HVAC Question

[d-dave]

I know there are wonderfully knowledgeable huddlers from a variety of careers who waste their time come here for camaraderie among other things!

So I do have a heating my home/oven of a home question.

Basically, now that we're turning the heat on, it's getting to over 80 degrees in bed rooms over night when the heat setting is 66.  So I'm trying to eliminate me being dumb versus calling a pro, versus some other problems.

So my home was built in 2006, it's two story.  There is one main air handler in the attic with a dampener/valve thing which is supposed to bypass between upstairs, downstairs or both based on the temperature settings.  I do have two Honeywell Programmable Thermostats, which we do have programmed.  We do sleep with our doors closed because of darned cats who I hate and my son is three (everything that encompasses!).  We have a child monitor which tells us the temperature in his room when he sleeps, which was an alarming indicator this morning.

So here's the story where I'm looking for recommendations from you smart peeps.   At night, we keep the temperature at 66 degree because we all sleep best in the cold.  In the morning, we have the heat set to warm the house up to 68.  Since we've had the heat on this week (we live in Concord), we've been roasting at night.  I know part of that is that we keep the doors closed at night, that ruins circulation.  The heat has been keeping me up, so I've gone to sleep with it running, noticed it in the middle of the night, and it's still going when we wake up.  It was 80 degrees in my son's room and 78 degrees in our room...  And down stairs, it's 66 degrees (that's its supposed to be)

I'm wondering is there is a fault in the Thermostat Systems communicating to the main system to stop heating the upstairs, or maybe in the bypass dampener/valve not shutting off between the up and downstairs so it's continually sending hot air upstairs while heating the down.  My wife seems to think adding a smart thermostat would help solve the problems as well.  I'm not convinced dropping $500 on two nests is going to be a magic elixir to solve our issues.  I love the idea, and all the reviews are compelling, but that's a lot of dough!

What does the huddle thing?

[chknwing]

if you have a problem with the system, a Nest wont fix it.  Is the heat not turning off?  Personally, I would just have someone come out and check it.  If the system is under warranty, an inspection should be covered.  Spending $1K on Nests and it still be broke, would suck.  Might cost maybe $50 just to have someone check it.  When they identify the problem then you can decide whether you want to fix it yourself or not.

[d-dave]

Yeah, that's the plan first.  See if it's something mechanically simple.  Like we had an issue with the bypass over the summer, and i'm wondering if there are more issues there as well.

[Arroz con Panther]

I won't give you a solution because I don't know anything on the subject matter, but we just had to get the evaporator coil and something else replaced in my house.  I'll tell you this, the big companies, like Morris-Jenkins and Charlotte Mechanical are overpriced.  Maybe their quality of work is great, I wouldn't know, but Morris-Jenkins quoted us $3000.  We went with a smaller company and saved $600 bucks.  Just my two cents.

[thefuzz]

If I had to guess, you either have a thermostat not communicating with the air handler, or the air handler not communicating with the baffle system.

 

Is this your first fall/winter in the home?

[d-dave]

Nope, we built the house and have lived there since 2006.  There have been some issues over the summer with the bypass in the attic.  It's also a builder basic comfortmaker system, which we've been told is eeking closer to the end of it's life, but we'd rather not have to replace the system..

[thefuzz]

7 minutes ago, d-dave said:

Nope, we built the house and have lived there since 2006.  There have been some issues over the summer with the bypass in the attic.  It's also a builder basic comfortmaker system, which we've been told is eeking closer to the end of it's life, but we'd rather not have to replace the system..

Yea, if it's just starting to do this, you are going to need to call someone.

Sucks, but wouldn't surprise me to hear that you will need a new one soon.

[Cuttinedge]

4 hours ago, chknwing said:

if you have a problem with the system, a Nest wont fix it.  Is the heat not turning off?  Personally, I would just have someone come out and check it.  If the system is under warranty, an inspection should be covered.  Spending $1K on Nests and it still be broke, would suck.  Might cost maybe $50 just to have someone check it.  When they identify the problem then you can decide whether you want to fix it yourself or not.

If you find a heating/air man to come out for $50 bucks send me his information. Every one of them in this Podunk town called KIngs Mtn. Charge $85 for a service call. And then they tell ya they don't have the $5 relay you need and come back the next day & charge another $85 service fee to install said $5 relay.  

[d-dave]

1 hour ago, Cuttinedge said:

If you find a heating/air man to come out for $50 bucks send me his information. Every one of them in this Podunk town called KIngs Mtn. Charge $85 for a service call. And then they tell ya they don't have the $5 relay you need and come back the next day & charge another $85 service fee to install said $5 relay.  

I can't give you a heads up in King's Mountain.  Hodge Heating & Air of Lake Norman actually installed the unit in our home when it was built, and they've serviced it since then.  They have also been INCREDIBLY reasonable.  Sorry, I don't know if they will go out that far.  

Here's their number:  (704) 892-7002

[cookinbrak]

Close all your vents upstairs. Hot air rises.

[Doyle]

Turn the heat off upstairs when you go to bed.  You will save money and not burn up at night.  

[d-dave]

16 minutes ago, Doyle said:

Turn the heat off upstairs when you go to bed.  You will save money and not burn up at night.  

...

 

That is possibly genius! Why did I not think of something that obvious...

[Anybodyhome]

The temperature the unit(s) are trying to maintain is measured at the thermostat, not in the closed up Dutch oven you're creating in the bedrooms. If the temperature around the t-stats fluctuates, the units are continually working. With your doors closed, your body heat is adding to the temp while the units are adding more warm air to the room.  

But, although that's a factor, it sounds as though it's only part of the problem. Sounds to me like a capacitor has gone bad. You say the unit is always running, but I'm guessing the fan is running, not necessarily the entire unit. If you hear the fan running, but there is no air coming through the vents, it's a capacitor. If the unit is running continuously and pushing warm air through the vents, it could be a bad t-stat telling the unit to keep running or a bad capacitor. When you say the unit is running and the temps are already very warm in the house, what temp does the t-stat display? Again, if the air temp at the t-stat is 65 (example) it doesn't matter what the rest of the house is, the t-stat is telling the unit it's not warm enough if you've got it set to 68 (example).

You have programmable t-stats. Do not turn off your heat at night or at any other time. Simply raise or lower the t-stat temps. Rather than turn off the upstairs heat, simply turn down the temp to 55-60. Turning on and off an HVAC unit (older than 6 or so years) spins up your electric meter and run your electricity bill higher than turning the t-stat down.

[PandaPancake]

Besides the Master Chief's post have you tried looking at a diy forum ? They'll have someone with the same problem I'm sure