My thermostat is pushed up to 80 but the temp varies between 55 and 63 depending on how cold it is outside. This is with a new gas furnace and new thermostat. It nevers goes over 63. The serviceman says my furniture is blocking the radiators but it worked fine with my old oil furnace. Help??
Hi, What size new furnace? Maybe it is sized too small. IMO, installer should take care of the problem.
Could be an under-sized, defective, or poorly installed new furnace, defective or piorly installed thermostat, or both.
Since it's new, it's under warranty
better have the outfit that installed it come back and fix it
You use the term furnace, but if you have radiators, it is a boiler and different problems to diagnose.
Many potential problems. First is the size of the heater. Going from an inefficient heater to a much more efficient heater allows you to use a smaller size. The reason, an old 70% heater is putting 30% of the heat up the stack, not into the house. A new 95% puts only 5% waste, thus you can use a smaller boiler. The installer may have gone too small. We need more information to decide that.
Blocking the radiators will have some affect and is easily remedied. Move some of the furniture a few inches and see what happens. If no change, it proves your point.
Since the thermostat is set high, the heater should never turn off. The burner may cycles, but the circulator should never stop. Does it cycle on and off? If so, it could be a defective limit switch, or the circulator pump not pushing the hot water through the pipes.
You have to have the installer check for proper sizing and operation. If the same guy comes out, he is too dumb to see the problem. Ask for the owner to come out. There is a serious problem.
*Are all of the radiators getting hot and are around the same temperature? I am thinking that maybe some air got into the lines.
That is another possibility. It again proves the service tech is an idiot, lazy, or both
I am thinking that maybe some air got into the lines.
The radiators get warm, never real hot and the lines have been bled for any air.
The homeowners hub guy from example.com got a diagnosis from a real live, in person tech. Not to be satisfied, s/he posts using a web forum, invading Usenet to ask if the tech who was there, in person, and does this for a living is correct. My money is on the tech being correct, the HO being miguided.
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: Thermostat won't keep temp. Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:44:02 +0000 From: Dsbride Organization: FlashNewsgroups.com Newsgroups: alt.home.repair Followup-To: alt.home.repair References:
Instead of using a web forum, why not find out what Usenet is, and come visit us?
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
"invasion"?
service tech "must be right"?
for SHAME!
Why? What's the problem?
You probably think "real men" only drive stick shifts, too.
+1
I don't see why someone has to use a client based newsreader, go find one, install it, etc when their question got posted here fine without it.
As to the tech being right, given that the house was apparently heated OK with the old boiler, furniture blocking the heat seems like BS to me.
OK,that is a clue. On the boiler, there are settings for water temperature. Evidently, it is not set high enough so while the water is circulating, there is not enough heat in the water to give off to the rooms.
Water used to be set at about 180 degrees. Many new high efficiency models will adjust the water temperature depending on the outside air. You really need a competent service tech to set the system up correctly. By now you should have been on the phone twice today asking for some help from the people that set this thing up. If sized properly, you should be at a comfy 60 to 70 degrees.
Call, be firm, get help.
Can you set it higher than 80?
How cold has it been?. It's been as low as 10 here and the furnace is doing fine. My computer is in the basement and it only runs about half the time, give or take a quarter.
Is it "colder than it ever gets" where you are now? It seems to me there is something wrong with the thermostat or the furnace installation, etc. that that is more likely than putting in the wrong sized furnace, especially one that can only heat to 63, The BTUs and other things are listed on a plate somewhere on the boiler or furnace. Plus you should have an owner's manual that comes with a new furnace. It says those things too.
Are there almost identical houses on your street? What size furnaces do they have? Do you know what you used to have?
FTR, do you have hot water or steam radiators?
Is this a serviceman who works for the company that installed the new furnace?
I've never had a boiler, but since I put my computer in the basement, I sit in the next room from the furnace and I can tell how much of the time it's running. Folks, does that apply to boilers too? I would think so.
If it were cold in my house and the furnace was only running part of the time, I'd figure it was the thermostat or some safety device that turns the furnace off.
If it ran all the time and still the house was cold (and there are no more holes in the walls than when I had the previous furnace that did work) I'd figure the furnace was undersized. Who told you what size you needed?
Assuming it's the size of the furnace:
If you told them what size you needed, perhaps based on what another furnace salesman told you, and so they installed that size, that complicates things. They may have some responsibility to examine the size and see if it is really big enough, but I'm no lawyer and I don't know what state you live in.
If they told you what size you needed, you're in much better shape. Make sure you have saved in one place everything in writing that they gave you. Print out any emails in case your hard drive crashes, Print out any texts they sent you and any that you sent them, and all the texts you sent them in also, because their emails and texts only make full sense if a judge can see what you wrote too. , though aiui some judges would rather see the texts in the phone, so don't change phones between now and when you get things resolved. (Unless you keep the old phone and the text messages in it.)
You should keep detailed records of what has happened, what you did, when you called them, what you said, when they came out, what they did and said, and what happens from now on, writing each entry right after something happens. The more contemporaneous the better. If you used text messages or email before, that's good, and use it more now, so you have a written record of what is happening.
In theory any phone conversations of any importance can be replicated in an email, You should be able to do this without antagonizing the furnace company or making them hunker down by mentioning in passing what they said but making the central point some question about what you should do. Something you might have asked and forgotten the answer, or forgot to ask.
If the people who sold you the furnace said how big it should be, they may well have to replace the furnace with a bigger one, all or mostly at their expense. A bigger furnace will have a higher price. You may have to pay the difference in the price of the furnace -- I'm not a lawyer -- but that will be small compared to the cost they'll have to absorb, removing the small furnace and putting in the big one. I suspect the labor to install the bigger one is the same or little bigger than to install the firsrt one.
You'll probably need written estimmates from other furnace companies, as well as written statements that the furnace now in your house is not big enough to heat your house.
Have to disagree with you on this one, Chris. If the furniture is in the same place it has been for years, the new boiler should be heating the same as the old one.
As for getting on Usenet, it is a dying proposition. The major ISPs no longer carry it and most internet users have never heard of it. Web interfaces seem to be getting more popular Done right, I don't object, but they should not be a vehicle to make money from our contributions.
What would that do? Surely you are not one of those that sets it high thinking the room will heat faster. The thermostat is nothing more than an automated switch. It works just like a light switch. If you push it harder does the light get brighter?
You also have to know the efficiency. A 100,000 BTU 60% boiler is equal to a 65,000 BTU boiler at 95%. That should have been considered at installation.
Yes, the burner will cycle according to the temperature of the circulating water. The circulator pump will be on as long as the T-stat calls for heat. It does not matter if is is set one degree or 30 degrees above actual temperature, it works the same.
Of course not. Maybe the thermostat is broken and it's turning off too soon. . But It really doesn't matter what the actual problem is. I've learned to do every test possible, especially ones that cost no money to do. Especially ones a poster can do with no help from anyone else.
Of course. I don't know if boilers come with a rated output. My oil burning furnace did. OP, by size I was referring to the output. Sorry I didn't specify that.
It should have been.
Your suggestion that the water temp is not set high enough would be the easiest and cheapest to fix, and would only mean one mistake was made. Two counting the fact that the serviceman didn't find the problem. But we haven't heard back from the OP.
You seemed to assume it was hot water heat and not steam. Is that because it's a house and not a larger building?
I was thinking that possibly it ran so quietly during one stage that it could be providing heat but not obviously to someone in the next room. LIke I say, I've never had a boiler. .
+1 for sure.
Hi, How come? installer has to correct the situation. I am sure it is still under warranty. If OP fiddles with things, it can void warranty creating more problem. Often people don't think logically, Duh!
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