Random Rant Thread (no moto content)

Dirt_Dad

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We woke up to a cold house this morning. Furnace didn't come on.
Reminds me of the first and only new house we bought. Move-in was April. By heating season, we woke up to a cold house on the lower level (dual zone). Got in touch with the installer, he came out and got it going. Few days later, happens again. Call the installer. He can't come immediately but talks me through taking off the cover, pulling a hose and sucking on it. Sure enough, starts right up.

Go through this dance for weeks. He comes over a few times, always telling me it's fixed. Days later I'm sucking off the furnace again. Getting no satisfaction from my installer, I contact the manufacturer. Now they are send out some top guy from the factory and they want my installer to be there when they arrive. My installer actually shows up a day early and replaces some part that had been cracked and he tried to glue it together. He said "to make sure they don't try to blame that part for the problem." Factory guy came out, found some small deviation somewhere and had a part replaced. Never any more problems.

That was also the furnace that taught me not to be so casual about small gauge wires powering little motors. They are not always DC. I was fortunate not to find out the hard way. That one could have gone very poorly and I'd have only myself to blame. Never forgot that lesson.
 
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ballisticexchris

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What do you guys in southern California and Mississippi need furnaces for?
I have a mother in law with stage 4-5 Alzheimer's. She is freezing year round. Even in the summer heat. Summer is brutal. I have to tape up the vents where she sits, yet let it get cool enough she does not overheat.

In MS it gets pretty darn cold. I flew into Gulfport and it was 18 deg in the early morning. This was in the 80's. So with global warming and all it might not get that cold anymore:)
 

Tenman

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I've work on oil rigs in the winter in Ms. High humidity and 32 degrees with some wind blowing. I've seen guys from up north freezing their ass off
 

Sierra1

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global warming , more cool-aid to drink.....
I believe global warming is real, just not for the reason(s) they're trying to convince us of. I believe it's just cyclic. I watch shows that talk about past civilizations. Several appear to be far from water, now. But, the show(s) speaks about how much higher the ocean levels were a few thousand years ago.
 

EricV

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EricV

I wonder if your situation was a one off.

I think a chat with your neighbors might be wise. It would suck that you chased down those gremlins just to have a house 2 doors down blow up and take out your place too.

I am amazed what people will do cut corners.
Already done. Our house and a neighbor house were rentals for a while. The other neighbors close to use are original owners and know the history of our house and their own, etc. The previous owner of our house was a local pastor, who solicited a lot of questionable assistance/favors to get things done to this house for cheap. I could go on, but no point. They bought it cheap, fixed it as cheap as they could and rented it out, then let their adult kids live in it, hoping they would buy it. They had no pride in ownership and knew they were not going to stay, so did not care for the house well. The Pastor did some good things, but we've been fixing things and improving. It's a comfortable home for us now. I just still encounter things where corners were cut now and then, like the furnace this time.
 

HeliMark

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Bought my current house about a year ago. HVAC system was about 9 months old, and for cheapness, when they changed it, they left on the original thermostat. The one that is manual, and has the mercury in it. Didn't care for that, and it took almost a full day to change it to a wireless one I put on. The HVAC was installed by a friend of a friend, for a good price. All the wire colors were mismatched, and I have no idea how it actually was working, so I ended up having to redo the wires. Of course while doing that, and looking at the output from the HVAC outside, they never sealed it going into the house.
 

EricV

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Pretty amazing. I too, had the original thermostat from '80. Little round mechanical one with mercury. That took some calls to dispose of correctly.
 

Cycledude

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Lots of stuff these days don’t last , the new furnace I put in my house only lasted 23 years and the heat exchanger cracked so the new Rheem furnace I replaced it with about 5 years ago has a lifetime warranty on the heat exchanger, but holy cow that furnace was expensive ! I did get lucky enough to buy it when the government had one of those energy saving promotions going on. I also bought a new refrigerator with one of those energy saving promotions.

Thankfully the Hot water heater I bought brand-new over 30 years ago is still working fine but I’ve heard of way to many folks having hot water heater fail in less than 10 years.
 
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Madhatter

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2 years ago I decided it was time to conceder replacing our central air system . over 20 years old and sized too small for the footage of our home . also developed a need for freon about twice a year ,and that was adding up to some money.... so wife and I ask a large known company to come over and do a survey and estimate to replace our old system ...... 10500.00 was the estimate , wife was standing behind the guy about to pass out. told the guy we will have to give this some thought . so on to the net . and I find on a couple of sites the name "goodman" , find a company called AC Wholesalers , and start studying their site. and as I am out and about I start noticing Goodman AC units here and there . at apartment complexes a lot . talk to everyone I know even some folks I don't about what they no about AC's. cut to the chase , I bought a 3 ton heat pump system , new fancy thermostat , and certain other small items . AC wholesalers took my order over the phone , made sure I got what I needed . about 7 days later a big freight truck delivers to my house . had a young man I no to install it for 500.00 (not bad money for 6 hours of work ), Total cost was 3200.00 installed . so a few told me goodman is builders grade ,don't do it. I watched enough youtube about AC and installation that the real issue is installation quality that makes a difference not brand snobbery . if goodman was so bad why would you put 500 units in an apartment , an AC guy would have to live there. goodman is a large American company building a great product for a great price . when I talked to the professional AC guys , none would give me a unit price , worse than a used car dealer . completely shady is the industry . the new unit is quiet and has lowered our bill by 50% or more . it no longer struggles to keep the house cool in our brutal Texas summers . so with the money I didn't spend on the AC the wife let me buy the honda crf450 x . and it is more fun than an AC .
 

EricV

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Furnace not working again this morning... Same scenario as last time.

So... @Madhatter - I saw the Goodman stuff and ACWholesalers. Significant price differences and they carry Rheem too. Thanks for the heads up. For our needs, if we need to replace, I'm looking at a 75,000 btu updraft unit. Probably go with the standard 80% effeceincy version, what we have now as electricity/gas is pretty cheap here. Although I will be checking out the 96% units too. We have a Heil 75k single stage unit now. Heil is well rated, so I'll be looking at that too.

Wish I 'knew a guy' to go to for install, but will have to network locally and see if anyone pops up. No idea if the local HVAC businesses are good, bad or average. We do have experience with a guy that did all our gas lines for the re-model and is licensed for gas/electric/plumbing, so he's definitely going to get a shot at the install if we go down that road.
 

EricV

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Not fun but necessary. It also feels good once everything is sorted out and working.
I agree. We know the furnace will need to be replaced at some point. Not sure if that will be now or not. At least it's not in the middle of a winter storm. Bought a space heater to keep wife happy today. We'll see where this takes us.

For ~$730 I can pick up a Goodman 80% 80k unit in the right physical size for our install. That's less than I expected for a multi-speed ECM fan unit. 10 year warranty and replacement heat exchanger warranty, lifetime heat exchanger warranty.

Right now, we're being told it's a control board that is shorting to ground and frying the transformer. The new transformer is shot, but they aren't going to charge us for a replacement transformer. Control board is $164, which is only a $40 mark up over online ordering one, so considering the shipping cost for the board, it's not terrible. Why the board is shorting out is still a question. And why it didn't appear to be bad before is also unknown.

I'm hoping this time around will be the fix. Have to wait until tomorrow for the new board. Hopefully.
 

EricV

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Keep or get a fire extinguisher near that space heater.
Always a good idea. Ceramic disk with a thermostat and not close to anything flammable.
 

EricV

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I had one spitting out sparks. I Always get the ones with the most safety stuff but you never know.
Too bad you didn't have an old mobile home that you needed to get rid of...
 

Sierra1

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A couple of years ago, I had to replace my HVAC system. Went with Trane over Goodman, mainly because I had never heard of Goodman. Both had similar prices, and identical warranties. About a year after the install, while the service guy was out replacing a part that apparently is a known issue with Trane, he was telling me that he considers Goodman to be the best system. Yes, Trane has a 10 year warranty, no, the part that was replaced was not covered. Live and learn.
 

Madhatter

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Eric v , hope you find a guy to do the install . some times you just need to ask the guy driving the h vac truck , if he does side work for cash , or does he no somebody he trust to do the job. they get paid well I think , but doubt they make 500 for a days work .
 

EricV

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Good points and thanks for the input gents. HVAC guys are here now, new control board didn't do anything from the sounds of things and they are trying to figure out what's blowing the transformers w/o blowing the 5 amp fuse or tripping the breaker.

edit - They did a lot of testing and replaced the control board and it is working at the moment. They didn't have a lot of confidence and want to wait a few days and see if it continues to work before billing. Probably looking at ~$300 or so for the bill this time. That puts us $500 in to the 18 year old furnace, so wife doesn't want to spend more on this one if it dies again.

From all the research, It will likely be the Goodman unit to replace this one. Comparable 80% single stage unit is ~$700 and we have a couple potential installers to call for quotes if we go there.
 
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