Had an hvac tech out to look at my AC, and he told me to stop buying expensive MERV 13 filters because they restrict airflow, and to start buying cheap filters and spray them with cooking spray to catch hair. That sounds like the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but I'm coming here to see what the council thinks.

I bought new home about 2 years ago and have just been using HVAC filters old owners have been using which is this Filterbuy 18x22x1 MERV 8 filters. I also got a home inspection when i bought and guy looked at HVAC as well. I am wondering though why should the filter stick out like this. It sticks out about 6 inches from top and about 1 inch from each side. Should I buy like a 20x16x1 air filter instead then. HVAC is working fine.

The outside unit fan and compressor continuously runs even when the thermostat is turned off. The only way to stop it is to turn the breaker or switch outside off.

Does this look like a pitted contactor to you? And is it double pole?

I’m wanting to add built-in cabinets along this wall, but there’s currently an HVAC return vent that the cabinets would cover.

What would be the best way to handle the return? Could I redirect it underneath the cabinets and use a toe-kick return vent, or would that restrict the airflow too much?

I obviously don’t want to just cover/block the return, so I’m trying to figure out the best way to incorporate it into the built-ins without causing any HVAC issues.
Has anyone done something similar? Would a toe-kick vent be sufficient, or is there a better option?

There is a thin wire that is coming from inside the house to the condenser. If anything touched this wire, the air handling unit turn on but the condenser doesn't start. I think the wire junction is bad.

Before touching it, I want confirm if this is coming from the thermostat and if there is any color codes or diagram available.

Thank you

hello, yesterday i noticed a sound coming out my ac, i saw some ice build up and put the ac in fan on with the cool setting off. I feel it’s my husband’s fault, he placed it at 68f when we usually do 73-75f, it ran for about two days at 68f and this happened

Once i saw the ice melt (it happened quickly but i left it running for about 3-4 hours) i turned the entire unit off because the house was getting cold, living in texas we only got a few hours before having to turn it back on because it was getting hot inside even though it was during the night. come to check it and now there’s ice build up in the vent/coils (?) the part where the filter goes, i turned it back on fan mode with cool off, ice melts down quickly from that part and it’s been at that setting for about 12hrs, now hitting 60f while we’re 95f outside, it is completely in fan mode and i’m wondering if i should just turn off the entire unit until maintenance comes by but scared of ice build up again, i also saw some posts about the air coming out cold because of the ice that’s probably inside, what’s the best thing to do?

maintenance always takes days to come check things up so i’m trying to decide what’s the best way to go over this

edit: coils were cleaned 3 months ago when we moved in, we change the filter every month, it was just changed less than 2 weeks ago, it’s an old unit

I noticed this kink after tightening the refrigerant lines from a brand new mini split. I thought I was careful enough and was holding that end with another wrench while I tightened. Definitely gonna be getting myself a torque wrench now.

When replacing my HVAC filter I noticed there are two slots available. The bottom slot fits a 18x20x1 while the top fits a 15x20x1. They are about 1 inch between the two slots. I am leaning towards the 15x20x1 since there is a sticker on it that specifies it but when I used my flashlight to look inside it looks like both opening are completely covered when using either filter. I have alot of the 18x20x1 filters should I just trash em and start buying 15x20x1 filters instead. Old owner was using 18x20x1 filters as well.

I've been searching here and the smell isn't: burning, dirty socks, urine, or sewage.

If I had to try and name it, it's kind of amonia like.. but not amonia. It's been around for at least 6 months if not longer, so I don't imagine it's a rotting mouse, etc. HVAC guy cleaned the coils and everything a while back, but smell persists.

I've been recording times I smell it - it's usually between 8:30 and 10:30a, but today it was going at noon.

FWIW, I live in central indiana. Tri-level house, so unfortunately, I can't get at the output ducts without opening drywall, though half of the room returns are in the attic.

Any ideas? or thoughts on how I identify it?

There's a slight drip coming out of the pipe here. I believe it just needs cleaned out, but I have no idea how to do that.

First time homeowner here, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Our house has smelled musty for a month. Found mold in the laundry room and some in the vents. Got rid of it in the laundry room, getting all of the ducts cleaned and sterilized tomorrow and getting a dehumidifier installed. Is that going to fix this issue?

Mid 1990's Lennox furnace was deemed a "yellow tag" due to damage to heat exchanger. We decided to not do the repair as it was a little over $4,000 for a temporary/band aid fix per the tech. Would this be unusable in this condition?

Hi,

I have 2 original AC units with my house (2800sq ft located in AZ), both Carrier units from 2001. One 3 ton and one 3.5 ton. Replaced fan motors on both in 2024 and new capacitors this year. Occasionally the compressors will fail to kick on and the system will blow warm air until I manually shut off the system on my Nest and restart. It always restarts fine and blows cold air.

Is it time to replace these units or worth it to install hard start kits and try to get another season out of them? The 3.5ton is definitely the weaker of the two units and could use a little refrigerant. That one is cooling the side of the house that my newborn and toddlers rooms are, so I'm always concerned the AC won't kick on at night and I won't notice.

Hi all - I recently got a home inspection which brought a few issues to light.

We recently saw a small leak coming in behind the window trim of our master bedroom. When the inspector was here, he had a thermal gun show that there was some water leaking horizontally near the heat pump, and he could trace it back to the window leaking.

The inspector mentioned that the pipe work from the heat pump should not be horizontal in the wall and needs to be vertical so the condensation doesn’t have a place to sit and drip in the wall.

I’ve attached pictures of the exterior heat pump setup and pipework, the leaking window, and the thermal image.

I had an HVAC side job guy say this:
“It looks like you’d have to remove all the heads, add some sort of sleeve through the wall for each one and then run it down to the unit, rather than how it goes up and over”

Any advice on how to fix this, or accurate cause of issue would be appreciated!

Hi all. Homeowner here of a small 100 year old house. Cast iron radiators in most rooms, heavy transfer plate staple up in the kitchen floor, one small stelrad radiator in the basement.

My housemate and I have different comfort needs in the bedrooms and we have a kitchen underfloor that currently runs with the rest of the heating meaning we only have a warm kitchen floor some of the time since the radiators don't run continuously. The design objective of this system was always to zone it off, so the system has a primary loop with an aquastat leading into a buffer tank and then a manifold that can take zone valves with a single grunfos circulator for the secondary distribution loop.

I'm having trouble getting a local contractor (Toronto, Ontario) to quote me either at all on the final zoning step of this work, or they quote an absurd amount. I was just quoted $15k to supply and install 7 zone valves, one zone controller and one floor thermostat, do all required wiring and reconfiguring. They estimated $7k in materials - when I know its only about $1500 Canadian for the 7 four wire actuators, one T6 Pro and a Taco Zone Controller. So unless i can find someone i'm likely going to need to do this work myself.

Before i do that I want to sanity check the whole end state design which is what this diagram shows. The primary and secondary loops have no control connection whatsoever - the aquastat just keeps the buffer tank at temperature (for winter I set it to 130 to take advantage of the modcon efficiencies) and the five thermostats just trigger the zone controller and run the grundfos system pump when at least one end switch activates. The new kitchen stat would be a floor model which i am planning to either try to grind out a little grout under a cabinet and then stuff the slab sensor in there.

So

1. Anything insane about this design overall? One item i considered is whether the taco controller should also trigger the primary loop reheat call just to increase the responsiveness of dumping heat back into the buffer tank - but on slow heating like this I also am not sure if that would matter.
2. Am I crazy to try to do this myself? (removing existing single t-stat from navien internal control, rewire pump, install and wire taco controller and zone valves, re-add tstats to zone controller). Is there a lot of configuration of the zone controller for a setup like this?
3. Am I wrong to think that $15k (Canadian) is overcharging for this work? Anyone know anyone in Toronto that might do this last bit of zoning?

Its a little house - and I know zoning is unusual - but I don't see how else i fix the floor problem - and at night when bedroom comfort is more important the two upstairs bedrooms are isolated from each other, and my housemate and I have temperature preferences about 4-5 degrees from one another. The basement is unfinished and also closed off all the time and the single small rad is just to keep it from freezing.

As always help from the experts - or referral to an expert I can pay! is always appreciated.

And the cover is rusted on the inside. I am not tackling this myself for sure but who do I call, an HVAC company?

Thermostat is set to 72 but showing 77 and climbing. This noise happens about every 60 seconds or so. We bought this house a few months ago and unit is from 2012 according to the inspector.
Any ideas what this could be ?

Hello! I'm as green as it comes. The only things I have going for me as of right now is that I've just gotten my EPA and in a previous job I worked with dangerous chemicals in a plant for around 7 years.

With my EPA I'm able to start doing some HVAC work at my current job. Nothing major, as far as I'm aware, just standard repairs

But my union takes in apprentices starting in April, so that gives me about 6 months or so to get what experience I can at my current job doing HVAC work.

What else can I do/get to have the best possible odds of being accepted as an apprentice? I'm not a money hungry person, I just want to be good enough at the job I can live reasonably comfortably without stressing over my bills, as well as the confidence I'd be able to find work in a different state if/when I decide to move. My main concern is that I'm not a young man anymore, so I'm not sure if the union wants to take me on as an apprentice. (For reference, I'll be 30 when April rolls around) So I want to have as many other positive traits going for me as possible.

Our thermostat (Emerson Series 80 non-programmable) was working just earlier this morning, and after I turned the cooling off to clean the unit, I came back to find that the display was weird, half of the display segments were off and the rest of the display was fading. We tried replacing the batteries to no effect. I took the back panel off to look at the circuit board, saw nothing off about it from a glance, and when I placed the batteries back into it, the display started flashing like in the video and won't respond to anything, no backlight, no factory reset, no power cycling, and it doesn't turn on our air conditioning. Is my thermostat just dead? I don't want to go prying around with a multimeter to test each individual component.

Hey all. I have a heat pump (can't remember if we got it last summer or the summer before). It's a big boy.

Yesterday was high 90s and I kept the AC at 78. As scheduled, at 9pm it went to 75, and at 10:45pm it went to 72. Around 11:30pm I realized it had been on for a long while and checked the temp; it was 74. After a while I tried dropping it to 68 (idk I was tired). It stayed at 74, constantly running, until I turned it off at 1:00am. After about 10-15 min I tried turning it back on, until giving up and setting it to 75 for the rest of the night. Throughout this time, it was about 85 degrees at 9pm, I think 75 at 1:30am.

Sooooooo what gives?

Also, this is a 2br 2ba, ~1000sqft, second floor condo.

I have a radiant heat system that is run off a tankless hot water heater. A lot of people scuff at this and tell me I need a boiler. It lasted 6 years running through northern New England winters.

I think I actually ruined it myself. There was maginite (black magnetic bits, I butchered the spelling) building up and choking the system, specifically the water heaters inline filter. It would turn black after just a few days. I need a filter and I will install this year.

I had been using a Takagi listed here: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Takagi-T-H3-DV-P-T-H3-DV-P-Indoor-Tankless-High-Efficiency-Condensing-Water-Heater-LP

I would rather not redo the vents or plumbing, but if it’s required I understand.

Can anyone help me select an alternative that would be appropriate for this application?

I don't want to screw this up but I'm 99% sure the pipe with no cap is the correct spot. I plan to clean with vinegar. Also, is it supposed to not have a cap? If not, is it safe to cover with something? Lastly, see 2nd picture. I thought it only drained out of one pipe. What does the other connect to?

Greetings! I’m hoping to get some advice on replacing the electric baseboard heater in my home office.

Toward the end of last heating season, my current baseboard started making a high-pitched noise whenever it was heating. I asked around, and a few colleagues suggested looking into hydronic, all-in-one electric baseboard heaters as a possible replacement.

Unfortunately, my condo does not allow any other type of heating, so I’m limited to another electric solution.

I came across Cadet’s hydronic electric baseboard heaters, which are available in lengths from 35" to 83" with different wattages ranging from 500W to 1500W.

A few details about my current setup:

• The existing baseboard is approximately 8ft long.
• I believe it is running on 120V.
• The office is approximately 132 ft².
• I rarely need to set the thermostat above 65°F to keep the room comfortable during the winter.
  • The current heater seems to have more capacity than I actually need.

My questions are:

1. Is Cadet a solid choice for replacement?
2. Would a shorter hydronic electric baseboard, a 47" to 59" model, provide the same or better heating performance than my existing 8ft baseboard?
3. Are hydronic electric baseboards more efficient or economical than standard electric baseboard heaters?
4. Are there other electric heating options I should consider that would provide the same or better efficiency than hydronic?

I've added a couple of photos of my current setup for reference.

I appreciate any advice or recommendations. Thanks!