like to change the thermostat to an ecobee3. Any caveats/concerns with this? I'm not sure which wiring diagram is appropriate, since their 'heat pump' diagram includes an O/B wire (not present on mine). Can someone clue me in?
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Dec 15, 2017 19:32
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My heat went out last night. Nest said no power to the r wire. The breaker was ok, furnace fuse was ok, power switch on the furnace was on. Texted my landlord and he said the people on the third floor also lost heat. On my way to the basement I noticed the red emergency switches were flipped to off. Some fucknut shut off the emergency switches at like 1030pm so when I woke up the temp had dropped super low. It was also the coldest it's been all year last night. I didn't think to check those switches because who would shut off the emergency switch to the heat in the winter?
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Dec 15, 2017 19:55
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