New Trane system rumbles on startup/shutdown, and other issues

I had a new Trane system installed recently in my home. It is an xl14i heat pump and xv90 gas furnace. When the heat turns on, there is a 1 second rumble/vibration somewhere in the furnace, and about a 2 second rumble when the system shuts down. I've had the installer out 3 times and they can never fix it. Seems like they make it quieter, but in a couple days it's back. The furnace is in the garage and backs to one of the walls of our primary living area, so it is rather annoying to hear the thing rumble on and off. Has anyone else had similar issues? I don't want to pay > $10K for this new system, which is supposed to be so quiet I won't even know it's on (yeah, right).

Also, I have some issues with the system heating the house in the morning. I have a 2500 sq ft home, 2 floors. The thermostat is upstairs. On a typical morning, 45 degrees outside, house is at around

  1. At 7am I have it programmed to heat to 70. I have the adaptive intelligence thing turned off. First thing it does is start up the heat pump. After a minute or so it switches over to gas, then it cycles back and forth between heat pump/gas, and it ends up taking about 2 hours or longer to heat the house up 5 degrees to 70. I went into the programming of the thermostat and changed one option to make the recovery ramp more aggressive, and it seemed to help some, keeping the gas heat on longer, but it still cycles back and forth. I would figure the system would be smart enough to immediately go to gas, ramp up quickly as possible to 70, then switch to heat pump for the rest.. Is that too much to ask for? Is there any way I can program this better?

One more thing, how do I know if the second stage heat is actually working? Should I hear the furnace speed up or feel more air coming out of the registers? Does second stage heat system work with both the heat pump and gas, or just when the gas is running? Thanks for any help Jason

Reply to
Jason
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first off, turn on the intelligent recovery feature on the thermostat, and give it a couple of weeks to learn when to turn on the system to be at the desired temp at the desired time like it was designed to. with this feature, it will try to use the *primary* part of the system(the heat pump) to bring the temp up to your comfort level, then only use the furnace if the temp is not at the set point at the desired time. Only one or the other should run at any given time *NOT* both. Your installer should have explained all this to you.

Set the thermostat, and let it do its job.

BTW... short recovery time = higher energy usage and higher bills.

Reply to
Noon-Air

Too late. It looks like you already paid the 10K. Get another Trane dealer if that one cant find or fix the problem.

That's kinda stupid of you. Its built into the stat for a reason. So you dont have to guess how long it will take for your system to heat up your home. Its also smart enough to know whether it can heat your home with the heat pump only or if it needs to use the gas furnace to accomplish this. All this thinking is done for you if you'd just turn the damn adaptive intelligent recovery option on.

Read above comment. You turned that feature off, remember.....Einstein?

1st stage is heat pump 2nd stage is low fire gas heat 3rd stage is high fire gas heat High heat will ramp up the blower speed You need to have someone come out and re-check/change all the settings to where they belong. You should pay him since you've been in there "mucking" around with that which you shouldnt have.

Bubba

Reply to
Bubba

I did have the intelligent thing on for awhile thinking it might be better. The installers said they always turn it OFF in every install. The heat pump started coming on earlier and earlier. When it came on at 3:30am and still couldn't heat the house to 70 by 7am, I turned it off, opting for gas heat to heat up the house quicker.

Reply to
Jason

Your installers are idiots How cold was it outside and what was the temp inside when it came on at

3:30?? What is your setback temp??

Last week when it was in the teens here in south Mississippi, my heat was coming on at 3:30 too... Today it didn't come on until 6:05 because it was

58 degrees last night.... and yes I DO use the intellegent recovery feature on my stat.... it saves me as much as 18% on my utility bills.
Reply to
Noon-Air

The installers turned it OFF by default. They said they always turn it off because it doesn't work very well. I turned it on myself to see for myself, and when the system started turning on at 3:30 in the morning, and still failing to heat the house to 70 by 7am, I turned it back off.

As I mentioned above, turning on adaptive recovery does not do anything near what I describe in this paragraph. I don't want the heat pump running at 3 in the morning. It is loud and I don't want it waking me or my neighbors up. When I described the cycling to the installers, they didn't have a clue what to do.

So is this then considered a 3H/1C system? Does the thermostat handle the low/high gas or is it all done independently?

I only changed the adaptive intelligence on/off and the recovery ramp, measuring how each behaved independently to gauge how it effects the system. I didn't "muck" with all the settings haphazardly.

Reply to
Jason

It was probably around 40 outside, 64-65 inside. I had it set to be at

70 at 7am. what is setback temp?
Reply to
Jason

really??? and you don't even know what "setback temperature" is??

Call the installing company back and have them send a proper tech out to correct what you screwed up on the thermostat, and check out the other issues too.

Reply to
Noon-Air

Why the f*ck is your house cooling to 64-65 at night with outdoor temperature at 40???

My house only drops about 2 degrees at night when the weather is in the 40s.

Sounds like you need some INSULATION.

You'll never comfortably heat a leaky barn like that.

Reply to
Oscar_Lives

At this stage of the game you need to start over. You need to have everything checked out to see if it is all wired correctly, charged correctly and installed correctly. From what you've explained Id find someone other than who you had install it. They are complete idiots or lazy or both. The Adaptive Intelligent Recovery feature works very well. It is designed to save you money by using the first stage heat pump to heat your home as much as it can. Depending on how far you set your stat back at night, how cold out it is and the balance point of your home, your system may come on at 3:30am and even earlier.....much earlier. It may take several days or more for your thermostat to develop a memory of how early to start your system in the morning. Your 14 SEER Trane heat pump is NOT noisey. If it is, it is not installed properly. They are very quiet. If your system is wired properly the stat will control all 3 stages. If the installer were lazy, then the furnace control board dip switch will control the last stage of heat according to time............and Yes, you have a 3H-1C system. As of now, you've wasted a ton of money on a system that isnt working anywhere near how it should. Bubba

Reply to
Bubba

I sure would like to know the formula you use to calculate this 18%.

About the only realistic way I can think of is to have an identical setup running in parallel to your existing, and then chart the differences each and every day.

Sure, if you said you saved 18% over last year, month etc, but even at that there's no weather data or setpoint comparisons.

IMO, any supposed 'savings' is nothing but marketing hype, as there's absolutely no way to verify any savings or not, at least not until you have identical equipment conditioning identical structures in identical conditions. Then and only then will you have an accurate comparison model to guage any 'savings'.

Reply to
gofish

Good post Bubba,

To OP: Read this post carefully. It is right on target.

Reply to
Joseph

I compared my own utility bills and actual energy usage over a 5 year time period.

Reply to
Noon-Air

Shut off all of the heat strips here as of Nov of last year, added a second ( open loop wshp ) heat pump as aux instead--looking like probly will be coming in close to a 50% savings over last year.

Really love that intelligent recovery....currently running the ChronothermIII units at the shop and in the residence--and when I eventually get around to adding dampers and zoning the house then will probably use them there, too.

Reply to
Jeffrey Lebowski

Did anyone check to make sure the ductwork was adequately sized for the new unit's blower cfm ?

Reply to
Jeffrey Lebowski

Thanks, I figured I'd eventually have to get someone else out here. I was hoping to learn as much as I can about the system in general from you folks beforehand so I have some clue as to what to look for.

I can re-enable the intelligent recovery again and see how it goes.

efficient than 2 hours of gas? Is there a general rule of thumb? If I'm saving a lot with the sole use of the heat pump than I'd feel better about the long startup.. And yes, the heat pump is quiet, much quieter than my previous A/C, but at 4am in the dead of night, it can still wake me up since it's close to my bedroom.

Another thing the installer did that I didn't think was right was ratchet down the cfm output to try to fix/mask the noise issues. It was originally set to normal, they dropped it down to medium-low, when I still complained a week later, they dropped it down again to low. Won't this affect the efficiency of the system? Should I put it back to 'normal' since it did nothing for the rumble/vibration issues? They also have the Comfort-R disabled. Is that something that I should be enabling?

I know my way around electronics, is there anything specific I could check to see if there is any screwed up wiring or settings?

Thanks Jason

Reply to
Jason

They said they did.

Reply to
Jason

I peeked around the circuit board a bit. Here is what I've found that seems incorrect: It says to jumper W1 and W2 for single stage heating, and it'll use the time delay to enable second stage. I have W1 and W2 jumpered.

It says for heat pump systems, Y and O should be connected to the low-voltage terminal board. O is not connected to anything in my board.

For two speed system, use YLO for low speed, and Y for high speed connection to the low-voltage terminal board. YLO is unconnected in my board.

I also see a Heat Pump add-on box attached to the furnace. From what I can gather, this seems to take the place of the thermostat to control when the to use heat pump or gas:

"If the outdoor temperature is below the balance point of the system, and the heat pump cannot handle the load, when the temperature in the room drops approximately 1-1/2 degrees further, second stage heat is called for. Second stage turns the heat pump off and simultaneously brings the furnace on. The furnace will now satisfy the second stage only. The first stage of the thermostat is still calling. After a minimum delay of 45 seconds, the heat pump will resume operation. If the indoor temperature continues to rise, the thermostat will be satisfied. If indoor temperature does not continue to rise but falls, the second stage will call and bring on the gas furnace again."

I guess this explains why W1/W2 are jumpered, this add on kit is doing the work. Why did they choose to use this instead of the system itself? This might also explain the cycling I experience...

Reply to
Jason

DO NOT MESS WITH ANYTHING ELSE!! Get somebody out there that actually knows what they are doing.

Reply to
Noon-Air

With the typical setup, the heat pump will run continuous until it can no longer keep up with heating demand, at which point aux heat ( second, third stages ) will also kick in....typically the heat pump is kept active even while the aux is running.

Do your own homework, electric and fossil fuel prices actually do vary considerably depending upon physical location....an important constant for comparison being the value "BTUH"

You should f****ng quit complaining and pay the man--then, also pay him to install new ductwork at some point after the holidays if the noise still bothers you.

Reply to
Jeffrey Lebowski

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