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I recently DIY'd two mini splits, both Olmo brand, the first one was a colossal pain in the rear end but worked immediately once I got power hooked in and has been working ever since. The second was a smooth install after learning from the first, but the unit threw a PC-01 flashing indicator from the get-go, and only the fan works. No heat or cooling. I've rechecked everything and can't find any external problems. Anyone have any experience with the PC-01 error code? I checked and their customer service number is only active on weekdays which is why I'm asking here right now, and I'm hoping this is something I can resolve before I have to call a technician. edit: Never mind, I found the problem, it was a wiring issue. aperion fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Feb 5, 2023 |
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Feb 5, 2023 01:10
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also posting this here in case. i assume it's normal but i hadn't noticed it the winter beforeactionjackson posted:why does my furnace sometimes make a higher pitched tone? i hear it when I first turn up the temp after I wake up. But later in the day, when it turns on I don't hear it at all.
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Feb 19, 2023 04:59
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.y furnace is currently very slightly squeezing from a bearing on the front combustion fan motor?.. I'm not going to murder my unit by sticking a drop of white lithium in it am I? Or poo poo call my HVAC folks I'm pretty sure Its still under warranty.. but sticking a drop.on the bearing is easy.
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Feb 25, 2023 13:31
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Do the latter first, you can lube it when there is delivery time for the part
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Feb 25, 2023 14:10
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I would do nothing until the HVAC company is out, if it's under warranty. They can try to pull the "you ruined it, that'll be $500" poo poo. Unrelated, I heard some of you guys like splits, so I got you some condensers for your splits. I counted 18... (single floor commercial-ish building) 
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Mar 3, 2023 |
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Mar 3, 2023 17:00
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I got a condo with an unfortunate drawback of using through-the-wall air conditioners. I want to replace the one in my bedroom. It's ridiculously loud. No mechanical problems, just a loud brand/model. I've been trying to find a quieter one, but google is showing me contradictory information. This list recommends Koldfront WTC8001W 8000BTU with a sound output of 56.5 decibels. But then everyone on Amazon is saying it's 10/10 loud or at least too loud. Is there any reliable way to find a quiet through-the-wall AC? E: fixed link FaradayCage fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 4, 2023 05:40
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Wait, do you have a window-style through the wall unit (like that Koldfront), which needs a wall sleeve.. or a proper PTAC unit? Your first link doesn't work, second one shows what looks like a modified window shaker. Most name brand PTACs are relatively quiet - GE/Hotpoint, Amana, etc - if you can enlarge the opening enough for a small PTAC, you'll have a much quieter unit, but you're obviously limited by the condo board (the whole "you own everything inside of the walls/roof" bit...). 56dB is on the louder side for a bedroom, IMO. If you can find a unit with an inverter compressor, it'll be a lot quieter except on the hottest days. Check compactappliance.com - they have a lot of through the wall units (both PTAC and modified window shakers that need a separate mounting sleeve). You'll probably find more informed reviews there vs Amazon (and Amazon tends to lump multiple models and even lines together in reviews). fake edit: okay, your first link should be https://www.gadgetreview.com/quietest-wall-air-conditioner. I'd at least find out how many BTU your current unit is - if it seems to do a solid job on the hottest and coldest days, stick with that size - otherwise, go up a size. (running nonstop is fine if it maintains your set temp, and is preferable for an AC - that way you dehumidify too). Midea supposedly makes very quiet units, though that may only be their u-shaped window units.
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Mar 5, 2023 01:57
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Can anyone here give me a good rundown of what brazing fillers are used in what applications on refrigerant systems, and what kind of torch setup is appropriate? At work we order from a single consumables supplier according to application and don't really think about what we're actually getting in terms of the real world where there's a billion options, and we always use oxyacetylene because it's what we're set up for as both fixed and portable setups.
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Mar 5, 2023 03:22
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rods: 15% sil/phos for copper and brass 56% silver for copper to steel I have never needed to braze aluminum but apparently there are options out there. Oxy/acetylene is nice because it gives you more focused heat, at the cost of needing another tank and more training requirements. air/acetylene is fine for most applications.
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Mar 5, 2023 06:18
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Hi thread, I appreciated the help a while ago with rerouting my furnace drain. I woke up to buzzing in the middle of the night. Our first thought was a capri sun straw wrapper stuck in the air flow. I opened the closet to see a puddle of water on top of the furnace. It was dripping from the insulated line going to the coil. Water goes down the furnace and into the electrostatic air cleaner. I turned things off and found the pre and post filters wet. I'm looking online and it seems like this is usually a pipe insulation problem. The line gets cold when the ac is running and collects water vapor from the air. But we've had cold weather and have been running heat only for months. Can condensation happen when the lines are ambient temp? Are there other sources for this water? Details: single story, plumbing under slab, furnace in hall closet, lines route up to atti then across to side of house, no recent rain. I put a pan under and it caught about a half cup over night.
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Mar 8, 2023 21:46
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I have 2 quotes for an A/C installation for my 1300 sqft ranch and I can't make sense or compare them. I just don't know anything about the equipment differences. I would owe someone a huge favor if they could help me out. There are 2 bedrooms, a living room and dining room/kitchen that need cooling. I'll be refinishing the basement shortly and will need heating/cooling down there and was planning on putting in a wall mounted unit. Quote 1: Price: $16,000 & eligible for $4000 rebate via a state energy program Complete installation of: - 2 zone ductless heatpump with ports for future basement renovation - (1) Samsung 48,000 BTU outdoor unit w/ wall bracket - (2) Samsung 36,000 BTU air handlers - (3) Complete metal insulated trunk duct with (6) supply flex runouts and central return (Im assuming the ducts to the bedrooms and living room?) - Refrigerant, coolant & condensing piping - Electrical wiring & thermostat - Local permit We have baseboard hot water heat so we don't really need to use the heating capability. Quote 2: Price: $15,000 & NOT eligible for any rebates Installation of: - 2.5 ton Runtru air conditioning system - Installation of air handler - Installation of duct work - Run freon lines - Install thermostat *Does not include:* - Electrical service for condensing unit and handler - Local permit To me it really seems like the 2nd quote is probably $5,000 more expensive after electrical work and I don't get any heating capability out of it if I wanted. Is there a huge difference in Runtru vs a Samsung unit?
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Mar 10, 2023 00:42
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Looks like Runtru is a Trane sub brand? I imagine that's a discount model. If you like the look and feel of mini-splits that is the CLEAR winner here. Especially since you can drop in another head in your basement when done. How is your kitchen/dining area going to get cooled by your minisplit? Is it a big open floorplan or are there walls/doorways (even without doors) in the way? Basically the big difference is the big central air unit would give you traditional registers (vents) in each room etc. whereas the minisplit gives you the big box on the wall that you won't notice in 6 months. Up to you if that aesthetic difference is a deal breaker. There are ways to hide the indoor parts of minisplits. If you're curious google the brand and look at the options. https://www.samsunghvac.com/residential Fujitsu, Samsung, Daikin, LG, everyone makes these things. Get 2 more quotes.
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Mar 10, 2023 00:57
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Thank you! Yep Runtru is a Trane subrand. The dining room & kitchen area are both more or less one room. That's the plan is to stick another unit in the basement once it's finished. I'll see if I can get a couple more quotes from local places.
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Mar 10, 2023 01:12
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I’m curious why one guy quoted you a 4-ton condenser and the other a 2.5 ton condenser. That’s a pretty big difference in capacity. I don’t know where you live or the condition of your house, but 2.5 ton seems like the right size unit for that size house. E: maybe the heat pump quote was figured for the heating capacity you need? Not really sure. Did anyone do a manual J calc? That is how those guys usually determine the load required for your house. Bird in a Blender fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Mar 10, 2023 |
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Mar 10, 2023 01:22
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The 2.5 ton is for the first floor only but the 4 ton quote is to accommodate an extra hookup for the basement, which is a bit less than half the footprint of the main floor. I'm not sure how they calculated the tonnage but they both took a bunch of measurements before they left.
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Mar 10, 2023 01:33
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dont compare minisplit to standard split tonnage, its not apples to apples. in addition to needing more capacity for heat mode, most minis have much better turndown ratios, so over sizing isn't a big deal.
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Mar 10, 2023 01:56
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I installed the Ecobee and have been really pleased with the whole setup. I've got a couple of remote sensors coming for a few other spots in the house. I've been watching the graphs and I'm wondering if it's telling me I'm having an HVAC issue, I need more insulation, it's just cold, or it's just normal? It turned on my aux heat when it was about 0F the other day and that was a big surprise. 
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Mar 15, 2023 15:12
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Yooper posted:It turned on my aux heat when it was about 0F the other day and that was a big surprise. I assume you have an air source heat pump. They don't work well if at all in those temperatures. It's not surprising at all that it would fail to satisfy for long enough to need electric resistance backup heat. I'm not sure what you think you're seeing in that picture or if one could even tell if there's a problem from it. It looks like an HVAC system cycling normally and very expectedly more frequently with lower outdoor temps. If you just installed this thing I think you may be suffering from something I see a lot with these things. It's information you didn't have before and you have no idea what it means or what it should look like. It's 100% useless to you for diagnostic purposes at this point unless maybe you are using it to track down other issues (i.e., it's too cold in the house, the heater never shuts off, etc). Just ignore it. It's not useful in and of itself. It may be useful to compare it to a different snapshot in time later when you notice a change.
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Mar 15, 2023 15:50
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Motronic posted:I assume you have an air source heat pump. They don't work well if at all in those temperatures. It's not surprising at all that it would fail to satisfy for long enough to need electric resistance backup heat. Geothermal heat pump in this case. I don't trust much the PO did (who had this installed) so I've been concerned it is undersized. Agreed in regards to the new info, there's a lot of it and I don't have context to compare it with. Maybe next winter it'll give me a good snapshot.
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Mar 15, 2023 16:54
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Yooper posted:Geothermal heat pump in this case. I don't trust much the PO did (who had this installed) so I've been concerned it is undersized. "Energy audit" are the magic words you're looking for to find someone to help. They'll be able to tell you if you've got a bunch of air leaks, or you need more insulation. They probably won't be able to tell you if the hvac is working properly, but they're usually pretty cheap ($100 is about normal around here). Realize it's a loss leader to get them in the door to sell you insulation and stuff, but they should be able to plainly show you the things they're saying need fixing.
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Mar 16, 2023 01:09
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Yooper posted:I installed the Ecobee and have been really pleased with the whole setup. I've got a couple of remote sensors coming for a few other spots in the house. This looks like the unit is probably appropriately sized, but is cycling too often for a heat pump. Increase the minimum off and on time settings, and widen the differential. Unless you need precision temp control in your house (You don't), setting a wider differential (or deadband, can't remember what ecobee calls it) will make the temp line wiggle a bit more, but extend the life of your heat pump.
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Mar 16, 2023 02:05
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Yooper posted:Geothermal heat pump in this case. I don't trust much the PO did (who had this installed) so I've been concerned it is undersized. Might not be, you have to consider a lot of things with ground source heat pumps. The pump might be sized correctly but the borehole or buried loop or whatever could be undersized or suboptimal. Or your settings for the pumps running are suboptimal in relation to the size of the loop or borehole and pump size. I fiddled a lot with the settings in mine and I reduced the amount of pointless starts by a lot from factory settings. I had the help of a forum of heat pump experts to guide me though. Dunno if there's anything like that in america. e: The above advice sounds basically like what I am talking about. ^^^^
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Mar 16, 2023 13:56
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MRC48B posted:This looks like the unit is probably appropriately sized, but is cycling too often for a heat pump. Increase the minimum off and on time settings, and widen the differential. Awesome, this is exactly what I was looking for. It was on "auto" and set for like 0.5 degree differential. I opened it up to 1.5F and we'll try it for awhile. The first thing I noticed is it would kick on the fan more often and circulate the heat which worked out great for the evening.  I'm curious how it'll behave once we get the remote sensors. We have a woodstove in our living room but we have an issue where that room is nice and toasty but other parts of the house get downright frigid. Hopefully it'll help to average that out.
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Mar 17, 2023 15:08
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That kind of setup is why my heat pump runs solely on an external sensor.
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Mar 17, 2023 15:31
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Yooper posted:Awesome, this is exactly what I was looking for. It was on "auto" and set for like 0.5 degree differential. I opened it up to 1.5F and we'll try it for awhile. The first thing I noticed is it would kick on the fan more often and circulate the heat which worked out great for the evening. Set the fan to run continuously, just during daytime if you cant stand the noise/are trying to penny pinch energy
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Mar 17, 2023 15:50
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His Divine Shadow posted:That kind of setup is why my heat pump runs solely on an external sensor. So it keys off the remote sensor, so regardless what the woodstove room is doing the heat still functions as normal? MRC48B posted:Set the fan to run continuously Thanks, I'll give this a try.
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Mar 17, 2023 15:58
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Yooper posted:So it keys off the remote sensor, so regardless what the woodstove room is doing the heat still functions as normal? Yeah, it goes by a temperature curve instead. And it works real well, the curve is also adjustable.
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Mar 17, 2023 16:52
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His Divine Shadow posted:Yeah, it goes by a temperature curve instead. And it works real well, the curve is also adjustable. I have a suspicion that this type of setup can fail a little when it's real windy, at least in houses that aren't super controlled airflow-wise - have you ever noticed it gets a bit cold when it's blowing hard outside? On my one and only heat pump install I did for myself I regulate on a combination of outside air temp/curve and the return temp from the radiators, based on advice from a graybeard with lots of experience and I'm real happy with how it works. The wood stove or sunshine through windows will make the thermostats on the radiators in the affected rooms limit the water flow there but the heating water return temp still gives good feedback to the heat pump brains about how the colder rooms are doing. Not workable in a hot air system of course, but I've heard plenty of people having trouble finding the perfect place for a single electronic temp sensor in their homes.
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Mar 17, 2023 18:02
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Nah, but we built our house 2013-14 and it's well insulated and tight. If the wind blows south south west it hits the sensor which probably helps. We have hydronic floor heating that heats an insulated floor slab.
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Mar 17, 2023 18:57
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So in my on going war with my steam boiler it has decided to start leaking. I noticed that it was using up more than the ordinary amount of water, so I checked all the piping. Turns out when the boiler is on, and at pressure (but before the pressure cut out trips), there's a small leak inside the boiler, dripping on the burners. It only happens in this situation, there's no pool of water below it all the time, and the doesn't happen when it starts burning, only once it's ran for a 10-15 minutes, and it goes away once it cools. I have someone coming to look at it today, I figure they'll say "you need a new boiler" but I figure there must be some kind of plumbing connections inside the unit, maybe something repairable inside? I'm going to ask the guy if he can use that temp repair liquid just to through the season (I'm in NJ) and then start quoting a boiler replacement if necessary.
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Mar 20, 2023 12:00
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Let's talk proprietary communicating thermostats. My parents have a Daikin One+ thermostat, with a Daikin 80% (wtf? 80% in this day and age?) 2 stage gas furnace w/variable speed blower, and a Daikin 5 ton variable speed inverter type condenser (straight AC - dunno why they did that instead of a heat pump, but whatever). Everything installed last year. It's a great system - the house is far more comfortable (vs the nearly 30 year old York furnace + 15 year old Trane single stage R22 5.5 ton they had), the electric bill is much lower in the summer (somehow the gas bill is about 50% higher in the winter, but they only need heat 1-2 months out of the year). But they, and I, hate the thermostat. The app is absolutely horrible, the thermostat's UI is horrible (especially for people in their 70s with cataracts). I'm in my 40s and consider myself tech savvy, and I want to take a sledgehammer to the thermostat anytime I have to look at it, chainsaw if I have to actually interact with the stupid thing. Is there any kind of thermostat that would work with their system and retain most of the features (specifically multi-stage AC and fan - the furnace is used rarely enough that it can be run on the 1st stage, it's an 85k BTU furnace in TX), or are they stuck with this expensive wart on their wall? I'm guessing they're stuck with it, since it's a communicating thermostat. Had it been a simple 2 stage system I think they'd be able to go with an Ecobee or something similar, right? randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 08:01
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Yep, the comfort equipment industry is currently moving backwards from an open, simple, and effective standard (24vac signalling RWYG) to proprietary versions of what is probably actually modbus underneath. You might see if daikin has another stat, or set a schedule if they're in their 70s its not likely they have a widely varying routine. I have found senior clients have a compulsive need to adjust the stat down every night purely out of habit from running with a round honeywell mercury stat for 50 years.
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Mar 24, 2023 01:17
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I really hope in 10 years that the ftc has stepped in and demanded free interop. Largely because a company like Google will demand it for their dumb thermostats. All these companies are pretending like any of this crap is new and hard so they can charge hilarious premiums and lock you in to their lovely overpriced stats.
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Mar 24, 2023 03:54
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I had to buy a chest freezer in a hurry when our freezer failed last week. Fastest/cheapest way was craigslist/facebook / equivalents. Got a 1980s 400 liter chest freezer, I have been looking it's energy consumption and it pulls about 180-200 watts when running, the thermostat didn't work so it wanted to go down to -31C, but it was just bad connection and after that it's hovering around -19 to -20.5 C and doing that it seems to use 1.6 kWh per day. Yearly energy consumption of 584 kWh, yeah its not very efficient, a modern one of a similar size probably pulls 300 kWh. I bet most of this is because the insulation has likely degraded and it was simply not made as thick as in a modern freezer. I think the compressor itself isn't much less efficient than a modern one. Anyway I thought it was interesting. I plan to put it outside later and see how it will work as a freezer in an unheated space, it used to sit like that so it should be fine. Wanna see how much power it uses then, if I'll keep it as a secondary freezer or turn it into a compost bin.
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Mar 24, 2023 09:25
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MRC48B posted:Yep, the comfort equipment industry is currently moving backwards from an open, simple, and effective standard (24vac signalling RWYG) to proprietary versions of what is probably actually modbus underneath. I had figured that some startup would have taken a crack at carrier "ABCD" by now given its age and how it's fully reverse engineered at this point. All I want is a way to manually set fan ramps on my variable system so that the two degree shift at bedtime happens at low % capacity over an hour or so rather than 15 minutes at 100% 
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Mar 24, 2023 14:49
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Qwijib0 posted:
This may actually be in the installer manual.
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Mar 24, 2023 15:44
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H110Hawk posted:This may actually be in the installer manual. It's a first gen infinity touch, and if there is I haven't found it. As far as I can tell, it's got two modes-- traditional setback where it changes the setpoint at a time, and ~smart setback~ where it uses uh "intelligence" to take into account things to slowly get to the set point by the time you want it there. The first one works as expected, and with a sudden change in setpoint it cranks to 100%. The second is just... bad. It will run at low/mid till maybe 10 min before the timed setpoint and then realize it's not going to make it, and then crank to 100 anyway, but then unlike mode 1 where it ramps down as it gets close, it will just stay at 100 and then overshoot by a degree then turn off entirely for 30-hour. I'm limited to 4 temp changes/day or else I could just set a several time/temp points one degree apart.
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Mar 25, 2023 15:10
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Looks like if you disable the smart you can set a fixed set point and fan speed 5 times a day, but that is super braindead.
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Mar 30, 2023 01:56
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His Divine Shadow posted:I had to buy a chest freezer in a hurry when our freezer failed last week. Fastest/cheapest way was craigslist/facebook / equivalents. Got a 1980s 400 liter chest freezer, I have been looking it's energy consumption and it pulls about 180-200 watts when running, the thermostat didn't work so it wanted to go down to -31C, but it was just bad connection and after that it's hovering around -19 to -20.5 C and doing that it seems to use 1.6 kWh per day. My freezer is less than 1/3 of the size, but it's a much newer one using unscented propane (R-290). Best Buy store brand. It pulls 55 watts running @ 120V, inrush is about 150 watts. The larger ones really don't pull that much more - once they're down to temp, it doesn't take much to maintain temp, but the newer ones take a full day to get down there. It's plugged in to a Kill-A-Watt, and it's in a garage that's NOT climate controlled. In the summer it runs a bit more, but as long as I'm not opening it often, not THAT much more. It does take a very long time to recover if I load up stuff that isn't frozen, or if it's open more than a few minutes. I think in a month or so, mine is pulling about what yours does in a week. Maybe less. That out of the way, yours will still be running after I've replaced mine 4 or 5 times. I do make sure to check it every few days.. really need to put an audible alarm on it. If the power flickers while it's on, it takes a solid 10 minutes for the pressures to equalize enough for it to restart (otherwise it goes off on thermal overload). randomidiot fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 12:58
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Once we decide on a new freezer it's going off-line again for the summer, I have a 100 liter chest freezer, it says it uses 170kWh per year and it's bought new in 2019. We shut it off and put everything in the big one. We're in no hurry now since electricity is no longer that insanely priced and this one has so much room. Trying to decide if we should still keep going with the stainless look or start moving over to classic white. I got this one hooked up to a wireless logger so I can see live if it's running and put in alarms if it goes offline.
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Mar 30, 2023 13:10
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