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I appreciate the offer but replacing it myself is definitely outside of my comfort zone, as trivial of a task as it may seem to many of you here.
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Oct 18, 2023 22:24
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Dr. Eldarion posted:I appreciate the offer but replacing it myself is definitely outside of my comfort zone, as trivial of a task as it may seem to many of you here. All good. It's important to stick to your comfort zone, especially with stuff like this.
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Oct 18, 2023 22:40
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Dr. Eldarion posted:Update on this: I had a new guy from the reddit-recommended company come out. He said the noise that the inducer motor was making is totally normal, and the only thing needing attention soon is a capacitor. $340 replacement. He also mentioned a few things to keep an eye on in the coming years, but said none of them need to be worried about yet. When I asked how much life he thinks the furnace has left in it, he went on in detail for a few minutes about what sorts of things tend to go wrong with furnaces and how he saw no evidence that any of them were an issue with mine yet. Seems like I might have a keeper? Yes - that is a keeper. You basically told him an excuse to sell you a part at a non-insane markup, he seemingly did a full inspection and sold you the part you actually needed. High price for a capacitor sling, less high a price with a full workup + capacitor sling + educational seminar. One thing we can help you with is ID'ing when it needs doing before it's super urgent. This can let you shop the swap out. Basically the motors will all sound "louder" while running if you need one as they struggle to maintain a smooth voltage curve.
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Oct 19, 2023 00:13
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Motronic posted:They typically drill a 2-3" hole at the top and bottom of each stud bay. They can core drill the bricks and replace the cores or perhaps even remove bricks and put them back in (you'd likely need a mason to do this for them). They can also do this from the inside but it's messier for you. Patching the plaster is no big deal because it's just small holes. How annoying this will be also depends on if you can match the color/wanted to paint that wall anyway. Still gonna look into the energy audit and find a local insulation outfit but curious the thread's thoughts too since it occurred to me later--how's blow in insulation intersect with knowing down the road you're gonna need to get into some walls? (in my case, mix of old plaster, electrical updates, radiator plumbing) do you just call 'em back to redo a couple stud bays or what?
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Oct 19, 2023 02:16
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The idea behind blown in insulation is it stops air movement and leaks vertically through the bays. if you need to open one and move insulation around a bit its no big deal. If you do end up pulling it all out to do renovations then yeah you can either call them back or, since you have the bay open anyway, just buy some batts and stuff it in manually.
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Oct 19, 2023 02:57
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It means that you make a huge mess when you cut into the walls. But it's just shredded paper so you vacuum it up and move on.
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Oct 19, 2023 03:20
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Thanks y’all. Turns out the utility atraight up pays for the audit so I don’t even have to pay out of pocket and then go file a rebate. Do we talk about radiator plumbing in here or the plumbing thread?
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Oct 25, 2023 12:36
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Hey all, I'm thinking about adding a thermostat on a Mitsubishi ductless heat pump. Small question, but when I go to turn power off at the disconnect to do the work, is there anything I need to do other than make sure all the heads are off and that the condenser isn't running before cutting the power? Anything I need to do before powering it back on? For some reason just flipping the disconnect off and back on feels too simple.
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Nov 1, 2023 18:36
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When I pulled the power on mine to clean it out, I made sure all the head units are off first, and then when I checked the outside unit it was also off, and then I felt comfortable killing the power. I think I went straight for the breaker, rather than worry about that dinky little disconnect outside in the box.
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Nov 1, 2023 22:09
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They are all made to survive a loss of utility power when running and start back up properly and safely when it returns. There is absolutely nothing specific you need to do. Even if you cycle the breaker/disconnect quickly they are all designed to protect themselves with a startup delay for situations where you power just blinks out for a couple seconds.
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Nov 1, 2023 22:13
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Sounds great, thank you both.
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Nov 1, 2023 22:30
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the yeti posted:Thanks y’all. Turns out the utility atraight up pays for the audit so I don’t even have to pay out of pocket and then go file a rebate. Had that done today, got some good info I think. The guy noted a couple things besides the insulation issues I already am working on: - Put weather stripping around my crawlspace access door (and also on the attic door until I get tthe attic insulated) - Insulate the rim joist with foam board and expanding foam (the internet seems to this is commonly done so I'm guessing there's no danger of sealing up water against the joist here) These ones kinda made me raise an eyebrow: - Consider insulating basement hot water pipes less to heat basement air more - Don't insulate the basement ceiling, so any heat in the basement can rise into house (plan was 1/4" fan fold foam Motronic and I were discussing somewhere else) Those last two seem like they would only make sense in a finished block wall basement with below grade insulation. There's no chance of treating the air in a sandstone wall basement in the northeast as part of the conditioned air envelope of the house right?
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Nov 2, 2023 23:25
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Should I have my heat pump cut over to the oil furnace for heating at a certain temperature? The heat pump is rated down to -15f (it's a Samsung AM048TXMDCH) and I'm in Connecticut so it just about never gets that cold outside, but I understand that hest pumps lose efficiency the colder it gets. Both the furnace and the heat pump only have one zone, so it's not like I gain any efficiency with either one by being selective about the rooms I heat.
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Nov 11, 2023 20:36
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Usually the bigger deal is that heat pumps lose capacity at lower outside temperatures. So if it can do 100k btu at 40f outside, it may only be able to pump half that at 0f. The question is at what outside air temperature is this de rating enough where it cannot keep up with the needed heat load necessary to keep your room temperature setpoint. the engineering spec sheet for the unit should have a derating chart somewhere on it. then if you know how much heat you need at x oa temperature, you can figure out your switchover setpoint. Or you can just let er roll and find out expirimentally.
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Nov 12, 2023 04:00
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Hi all, I’m currently interested in a new house and when asking about the heating system it was an “electromagnetic furnace” and googling this I only seem to get big industrial applications for smelting metal and such. Might the realtor have it confused? It was in the crawlspace (clean concrete slab) and used forced air ducts around the house. Apparently it was used to keep dust down? Does this make sense? Also has an AC unit tied in as well for cooling. Just wondering if this would be a good solution or possibly look for something more efficient like a heat pump. In our climate (PNW) heat pumps are pretty much ideal and could potentially use this electromagnetic furnace as supplemental heat when it is really cold.
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Nov 12, 2023 04:45
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The dust comment makes me wonder if the realtor is confusing the energy used with it having electrostatic dust control or something.
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Nov 12, 2023 05:11
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the yeti posted:The dust comment makes me wonder if the realtor is confusing the energy used with it having electrostatic dust control or something. That’s what I was wondering too, I have one of those on my ancient gas furnace (but it seems some good filters are better anyway)
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Nov 12, 2023 05:23
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MRC48B posted:Usually the bigger deal is that heat pumps lose capacity at lower outside temperatures. Nice I didn't know about the capacity drop too. I'll definitely look at the spec sheet. That's a great piece of info. Thank you!
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Nov 12, 2023 13:46
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Yeah that realtor is clueless. the furnace is probably gas/oil with an electrostatic dust collector. which are great, when they are new. what happens is the power supply dies or gets weak over time and the effectiveness drops a lot. since you are in PNW, highly recommend an air to air heat pump, especially if the AC split is over 12 years old.
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Nov 12, 2023 15:19
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MRC48B posted:Yeah that realtor is clueless. the furnace is probably gas/oil with an electrostatic dust collector. I would assume the collector…..thingies? Electrodes? Need cleaning like crazy too right?
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Nov 12, 2023 15:37
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The particle collectors are basically stainless steel mesh grids, but yes you just throw those in the dishwasher.
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Nov 12, 2023 15:53
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The other piece that people sort of mumble and cover their mouth when talking about is they produce ozone as a byproduct of operation, a lung irritant. Generally just stick to better filtration and you will overall have a more pleasant experience. Basically for the same size box you can install a Big Honkin Media Filter that you change once or twice a year for better filtration and less irritation/smell. For Example: https://www.aprilaire.com/whole-house-products/air-purifiers/model-1210 https://www.honeywellhome.com/us/en/products/air/air-filtration/air-cleaners/20-in-x-25-in-media-air-cleaner-f100f2025-u/
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Nov 12, 2023 16:46
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We need to have another look at the place (in daytime this time, drat sunset at 4 something these days) and I will go into the crawl space to have a look at the brand/model. Also just want to look at the crawlspace. The hot water heater is on demand (gas) so yeah I’m pretty sure it would be a gas furnace probably with that zapper style filter thingie. Also good to get a look at the crawl space, apparently nice and clean on a slab with 4’ height so potential good storage as well.
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Nov 12, 2023 18:23
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I’m pissed about my HVAC unit and I don’t know of a feasible solution. I’ve got an upstairs and downstairs. I also have oil heat with three zones, one of which is upstairs. I also have a mini split ducted unit upstairs with vents to our 3 upstairs bedrooms. In a perfect world, we’d use the heat pump upstairs for most of the heat until it gets too cold to be efficient (it’s not a hyper unit, so I think once it goes below freezing, it’s not as efficient-Mitsubishi model. One problem is the location of the thermostats. The oil and the ducted unit thermostats are both in the upstairs hallway. We leave our bedroom open because we’ve got a cat, but the other two bedrooms stay closed because we’ve got young kids. We usually turn the mini split unit which controls half the downstairs area off at night, because there’s no need to keep that going. We also turn the oil down to about 62, just so it’s not freezing when we wake up and go downstairs. So we don’t have a lot of heat rising upstairs to those thermostats in the hallway. And 2 out of the 3 bedroom doors are closed. This leads to the thermostats over compensating because the two closed bedrooms can get super hot (even with closing the vents partially) because the thermostat doesn’t sense it’s warming up so it keeps chugging along. Normally at night we have the thermostat for the heat pump upstairs set to 63 degrees which seems to maintain a temperature in the two boy’s bedrooms of about 63-67. If we drop it to 62, the boys bedroom sinks to 60 degrees. If we increase it to 64, the boys bedrooms jump to 70+ degrees. Not sure what else I could do besides move the actual thermostat inside one of their rooms. And looking at the wiring, that would be a pain.
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Nov 12, 2023 19:19
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Replace your thermostat with one that supports wireless remote sensors. Those are battery operated.
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Nov 12, 2023 19:53
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H110Hawk posted:Replace your thermostat with one that supports wireless remote sensors. Those are battery operated. Yep, ecobee will work pretty nicely for that (probably others too, that's just the one I have)
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Nov 13, 2023 00:50
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H110Hawk posted:Replace your thermostat with one that supports wireless remote sensors. Those are battery operated. I’ve had ecobee and their sensors before in some previous houses but I don’t think they’ll work with my Mitsubishi. The Mitsubishi uses a proprietary thermostat. https://www.reddit.com/r/thermostats/s/IPjteW0kFd
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Nov 13, 2023 01:27
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nwin posted:I’ve had ecobee and their sensors before in some previous houses but I don’t think they’ll work with my Mitsubishi. The Mitsubishi uses a proprietary thermostat. I hate the complete lack of consumer protections around this poo poo. Which thermostat do you have?
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Nov 13, 2023 02:21
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H110Hawk posted:I hate the complete lack of consumer protections around this poo poo. Which thermostat do you have? https://www.acwholesalers.com/Mitsu...k0aAuNhEALw_wcB BUT-for the low low price of an extra $250, I can get their WiFi adapter to link up with their lovely Kumo Cloud app. https://www.acwholesalers.com/Mitsubishi-PAC-USWHS002-WF-2/p102719.html Then I can also pay an additional $55 to get a room sensor: https://www.acwholesalers.com/Mitsubishi-PAC-USWHS003-TH-1/p81573.html However, that’s not necessarily going to solve my problem since it’s only one room it’s mediating the temps towards. So yeah, maybe for an extra $300 I can get something close to the ecobee, but all the reviews I read are so lovely that I’m worried about going that route.
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Nov 13, 2023 02:58
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So I don't think I'm googling this right, or it is more complex than it seems. Which is why I'm turning to this thread. Basically I have a regular old boring thermostat I want to replace with a smart thermostat. I was looking at Ecobee's which require a C wire. When I open up my thermostat I have 3 wires (W,G, R) and a gold clip connecting R to Rc  The drop from the thermostat to the furnace room is simple, and I'm confident in pulling wires but I can't figure out how to how to wire this all together to get c-wire power. Basically is this something I can do, wire the furnace with a new 8 wire strand? (I'm not sure about heat pumps, but pulling an 8 wire isn't more difficult that 5 wire) or if I'm confused at this stage just pay an HVAC guy to wire this up properly and not worry about it. EDIT: or I realize that the furnace panel is actually 2 panels to a circuit board which also comes with a circuit board diagram which now gives me more information with a very helpful empty C terminal.... now I need to figure out the steps of changing wires from the 3 strand to an 8 strand after I pull it.... Chillyrabbit fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 23:17
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You basically got it. Take a picture of both sides BEFORE you remove the wires. Look at your furnace wiring diagram (it's on the service panel you removed to see the wires) and look at which wires mean what. Make em match on both sides and you're golden. It's also likely printed right on the board. Pull as many as you can and you will be good for any number of features you add down the line.
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Nov 20, 2023 00:10
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Wonder why I had a hard start this morning. Truly a mystery. (No, I haven't done the annual service since I cleaned the chimney and the heat exchanger, I was "saving that for later")
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Nov 20, 2023 01:42
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 Ah yes, listed under "hosed."
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Nov 22, 2023 06:06
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Oh, hey, who knew oil furnace controls designed in the 2000s are better than ones designed in the 60s. Just replaced my old junk with a Beckett Genisys 7505 and got the reader/programmer. It stores the last few runs (time, cad eye ohms maximum and average, time to fire) and has all kinds of interesting features like........it can control the blower and ignitors separately because it has individual terminals for all of that instead of all the junk I'm used to where you just wire nut everything together and they all turn on at the same time when there's a call for heat. I also replaced the ignitor with a new one and a new cad eye due to some random hard starts last season and one after my annual service this year (new electrodes and nozzle, etc). Random, hard to track down. So I figured I'd do this so I could probably parts canon fix it but also have some data if it doesn't/for later. It does fire a lot faster now so this probably all comes down to the doom loop of a weak ignitor fouling electrodes and the colder it is/less draft because of a lump of cold air in your chimney the harder it is to fire. I really don't know the strategy of the apollo spacecraft era Honeywell controller that used to be on there but I know it was real bad because it had oil + ignitors on for way too long before ignition lockout to get the kind of hard starts I'd run into. I'd mostly recognize this because I'd hear the clanging of my cleanout cap getting ejected from the chimney and bouncing across the basement floor.
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Nov 24, 2023 23:56
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  I'm very excited to not have "dry air" in the house again due to santa ana winds or heating/cooling etc. Spec'd sweated copper connections, no saddle valves for hookup. Written into the contract. The ductwork install looks great so far. I'm very excited.
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Nov 25, 2023 01:44
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That was my project last year. Makes such a huge difference (on my power bill too! It's like $100/mo during the heating season!)
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Nov 25, 2023 15:25
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Motronic posted:That was my project last year. Makes such a huge difference (on my power bill too! It's like $100/mo during the heating season!) This is why I'm (in engineering design) on installing a near 13kw rooftop solar system.  Looking at the city requirements I'm into all the nitty gritty - they require a lot of roof details. Size, spacing, slope, span, grade of rafters/trusses, plus a load calc (roof weight) and a load calc (electrical at all points, including any derating, and source/dest placards or labels on conductors) plus LA County FD stamps on everything. That PE is earning his stamp with mine. Hoping there's nothing that spooks the city/FD. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Nov 25, 2023 |
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Nov 25, 2023 15:45
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I’ve had my Mitsubishi system for almost a year and a half now — I ended up getting Sensibo Air units to control the units after getting a single Kumo (crazy long lead time…) and realizing how lovely the app was. The Sensibo are not perfect, but they work in HomeKit and I get good temperature data from them. I was originally hoping that they could act as a remote temp sensor out of the box, and do sort-of closed loop control around the unit set points, but I don’t think that is the case. I could write a HA script (probably) that commands the ACs based on a number of sensors, but what is the “right” Mitsubishi part-number / product for true remote temperature setpoint functionality? It’s only my living room that is big enough / placement wise that I think I need this — the bedrooms are small and have doors, so I don’t think I need it there. Units are the MLZ-KPxxNA, the in-ceiling units, attached to a HyperHeat outdoor unit.
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Nov 26, 2023 22:34
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tl;dr: Is there an "easy" way to retrofit an old (60+ years) heating system to power the thermostat? I've got a 60 year old steam boiler with just two wires that run from it to my thermostat upstairs. We used to have just a simple Honeywell dial thermostat, that I assume just worked by connecting the circuit of those two wires when the temperature dropped below the set point. We had an energy audit and the thermostat got replaced by something fancier with a digital display and schedules and batteries. That was about 2.5 years ago, and this weekend I woke up with the heat off and the thermostat dead. I replaced the batteries and I'm back in business, but is there some way to retrofit this to provide power to the thermostat?
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Nov 27, 2023 19:04
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FISHMANPET posted:tl;dr: Is there an "easy" way to retrofit an old (60+ years) heating system to power the thermostat? Yes. You need to be able to run more wires to the thermostat location. That's going to likely be the hardest part. Past that you need to show us where those thermostat wires connect to your furnace at the furnace and any nameplates. The tstat itself may be 120v in which case there is a contactor and transformer in your future, or it may just be a standard 24vac system where you need to connect a wire to the common on the transformer and get it up to the thermostat location.
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Nov 27, 2023 19:52
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