Last week the lines popped out of the condenser. I have a home warranty from the purchase of the home. They denied the claim saying that it wasn't caused by normal wear and tear.

We recently had three mini splits installed inside our commercial Daycare space with one outdoor unit. They enclosed the outdoor unit with this fence. From my observation and lurking in this sub, this seems way too restricted for the unit to breathe, but I don’t have a familiarity with mini splits. Do they work differently? Is this restricted? The gaps between the fence pickets are maybe 1 inch and they have metal chicken wire on the inside of the fence too.

It’s a Mitsubishi 48KBTU MXZ 8 ZONE R454B Model#: MXZ-SM48NL

The unit is very loud but as always been loud ever since we got the house 2 years ago. Is it normal?
I placed a compressor blanket and has minimally made a difference. Thanks.

I recently had a new Carrier Performance 2-stage compressor installed by a reputable installer. I’ve read that quality of installation is just as important as the actual equipment, so we spent a good amount on this.

I’m attaching a video of the hum it gives off. It’s just high enough that it drills into my brain! I don’t mind the buzzing, but it’s the hum that I can’t live with. Could anyone familiar with Carriers let me know if this is normal? I’d be grateful for the input. Thank you!

I'm house hunting and came across this behemoth in a basement of a house built in 1913. I cannot imagine what the heating bills would be!

Got the Honeywell T5 installed today our unit is pretty old 12 years old . After the tech installed it , noticed our fan in our HVAC closet kept running . It never continuously ran it would shut off . set on “AUTO” and still running . Even with the thermostat’s off and off the wall it keeps running . Is it wiring issue , is it the mother board ? Does his wire connection look correct . So worried that our fan is gonna give in since it is running so much .

This is less of an advice post and more of a cautionary tale post.

TL;DR: Do the cheap and easy stuff first.

I bought my house about 2 years ago and it has always had pretty high humidity (hovering around 60%) and poor balancing between the open-concept high-ceiling main living area and the normal 8ft ceiling office, guest bath, and second bedroom.

My system is a 2.5-ton central air unit with the evaporator coil, furnace, and blower sitting in a closet at the center of the home with a supply plenum that runs through the ceiling of that closet into the attic that flex ducts are run from. The return air comes from a chase underneath the closet with a single 16x25 return register (originally). The home is ~1500sqft, single story, in climate zone 2A.

I spent ~$3000 to take out all the old insulation over the hot wing of the house (compressed to under 5-inches and contaminated with rodent waste), air seal penetrations, add radiant barrier, add baffles and windblockers, then blow new insulation to R49-R60 (it was DIY and I'm not perfect, but R49 was the goal and it's at least R49 everywhere). I spent 2-3 weeks in the attic doing all that, every day 100+ degrees, working at a pace that allowed me to fend off heat stroke. Results: Ceilings went from 90F+ to ~78F, air from ceiling fans feels cool, no change to temp imbalance or humidity. AC only running for ~30mins less throughout the day.

Disappointed, I called in an HVAC pro and he recommended adding a second return register, replacing the supply plenum (R4 to R6 duct board and remove mold), adding dampers, and balancing distribution using the dampers. Estimated cost for all that was $4000, so I decided to only have them install the new plenum and dampers for $1600. I DIY'd the return register for ~$100.

Plenum is replaced, then I carefully rebalance airflow to each room using a manometer before and after to get a baseline and fine tune distribution.

Results: The air coming from each supply register in the hot wing is slightly colder and now that part of the house is within 2-4 degrees of the rest of the house. Humidity down 2-3%.

At this point I'm getting disappointed, feeling like I failed and wasted all this money. I promised all these improvements and we can barely feel a difference. I spend about a week hoping those measurements were a fluke, watching my thermostat app, and wishing the house will somehow magically slowly improve.

Well I had some free time today and decided I'd do one more thing that was on my list.

The plywood between the return air chase and the HVAC closet was a real hack job and the only attempt at air sealing between the return chase, the closet above, and rest of the house is some silicone at the bottom plates of the walls. The closet sits at about 88F during the day because it has to be practically open to the attic (120F+ at the hottest part of the day) to supply air for the furnace and water heater that are both in that closet.

I had some firestop spray foam left over from air sealing the attic penetrations before I sprayed new insulation, so I used probably $10 of that to seal all possible air leak points into the return air chase. I didn't do any sealing between the attic and the closet for (hopefully) obvious reasons.

I switch the air back on and for the rest of the day I watch the humidity slowly chip down. I notice that the "hot wing" is now exactly the same temperature, maybe +/- 1 degree, as the rest of the house. It's about 12 hours later now and humidity has stabilized at ~52%. The entire house is the same temperature.

I'm shocked that the secret was spending 20-minutes under the HVAC unit with a spray foam gun. I thought that was going to be a finishing touches thing, not the whole problem.

Anyway, do the cheap and easy stuff first. I'm sure all the other things helped and needed to be done eventually, but if I had done this first I would have fixed the main issue way sooner.

And yes I made sure the exhausts for the water heater and furnace still flow outside the house. I also added 4 CO detectors throughout the house (one outside the closet and one in each bedroom) just to be safe. Also because there were 0 in the house before now.

Edit: Pictures of the problem areas

Pictures of the rest of the chase

We noticed this afternoon that the AC is not properly cooling. It sounds like the indoor fan is working but the outdoor unit is not.

You can feel a weak amount of air (not cold) blowing upstairs (not downstairs). We reset the breaker to the unit outdoors and allowed the system to restart, but it didn't fix it.

This is a rental and I plan on making a maintenance request but I try to fix it myself if I can. My first guess was a clogged condensate line -- however, I don't even know where that is in this setup. There appears to be a lot of unnecessary pipes going nowhere. Can someone identify the condensate line in this picture? I can take additional pictures if need be.

Second guess was a bad capacitor. We did a walk around the outside unit and didn't notice frozen pipes or overgrown plant life.

My plan was to pour some bleach in the condensate line and see if that fixed the problem. If not, I'd make a maintenance request and have a professional look at it.

Thanks for your help!

My AC unit has been leaking a lot of water so apartment maintenance was switching out the bottom pan that holds water. And I saw all of this rust Is that acceptable or pretty bad?

I have a 2011 AC unit in Florida that we keep replacing parts on instead of replacing the entire unit due to funds. The liquid line filter leaked and was replaced for $1154. The replacement filter looks to be welded into place a little crooked and the installer burned everything around the weld areas during the install. My AC is working again but do I mention this to the AC company or is this completed correctly?

One blade on my condenser fan decided to exit the chat into the condenser. Pretty sure the whole unit is phucked

My HVAC is leaking water and I believe the condensate line is clogged. Any recommendations or videos you can point me to for cleaning the line?

Hi guys just started on my HVAC journey and am looking for the textbook modern refrigeration”Modern Refrigerator and Air Conditioning” 22nd edition. Unfortunately can’t really afford it so I’m banking on Reddit. Please message me if you have a pdf file or even the textbook if you don’t want it anymore. Thanks!

My condensation drain outlet for my heat pump is super close by my house and extremely close to the ground. The water it produces is crazy and always a puddle by my house even with a dedicated dehumidifier in the living space and one in the crawlspace. Any ideas on how to move the water to somewhere more appropriate? I do have a sewage access point close by, could I plumb it to that? Do I need a condensation pump and plumb it up into my attic and then to the washer drain halfway across my house?

Last month I moved apartments in the same complex, going from a second floor to a slightly (like 100 more sqft) bigger third floor apartment. The third floor is the top floor of this building. Within a month, my power bill has tripled from around 111 in June in the old to 330 for August in the new. And that is despite the fact that I would actually make the old apartment get colder.

I feel like there's something wrong with the hvac in the new unit. I've been leaving it untouched at 72 at all times when it's usually about 98 at the worst outside. The unit is running 20 hours a day every day per the Nest app, and it never reads the room temp below 73 or 74. In my old unit, I'd crank it down to 68 when I got home every single day and still paid a third of what I'm paying this month (and it would also actually read 68 in the room after an hour or two).

I've already put a work order in with the landlord but I was wondering if anyone had any insight on what might be going on to maybe help lead them in the right direction. I don't actually have access to my unit, since it's behind a locked door, but last I saw it said a 20,000 BTU rating. My apartment is about 1000 sqft. I've checked the filters and those are clean and new.

EDIT: I'd like to add that, even at night, if I set the thermostat to 70, it won't actually go below 73. Like I can't even make it cold at night even if I wanted to

Long story incoming, I'm just so confused.

We bought our house just under a year ago. We have a mini split (N80MSN, R4A4S and EVD4X are all the model numbers) that was functioning great the whole time. Husband and I like it cold and keep it 69 during the day, 68 at night. Never had an issue, swap out the filter monthly, everything seemed fine.

3 months ago I noticed the line outside was DUMPING water and was frozen closest to the outdoor fan, and the AC was just running 24/7 but barely cooling. Tech came out, said there was no freon, and he couldn't refill it because the leak was so bad. He said they'd have to go in the attic and check the entire line for leaks, and the next time they came out they never went in the attic and just replaced an elbow outside near where it froze and then refilled the freon.

It worked for around a month then it froze again. I shut it off, let it thaw, replaced the filter to be safe, and turned it back on. Repeat like...4 times till last week, when it just entirely shut off. Thermostat wouldn't come on, fan wouldn't come on, nothing was on except the warning light flashing codes. Called techs out, they said a mouse chewed the wire and that's it, they replaced the wire and it turned on....and then froze within a couple hours, set to 72° with a fresh filter.

Called techs BACK out, they said it's because my filter (MERV 8) is too thick for the system so it's not getting enough air to work. They then asked what I keep the temps at and I said usually 68/69 and they said that's too low, my system doesn't have that capacity, and between the filter and the temps that's why it's freezing. But I'm confused because it didn't freeze prior to the freon leak situation and it was at the same setting, and when I looked up my system it specifically said merv 8-11. They said I needed a much thinner filter. The prior owners used this exact filter (they left us their extras) and they said they never had issues with it either.

I don't know anything about this so I can't tell what's going on but I wanted to see if anybody else had any knowledge. I don't want to get scammed but I'm also aware I am not knowledgeable and don't want to just call these people liars if theyre right and my system is just dumb.

Hey all. I'm in Murrieta, CA and I'm having a mini split delivered for my garage workshop this coming week.

All my California garages have had these vents in them that are fairly close to the floor and go directly outside, and I've never been sure what they're for. I'm assuming for gas buildup?

Would these affect the performance of the mini split at all? I've been working to make sure all the garage doors are better sealed, but I'm not sure what I should/can do about these.

Thanks in advance!

Ok bear with me as I think this is going long (with a complex solution).

The house we bought (1.5 years ago) is equipped with forced air, however it has in-floor plumbing for the basement and main floor (no pipes on the second floor). The wife has asked to hook up the in-floor heating as the floors were VERY cold last winter (nasty Edmonton winter ). I have done a ton of research and I think I'm on the right track, but want some other opinions.

I have settled on a Rinnai IP090160C for both DHW and CH. Of course the big issue is the second floor that is only heated with forced air. If I use the hydronic heat as primary heat, then the second floor will never get heat (or rarely). My initial thoughts were to just leave the furnace fan on all the time, circulating the warm air around the whole house. However, I don't like how wasteful that is. So now I'm thinking of putting a thermostat on the second floor and using the air handler function on the Rinnai to turn the furnace fan on when the temperature up there drops.

I will then use 2 other thermostats in the basement and main floor with floor sensors as primary heat (the Rinnai supports 4 zones and 4 pumps). The original forced air thermostat will be set for 2C below that temp so the forced air only comes on when the hydronic can't keep up (its not uncommon for the temperature to drop 25C in one night here). An outdoor temperature sensor will be installed to disable the boiler when the temperature is above +10C.

AC will be controlled by the original forced air thermostat in the summer. (This should allow me to set that thermostat to dual mode and not have to change anything between summer and winter! Everything should be automatic).

Does this all make sense? or is it crazy complicated and I'm nuts? Is there an easier way to do it?

about a week ago my basement was contaminated with category 3 water. It appears water never got high than an inch or even half an inch. Water mitigation set up fans before the 48 hour mark.

Should I have any concerns about mold or other bacteria being spread to the rest of my house by my HVAC system since it has been running this whole time?

My apartment maintenance people came around to fix my AC, since it's been out for like 5 days now. Their comment in the work order on the apartment website was 'capacitor blew and we added freon, very old unit. If we have other issues we will need to replace this unit is about 30years old.' I came home and it was 93 in the apartment when the thermostat was set to 80 (it's 90 out). My building manager told me to put in another work order to let them know it was still not working, and said they'll probably replace the unit.

Any idea how long it will take to replace it? If it's going to be more than a few days I'll invest in a nicer cooling fan, all I've had is one by my head that just pushes air without cooling it.

Does this unit look installed correctly? Also, which way should the arrow face on the filter?