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Curious if there's anybody who knows natural gas stuff in this thread, or if the plumbing one is more appropriate. Are those outdoor quick disconnects I occasionally see ever allowable/code in the USA? For things like grills, patio heaters, nat gas generators, etc... Presumably with a quick disconnect you're using a flexible/rubber hose instead of the semi-bendable spiral stuff, and I wonder what codes or common sense say about those, too. I was considering getting an external hookup that could be used temporarily for a natural gas generator, but maybe interchangeable also for a large wok burner or similar.
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May 15, 2021 22:29
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 19:53 |
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I just turned on my furnace today and I feel like there's a vibration that's associated with the combustion air blower instead of the main blower. You can basically feel it through the floor through your feet when it first kicks in and starts heating up, and then noticeably it stops ~20 seconds before the main blower does when it cycles off, so it must be related to the actual combustion system. I didn't notice anything with the AC running a few weeks ago either. But it seems weird, the combustion fan is much smaller than the main blower, and there's no sound like a bad bearing or anything. It's as if it went out of balance on its own somehow? How the hell would that happen? The only other thing I can think is they replaced my gas meter a few weeks ago, and the water heater has been fine, but could there be... I don't know, trapped oxygen doing something weird in the line causing a pulsating effect? Probably a ridiculous idea.
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Oct 9, 2022 17:32
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MRC48B posted:is it the combustion motor, or the actual burners making the sound. I don't really know. It sounds/feels just like a rumble or vibration, almost like a fridge compressor running kind of sound, and you can feel the vibration touching it or standing on the floor above it. More than anything it just sort of sounds unnaturally loud considering the main blower is fairly quiet. We have CO detectors on all 3 floors of the house and haven't noticed any unusual smell or anything so I don't think I'm getting combustion gas into the actual air system which I'm assuming means the heat exchanger doesn't have holes. I'll double check the exhaust vent outside when it's running but I think if the exhaust was blocked in some way it would shut off, no?
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Oct 9, 2022 20:09
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Well the gas meter was replaced about a month ago, and this is the first time I've run the heat this fall. So I'm trying to remember how loud it was last spring and who knows. Hopefully I can tell if the vibration starts before ignition though I don't think the inducer runs for very long before ignition.
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Oct 10, 2022 00:26
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It 100% is the combustion/inducer fan. The vibration starts as it reaches top speed, there's some kind of resonance. The poor little pressure diaphragm (that detects inlet/outlet pressure difference I think) is attached to the inducer and getting shaken like crazy. Not violently but to the eye it's blurry. Which can't be good for it long term. There's no sound from the bearings at all, and visually the motor itself doesn't appear to be vibrating much. What I've seen online indicates sometimes tweaking the tension on the soft/rubber mounts the inducer is on might help with vibration, but the way the mounts work don't look like that's possible. Otherwise I'm not sure how practical it would be to take the cover of the inducer fan off, there's a few things in the way. The inducer fan looks like a normal 120v AC fan according to the label, except it has 4 wires + ground instead of 2 + ground, so that's a little odd. I was hoping I could easily run the inducer by itself with the rest of the furnace powered off.
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Oct 10, 2022 01:20
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I can see now obviously the extra wiring is just for the run capacitor. It's this unit, https://www.amazon.com/JE1D013N-Carrier-Furnace-Inducer-Replacement/dp/B00EZWSAQ0 JE1D013N, so $320. There's a part that looks nearly identical sold as 320725-756, which runs more like $220. I'll have to try to verify which one exactly I can/should use, for a Bryant 90 Plus. EDIT: Notably, I think it has leaked condensation in the past, which they 'fixed' to whatever degree, so obviously they opened this small housing in the past and re-sealed it at least once. So must be possible to pop it open and check for crap and re-seal it. I can't tell if it's closed w/ a gasket or looks like just a bead of silicone squeezing out around all the edges. I'd be comfortable replacing the whole thing too, most of it is straightforward there's just the PVC pipe and the drain line, the only part I'm unsure about is how it seals at the back. Rescue Toaster fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 02:40
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Well I got a new inducer fan assembly for my furnace and this one doesn't seem especially well balanced either. Holding it up on edge (the orientation it'd be mounted in) on a workbench I can hear/feel the bench vibrate slightly from the fan running on top. I'd really hate to get through the whole installation and find out it's not much better... The old one vibrates enough to give the whole furnace an audible rattle, the inducer is louder than the main blower, and the pressure valve that's mounted to the inducer vibrates enough it's hard to read the lettering on it while it's running. So I'm guessing the new one would at least be better than that, but I don't know if I should try to swap the new one or not, if it should be perfectly smooth or not when first out of the box?
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Oct 18, 2022 03:37
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Hey does anybody know a tool for laying out duct transitions? I need to go from 4" round duct to a rectangular 8.125" x 3.5" shape, over a length of around 5-8 inches. I can cut it or even CNC it out of a couple materials, but I can't find anything online to help me design it. The best I could find was this thing: https://letsfab.in/online-calculators/transition-calculator/ But it leaves a ton for the user to calculate, as it were. All the angles and relative positions of every point, for example. EDIT: I'm realizing now that a 4" circle is basically the same as a 3.5" x 3.5" square in both area and circumference, so I can probably just sort of fudge it. Rescue Toaster fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Jul 7, 2023 |
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Jul 7, 2023 02:49
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Is there any middle ground between 'just open a window and let the heat/cold out' and 'full blown centrally installed heat recovery air exchanger' in terms of getting fresh air in the house during winter or the height of summer? Our climate is lovely enough that probably 7-8 months of the year we're either using AC or heat. I'd really like to get some fresh air in the house more often, and CO2 levels get surprisingly high for just two people and a cat living here.
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Oct 14, 2023 01:45
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We don't rent but I don't necessarily want to sink a ton of money into this house right now, as we might be looking at moving in the next year or two. So semi-permanent or lower-impact stuff, even if not as good as full blown central system are worth considering.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:00
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Fair enough. Though I'm curious how on earth I could calculate the payoff for something like that compared to opening two windows and letting a breeze blow through my house when it's either 15F, 0% humidity or 88F and 80% humidity outside.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:08
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I noticed the insulation on the cold return from my AC unit has completely disintegrated. It was probably bad last year and I didn't notice. There's some tarnished (green) areas of the copper pipe, but nothing that I think looks like deep corrosion, and the unit seems to be working fine. It seems like replacing the insulation isn't that big of a deal, there's some premade pipe sections from brands like armaflex or k-flex that appear to be what I'd want for outdoor use. And some insulating tape to use right at each end. My questions would be: 1) Is there anything I could/should do to clean the green/tarnished areas of the pipe before re-wrapping? To make sure it doesn't continue to corrode underneath. 2) The pipes enter the house at a weird angle, so there's a big glob of what looks like black spray foam insulation around the entry point. On a total blind guess is there some kind of UV-resistant black spray foam insulation you would use in a case like that? It has some holes in it and is cracking and getting soft, and I'd need to tear it out to wrap insulation tape around the last inch or so, and then fill the area it meets the siding.
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Apr 15, 2024 16:34
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 19:53 |
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Motronic posted:Are you talking about the suction line? The larger of the two copper lines that go between your compressopr unit outside and the evaperator inside? If so, just buy some split pipe insulation of the right size and replace the damaged section. If you want to go around shining brass first you can do that but it's doubtful it will have any impact at all. Yes the larger copper line, suction line sounds right. That's exactly what I'm planning to do I just didn't know if there was any need to clean it before wrapping it to not 'trap' anything inside. However, looking at pictures & websites of people doing this, most of the pipes look like a penny that has been sitting in the bottom of a fish tank for 50 years and they seem to be rewrapping them without concern.
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Apr 15, 2024 17:36
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