I was thinking as....

[SidecarFlip]

I read along on the pellet stove technicians therapy thread wonder if the room air blowers were that loaded with pet hair and filth, what the refrigeration coils on the customers refrigerators look like....????

I bet they are a putrid mess too and we all know they never get cleaned....lol

 

[heat seeker]

And they're breathing and rebreathing the air that passes through that filth.

I've seen some pretty nasty ones in my time; I wonder how much the compressor life was reduced, and power wasted over time.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I bet that 'energy star' fridge turns into an energy hog......lol My wife cleans ours regularly with the vacuum and she has a long handled skinny brush too. We found out the hard and expensive way bout keeping the coils clean. When they cannot transfer the heat, the compressor pukes and that is a couple hundred buck fix and not something you can do yourself or at least I cannot.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Along those lines, we can probably add replaceable central furnace filters as well. If people are as lax a about maintaining their bio mass stoves as they appear to be, I bet they never or seldom change or clean their central furnace filters. They forget about them (conveniently) and then look to alternate heat sources as the airflow degrades because the furnace filters are loaded with filth.

A central furnace is only as efficient as the air flow is across the heat exchangers and as clean and soot / dirt free the burners are.

My furnace filters get changed every 6 months whether I use it or not because I may need it and I want it to be working properly, same with the burners. They get cleaned yearly and the hot surface ignitor gets checked as well as the draft inducer mechanism and controls at the same time and, I keep a spare ignitor with the furnaces (in my home and my rental houses) at all times because the HSI is an expendable part and ignitor failure = no heat. No heat = pissed renters and of course I don't allow biomass stoves in my rental properties. My insurance carrier would cancel my rental owner policies in a second if I allowed that. I don't even allow portable resistance heating in any of my leases. If my renters use portable resistance heating and I don't know about it, then I'm covered and they pay their own electric bills and gas bills anyway.

Rental units get changed monthly. My tenants do not have access to the physical plant (I have the furnace and HWH as well as the well controls in a separate locked room that they have no access to. Don't need any tenant fiddling with that stuff as most don't know poop from applebutter anyway. Something fails, call me and I'll address it or have it professionally addressed asap. Been there, did that and I always have to 'fix' what some tenant with 'good intentions' screwed up.

 

[rickwai]

What you have to remember is the majority of us are troubleshooters on here. I have been in service my whole life. Servicing pool equipment and pools along and my own stuff at the house and cars if I can handle it. And Stoves in the winter. We see first hand seen what lack of service does. Most people dont think about it. But like the old saying goes" If it wasnt for people like that there would no need for people like us."

 

[SidecarFlip]

Fair statement. I'm not but I do have common sense when it comes to all things mechanical so common sense dictates (at least to me) that mechanical stuff, which includes ALL heat plants, conventional (gas or propane), or resistance (electrical) or biomass / solid fuel heat plants, all require consistent maintenance and replacement of expendable parts. Of course that encompasses everything mechanical, vehicles included. Guess that is why I change my own oil / filters and grease and maintain my own farm equipment to the limits of my ability and why I don't hesitate to pay someone else for their knowledge and expertise when I have exceeded my knowledge base or comfort level.. My philosophy simply is, if I feel I'm in over my head, I call a professional and let them do it. Better tp pay them than for me to screw it up and then pay twice. Once for them to repair something and again for me to screw it up and have them correct my stupidity.

Do I like paying 100 dollars an hour shop time not including parts when the dealer works on one of my farm tractors? Of course not but it's cheaper than me screweing it up and then paying that anyway for them to correct my stupidity and stubbornness.

 

[heat seeker]

Wisdom in action, right there.