Maybe someone can lead me in the right direction here. Heat pump had been working fine and then slowly began to degrade in effectiveness. Turns out the refrigerant had leaked out. HVAC company asked about possibility of some one huffing it to get high. Anyway it was refilled back in late spring early summer. Now when it turns on, the outside unit will start and stop 2 or 3 times before it stays in all while the furnace fan continues to run. After those 2 or three initial times it stays on and does it's thing correctly. It's not short cycling, it's just the outside unit on and off and it kicks off for like 2 seconds before kicking back on not even enough time for fan to quit making noise. I have an ecobee thermostat and it is a single stage carrier. Getting low in refrigerant again maybe? Thanks.
HVAC help.
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EbS-P
Minister of Fire
Dix
Minister of Fire
What make?
They should have evacuated, re flared (all) , & recharged. If they are replacing the 410, it's probably going somewhere.
Error codes ,if any ?
They should have evacuated, re flared (all) , & recharged. If they are replacing the 410, it's probably going somewhere.
Error codes ,if any ?
I'd have the refrigerant checked again. Sounds like it's right on the verge of being to low. Seems like the stat calls for heat and the compressor attempts to start but the low pressure switch cuts it of. Maybe it builds enough pressure or warms enough to build pressure in a few tries. I'm not HVAC guy but this is what happened to one of ours at the office.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
If you had a leak and They didn’t find it, you probably still have a leak.
Agreed. It got worse yesterday. I shut it down completely and using the propane aux now.
Yep. Leaky Schrader valve. Prob same leak last time. I'll bet they put dye in last time and found it this time. That was about 6 months ago.
Dix
Minister of Fire
Should. Guess there's no way of proving anything. I don't have to use the same guy anymore though.
Going back a few years there was an industry wide problem with the valves leaking. There was a fix, But I can't remember it anymore. put in a new ac unit( old one was from apx 1971 and I was the one that put it in) and the new condenser unit was doing the same thing. IFIRM correctly there are only 2 mfg of the valves dosen't matter whose name is on the unit.
Just as an update the compressor went out. It would only run for a couple minutes at a time before locking up. Same company replaced the compressor which was under parts warranty but at $800 labor. They did give me a $300 discount since they have came out so much which comes out to $500 replacement labor. Not sure I'm saving much with this heat pump/ac system. I've put an extra $1750 in it since 2020 install.
That's a bummer. I wonder if the compressor failed due to a poor install? What make/model heat pump?
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Sadly, this has also been my experience with most of my heat pumps. We currently have five if you don't count refrigerators, or eleven if you do. They fail so frequently that any potential savings in fuel costs are almost invariably undone by repair costs. We may be saving fossil fuels and carbon, but I don't think we're saving money.
My oil-fired boiler is coming up on 40 years old, and has only had one minor issue in the 12 years we've lived here, even then able to limp along while we awaited a $100 repair. Go figure.
i would be doing less work but i wish more people would figure it out. they spend 15,000 dollars to save 1 to 2% efficiency when they will not even closely cut even. and that's with future fuel bills factored in
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
2009 unit had the blower die. $1100. Probably died due to clogged coil. That’s it’s for cost. Now I clean my own coil. 16 seer has probably paid for the extra cost of what would have been standard 12 at the time.
Hvac more about who does the work than the equipment.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
If clogged coils were the issue, then yes. I had the same issue on one of my minisplits last year, in a dusty shop. Resolved myself.
But the 25 month old fridge that just died, which replaced another that lasted only 6 years, which replaced another that lasted only 8 years, and the HVAC indoor + outdoor units I had to replace last summer due to a leak internal to the air handler + the failed cooling fan on another outdoor unit + at least one motor capacitor between the half dozen units on this property every year... generates a lot of service calls for someone who can't do all this work on their own.
I do have one very old (nearing 40 years?) Carrier HVAC system that handles about 2/3 of our house, and I think runs R12 or R22. It just keeps trucking. It is on its third outdoor cooling fan motor. With three capacitors in the outdoor + one on the indoor unit, it probably averages one capacitor replacement every 2nd or 3rd year, which I usually handle myself as I've caught HVAC guys using the wrong value when that's all they have on their truck. If you can do this basic stuff, it limits the cost of repairs on older and seemingly-more reliable units to just the cost of the parts. But I'm not sure how many are willing to tear into the system on their own, before calling a service guy, when it stops working.
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Ashful
Minister of Fire
I think I'm missing what you're saying, here. I spent a little over $4k on my most recent heat pump, whereas the alternative was a gas unit at less than $2k. But the difference in efficiency was NOT only 1% to 2%, no matter what metric you use for comparison. I use dollars, others may use carbon... whatever.
Your $15k number makes me think you can only be talking about geothermal, as I don't know any other heat pump system with differential cost (over the less-efficient alternative) anywhere near that high. But again, unless you're living in a climate too warm to really justify geothermal, the savings is likely to be much higher than 2%.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
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