turboDan - blog

I'm a goddamn genius

Posted by Dan on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 12:17 AM

I recently turned the heat on for the first time at the new place I'm renting. Much to my surprise (was I really surprised? A 10+ year old heat pump in a 100 year old house?), there was no warmth coming from the vents. I don't know why I expected this time to turn out any different than the rest, but I picked up the phone and called my landlord/lady/bitch/property management company. She assured me she'd call her "furnace guy." I got a call from said "furnace guy" the next day. After informing him that I didn't have a furnace, I had a heat pump (a key fact that the agent from the property management company neglected to mention to him), and a bit of an awkward pause while he decided whether or not to tell me he didn't know how to fix a heat pump, he decided instead to tell me he'll call me back. He didn't.

That was Saturday. I called the property management company back yesterday to tell them I still didn't have heat, nor did I have anybody coming to look at it. I was informed that the "furnace guy couldn't fix heat pumps" (no shit?), and she couldn't find anybody to look at it. I found this hard to believe and once again found myself doing someone else's job as I fired up local.live.com and looked for heating and AC shops in the area. The first one I called not only claimed to be able to fix heat pumps, but could fit me in the next day. I called the property management company back with this development and jumped through a bunch more hoops that I don't care to go into here in order to assure that people would get paid and I wouldn't be the one doing the paying.

Fast forward to today. I was given a window of noon-4pm for the repairman's arrival, so I decided to work from home. He showed up at approximately 5:30pm. Off to a great start already. After wandering inside and out, and much probing with his multimeter, he came to the conclusion that my thermostat must be bad. I call the property management company again to find out what they want me to do (I should get paid for this). My leasing agent insists that this can't be the case as the thermostat was brand new when I moved in. I told her that I was going to Home Depot to buy a replacement and expected compensation regardless. I managed to find an exact replacement meaning that no rewire was necessary, just unclip the old thermostat and snap the new one in its place. What do you know? Same damn thing. No heat.

This got me looking at the wiring diagrams in the thermostat installation manual. As I worked my way across from left to right in the diagram labelled "Heat pump with auxiliary heat", I noticed terminal W was missing a wire. It was supposed to be jumpered to the terminal next to it. More flipping through the manual turns up that W is "heat return", while the terminal next to it is "cool return". I assume these are both grounds. This explains why the pump would run for AC but not heat. Five minutes and a 1" piece of wire later, I had heat.

What have I proven in this rather long-winded narrative? If you want something done right, do it yourself. Also, all in all, people are idiots. If you have any doubt, I can fill you in on many details that I left out because they hurt my head too much to reproduce them here.

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Posted by Dade on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 2:16 AM
Hmmm, must be nice to only now be worring about heat... we've had ours on for almost a month. And I too am about to set up a new thermostat, as mercury switches rather suck at regulating heat with a small amount of adjustment latitude. Happy to hear you have once again came out on top. Submit a bill to the management for your time and services rendered. be sure to include the cost of the new unit as an "educational expense".

Posted by Glock on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 5:22 PM
Dan, you're an hvac god! You helped me with the bad transformer in my furnace! Remember that? Six months, they couldn't figure it out. I make them replace it, wallah, fixed.

Questions:

1) Do you still have the Audi for sale?

2) Why does Audi use cast iron blocks?

Email me.

- Glock

Posted by Mobius on Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 6:40 AM
You should get a piece of wood, some 6" tall by 12" long. Glue a douche to the left side, and a mirror to the right side. Paint a BIG, OBVIOUS equal sign in between, and send it to your landretard. Think they'd get the picture?

Posted by Stu on Friday, October 06, 2006 at 2:50 PM
You are a goddamn genious! People are idiots, that is true. I would definitely send your landlord a bill for your services rendered and charge her by the hour. Hell, you could even put it under a company name, why not? She was expecting a bill. Consider this a new side job for you ;).

Glad it all worked out in the end for you. Nothing more immediately frustrating then not having a working heater/air conditioning system when one is sorely in need.