Current Events > HVAC guy doesn't know what he is doing and he's costing me money.

(+) Yeah! (+)

My Thermostat said no power to Rh wire. I checked everything, everything was connected properly. So I figured I had a short, so I called the professionals.

He came and was troubleshooting stuff for over an hour. He ended up saying he thought there was a blown fuse and he replaced it. Thermostat still said no power to Rh wire. He said my thermostat was bad. So he did some more stuff with the wiring, took off the thermostat, and told me to go buy a new thermostat and put it on and it will work. He also did an AC cleaning and left. Total was $300.

I go buy a new thermostat, install it myself, everything works. 2 weeks later I get another no power to Rh wire. I call them again. Dude comes out and start messing with wiring, all of a sudden my old thermostat works So thermostat was never broken I suppose? Now he said the board is bad. He put a whole new board, now everything is working and thermostat is turning on. However, none of the vents blow really hard. They blow with very little force of air. And the air its blowing is only 65F. Its supposed to be blowing around 40F. So he said he had to go and he left, and he said he was going to come back. He hasnt billed me yet.

Tl;dr. What the heck? I already know he wasted my money with everything he did that day during the thermostat broken issue because thermostat was never broken. And now that he puts on a new board on the furnace, all the vents in the house blow weak air, and mildly cold air. What should I even say to him Im upset.

---

Dude I had a similar issue when my Thermostat said no power to Rh wire. I checked everything, everything was connected properly. So I figured I had a short, so I called the professionals.

He came and was troubleshooting stuff for over an hour. He ended up saying he thought there was a blown fuse and he replaced it. Thermostat still said no power to Rh wire. He said my thermostat was bad. So he did some more stuff with the wiring, took off the thermostat, and told me to go buy a new thermostat and put it on and it will work. He also did an AC cleaning and left. Total was $300.

I go buy a new thermostat, install it myself, everything works. 2 weeks later I get another no power to Rh wire. I call them again. Dude comes out and start messing with wiring, all of a sudden my old thermostat works So thermostat was never broken I suppose? Now he said the board is bad. He put a whole new board, now everything is working and thermostat is turning on. However, none of the vents blow really hard. They blow with very little force of air. And the air its blowing is only 65F. Its supposed to be blowing around 40F. So he said he had to go and he left, and he said he was going to come back. He hasnt billed me yet.

Tl;dr. What the heck? I already know he wasted my money with everything he did that day during the thermostat broken issue because thermostat was never broken. And now that he puts on a new board on the furnace, all the vents in the house blow weak air, and mildly cold air. What should I even say to him Im upset.

---

I'm convinced HVAC contractors are hired entirely on the basis of their ability to spend a lot of time in a house and ultimately leave without fixing the problem.

---

Wtf kind of repairman of any kind tells you to fix it yourself? Then you hire him again? Get some references from someone and go with their guy. Fire this asshole.

---

40 degrees? are you a penguin wtf
---

Jiek_Fafn posted...

Wtf kind of repairman of any kind tells you to fix it yourself? Then you hire him again? Get some references from someone and go with their guy. Fire this asshole.

Trust me Im not on good terms with this guy right now. But in his defense, he didnt tell me to fix it myself. He simply said my thermostat was broken. He offered to install one. And I didnt want the cheap $120 thermostats they carry, so I went out and bought my own because I wanted a smart thermostat that saves me electricity. I didnt want 1990 technology in my home. But thats not the big issue, the bigger issue is he misdiagnosed my problem. My first smart thermostat was never broken. I bought a new one for nothing and I paid him that day for nothing

---

s0nicfan posted...

I'm convinced HVAC contractors are hired entirely on the basis of their ability to spend a lot of time in a house and ultimately leave without fixing the problem.

A majority them were churned out of places like Vaterott and ITT back in the day and then went into business for themselves because they had bought all the tools as part of their schooling.

---

Cornmuffins posted...

40 degrees? are you a penguin wtf

Im not knowledgeable on HVAC, but you know even less than me. When you turn on the AC, have you ever put a reader by the fan? The air blows in the 40s if its a very quality AC. Put your hand on your car vents when youre driving, thats not 65F blowing, its about 45F. If it was blowing 60s your house or car would never cool down quick enough because the outside temperature is entering too quickly.

---

Cornmuffins posted...

40 degrees? are you a penguin wtf

yea when you set the AC to 60 degrees, it doesn't actually blow 60 degree air

---

Mine wasnt blowing very hard, my ac is 8 years now and it ran out of refrigerant. Just got it fixed today actually.

---

Barber102 posted...

Mine wasnt blowing very hard, my ac is 8 years now and it ran out of refrigerant. Just got it fixed today actually.

He said there was plenty refrigerant :/ He said it might have been too much in there.

I just dont understand why after he replaced the board, the air blows very weak, and the air temp is mild. Why would changing the board do that? He must have broken something :(

---

zinezinzadan posted...

He said there was plenty refrigerant :/ He said it might have been too much in there.

I just dont understand why after he replaced the board, the air blows very weak, and the air temp is mild. Why would changing the board do that? He must have broken something :(

yeah, i would say call someone else but youre already in the hole. If you do i suggest you look at reviews of hvac companies in your area. The guy you hired sounds like a moron.


---

Yeah I would get someone else to look at it if I were you.

I swear when my parents' landlord sent maintenance workers to fix something with their house there was always a new problem after they left lol Yours might be one of those people.
---

yeah like fire that guy and dont pay any other charges that dude is trash

zinezinzadan posted...

Im not knowledgeable on HVAC, but you know even less than me. When you turn on the AC, have you ever put a reader by the fan? The air blows in the 40s if its a very quality AC. Put your hand on your car vents when youre driving, thats not 65F blowing, its about 45F. If it was blowing 60s your house or car would never cool down quick enough because the outside temperature is entering too quickly.

Since we're talking residential, systems are designed for about a 20 difference from the air being supplied to the house from the air being returned to the air handler, 16-22 degrees is usually what techs are looking for, but I liked to shoot for at least 20 when I was working on a system. Ideally you're looking for your evaporator coil to be about 40.

Anyway, it sounds like might have yourself a parts changer. That's what we used to call techs that didn't really know they're doing, so they just charged parts until something works.

It sucks, but it could be worse. I helped a friend once after they had that type of tech working in their house. The tech ended up just throwing everything back in the AH unconnected, and just left, never returned.

If you're getting a low delta T (temp difference), it can be a number of things. Low charge, air flow issue, bad metering device, reversing valve, leaking issues, line issue, etc. But it shouldn't be that hard for an experienced tech to narrow it down quickly.

Is your condensation pipe clear. If it's backed up, a float switch could cut power to the thermostat until it clears. So the stat will look like it's broken, then the water clears and the stat works until the water backs up again. This repeats until the clog is taken care of.

Since I'm not there looking at it, I'm really just throwing hypothetical shit out there, but I hope they get it working soon. No AC in the summer sucks ass.

karmageddon28 posted...

Is your condensation pipe clear. If it's backed up, a float switch could cut power to the thermostat until it clears. So the stat will look like it's broken, then the water clears and the stat works until the water backs up again. This repeats until the clog is taken care of.

Its not backed up thankfully. I think he didnt hook up the new board properly because my air flow is weak. Idk if its possible for bad wiring to run the fan at 50% or something. I also definitely think there might be a leak somewhere. Because the pipe that carries cold air is ice cold when I put my finger on it. But once it enters that giant aluminum thing and gets shot to the house vents, it loses that icey cold temp somewhere along the line.


---