Tag Archives: a-c condenser (Coleman)

2014/07/18 (F) Tracing Circuits

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When I talked to Steve from Village Landscape Development (VLD) yesterday he explained that they had not been out to work on our project because one of his employees had not shown up on Monday or Tuesday and late Tuesday informed him that he was done for the season for personal reasons.  Unfortunately for us, that employee was the crew chief for our project.  Steve said he spent Wednesday rearranging his crew assignments and assured me there would be people and materials at the house today.  When I left at 10 AM there was no sign of either, and no phone call letting us know when we might expect to see them.

I stopped at AAA Appliance to pick up the HVAC filters I ordered yesterday and then went to Lowe’s and bought the Square D Homeline electrical panel value pack.  It’s a 100 Amp main breaker panel with 20 slots and came with five 20 Amp single pole breakers.  I bought two ground bar kits, as well as a 20 Amp and 30 Amp 2-pole breaker (for 240 VAC devices).

As I was getting in the car to come home Linda called to see if I remembered to buy the weatherproof outlet covers for the outside outlets by the deck.  I had not, so I went back in to get them.  Apparently I forgot to buy some other electrical things I needed because I ended up with a non-contact voltage sensor, an outlet tester that works with GFCI outlets, and a system for determining which breaker supplies an outlet with having to turn breakers off and on until you find the right one.

When I finally got back to the house we installed one of the new filters behind the large return air grill in the living room.  We had to trim pieces of foam weather seal and pack it in to the small gap around the filter to force air to flow through the filter rather than around it.  We turned on the A-C to check the airflow and decided to check all of the registers.  There turned out to be return air ducts in all three bedrooms, which actually makes more sense than a single return in the living room.

The return air duct in the master bedroom had fiberglass insulation stuffed in it, presumably to cut down on winter heat loss, but there was no filter material.  Of the two supply ducts only the one farthest from the air-handler seemed to have airflow.  We removed the return air grill and cut a piece of the old living room filter material to fit and screwed the grill back on with the filter material behind it.

The return duct from the small bedroom had a thin piece of filter material behind the grill and adequate airflow from the supply duct.  We removed the return air grill, cleaned the filter material and re-attached the grill with the filter material behind it.  The middle bedroom had good air flow from the supply register but nothing to filter the air going into the return air duct.  We cut another piece of the old living room return air filter and installed it behind the return air grill.

I think we now have filter material on all of the cold air returns.  It strikes me as very odd that all of these air return ducts do not come together and then feed through a single filter.  We turned the A-C on and let it run while we had a quick lunch.  Except for the poor airflow to the one of the two supply registers in our bedroom, everything seemed to be working so we turned our collective attention to our next task.

The Coleman compressor/condenser unit was noticeably out of level.  Linda weeded around the base and trimmed back the rhododendron as the leaves of the closet ones were being sucked up against the heat transfer panels (radiator fins).  Once we had a little space around the base of the compressor we lifted the low side with a 3′ crowbar and slide a couple of bricks under that edge to hold it.  We had an old, unopened, bag of paver base so we used that to fill the large gap under the compressor base.  I scooped and placed it with a garden trowel and packed it with the end of a 1 x 2. We raised the unit a little and pulled the bricks out.  A minor tweak and we had it level.

We used the circuit tester to finish checking all of the outlets in the garage and the library and map what each circuit breaker supplied.  We discovered that the switch to the left of the sub-panel controlled an outside outlet mounted very high on the wall just under the soffit.  We have no idea why that outlet is installed where it is; perhaps it powered deicer cables or some other roof/gutter-related system at one time.  I was getting some very strange voltage measurements at the switch and at the outlet so I replaced both of them, but that did not change the readings.  I put a weatherproof cover plate on the outlet while I was at it.

Steve showed up mid-late afternoon with the excavator, his nephew Spencer, and a large role of plastic drain tile.  He used the excavator to move a couple of large boulders around back and then dig trenches for the drain tile.  He assured me there would be a crew here all day tomorrow, and he would be here to supervise them.

I needed to trim a stud in order to install the new electrical panel in my desired location but was unable to cut it with any of my existing tools.  What I needed was an oscillating cutter, so I headed back to Lowe’s and got one.  I was about to use it to trim out a section of a stud when I double checked a measurement and realized it was supporting the drywall that formed the northwest corner of the library.  Removing it was definitely not a good idea and that forced me to rethink the installation of the new panel box.  I do my best thinking when I’m asleep, so that was the end of my work for the day.

2014/07/17 (R) A-C Service

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Allen from TOMTEK arrived a little before 9 AM to do the annual maintenance service on the air-conditioning system.  The A-C system looks to me like it was retrofitted to the house, but it’s hard to say how long ago.  The house has a hot water baseboard heating system so the air-handling portion of the A-C system (evaporator, blower, and flexible ducts) is all in the attic.  The air delivery registers are all in the ceiling of the main floor (it’s a ranch style house).  There is one air return grill in the living room with a 12″ flexible return duct a smaller register and duct from each of the three bedrooms.  The system does not supply conditioned air to the finished basement.

To service the air-handler Allen had to use a step ladder to gain access to the attic through an opening in the ceiling of a hall closet and then work his way through the trusses to the west end of the house.  He had to work by flashlight while lying down, having pushed insulation out of the way to make space.  It was a cool, but sunny, morning so at least the temperature in the attic was pleasant.  He cleaned and inspected the unit and checked it for refrigerant leaks and then had me turn it on.  He checked its operation while running and pronounced it good to go.  He also indicated that there was no evidence of an air filter anywhere in the attic.

The only other place there could be air filters was behind the return air grills.  The living room grill is up high on a wall in the northeast corner of the living room (cathedral ceilings).  I set up my 8′ step ladder so Allen could remove the grill and have a look.  Sure enough, there it was, only it wasn’t a typical furnace/A-C filter with pleated material surrounded by a frame and held in place by a wire fence.  Rather, it was just an oversized piece of loose fiber mesh filter material pressed into the square box that the return air duct attaches to inside the top of the other hall closet.  He removed it, took it outside, cleaned it, and re-installed it.  It was dirty but not completely clogged and Allen said the system was now drawing air better than before.  He then turned his attention to the outside compressor (condenser) unit.

The outside unit is a Coleman, and that is about all we know.  The information plate was so badly faded that Allen was unable to get any of the information he needed from it.  He cleaned and inspected the unit, checked it for refrigerant leaks, and then hooked up his special test fixture.  He said it was working properly and did not need refrigerant, which was a good thing because refrigerant is very expensive and is not included as part of the pre-paid service call.

After Allen was done and had left I climbed back up and measured the return air box.  It was 16″ x 16″.  We checked Lowe’s and Home Depot online and could order one that size but it would not get here until next week.  With company coming Sunday I wanted to complete this project and put the furniture back in place and not have to move it again.  I drove into Howell to check the local stores but they did not stock that size filter.  The guy at Lowe’s suggested I try AAA Appliance (AAA Service Network) just down the street.  They did not have that size in stock either, but they could order one and have it by Monday.  They were cheap enough that I ordered four of the 2″ thick ones.  (I got a call at 5 PM that they had arrived and were available for pickup.). While I was out I also shopped for a new electrical panel for the garage.  I checked Home Depot, Lowe’s, City Electric, and Standard Electric Supply.  I did not buy anything, but that’s a story for another post.

While I was out Linda moved a few more items into the storage container and dealt with much of the stuff we had moved into the library yesterday.  When I got back we worked together to move even more stuff into the container.  That, in turn, freed up space in part of the garage that allowed us to move three of the large stationery shop tools out of the area where Darryll and I will be working.  The whole impetus for the storage container is to clear out the east half of the garage so Darryll can install the garage heater and the new HVAC unit for the library.  As long as we had to make space for him to work, it was an opportunity to further empty out the garage, repair some things, and rearrange where/how we have things stored.  It seems sometimes like a never-ending process as there isn’t really a place for everything so it isn’t possible for everything to be in its place.

In the center area of the back (north) wall the previous owners had removed the drywall and installed Wonderboard to act as a heat shield for a wood burning stove.  The husband restored old cars and used the garage as a shop.  We saw the stove when we looked at the house in January 2013.  Wonderboard is normally used as the substrate for laying tile but contains concrete, so it also works as an insulator against heat and doesn’t burn.  I wanted to drywall this area and decided to remove the Wonderboard.

I removed the Wonderboard and discovered two things:  There was another layer of Wonderboard underneath and there was visible evidence of a fire.  When I removed the second layer of Wonderboard the extent of the damage was fully revealed.  One 2×4 stud was burned almost completely through for about 12″ and the paper facing on the insulation on either side of it was charred.  An electrical wire also ran through that wall and the insulation was discolored.  Such is the nature of remodeling projects; you never know what you are going to find.

I spent a little time after dinner trying to figure out what each of the circuit breakers in the garage sub-panel controlled.  There are 12 breakers occupying 14 of the 16 positions.  I figured out that four of them controlled about 90% of the outlets in the garage.  It dawned on me later as I was discussing this with Linda that the other breakers might supply power to the library.  I will have to verify that tomorrow.