don't even want to think about it. Those who know me know I'm not a terribly upbeat cheery person - but I have put every ounce of optimism into this house.
I called our warranty company last week to have someone come out to look at the heat pump - because it didn't seem to "heat" - today our local Heating & Cooling guy came out. I did learn that a heat pump doesn't actually heat the house, it maintains the heat and heats in small increments - so if it's 68 and you want to be 75 - the heat pump can't do it - if you want it 70 - use the heat pump. I actually thought for a moment that was my problem - trying to heat the house with the heat pump. Oh no - that would be way to easy.
The heat pump, the furnace, the thermostat - wired wrong. Apparently even my furnace heat wasn't heating like it should have (no wonder it never moved up on the the thermostat) - it was using only 2 of it's 4 heat elements - and when the heat pump was on - it was cooling. The thermostat has only 5 of it's 6 wires ran - which means we do not have 2 stage heating (heat with the furnace/maintain with the heat pump) - with the current configuration the 2 stages are jumpered together so when you turn on the heat pump, both the heat pump and furnace come on.... except the heat pump isn't working for heating.
Where are we? The furnace is now correctly wired and using all 4 elements. The thermostat needs another wire ran from the furnace to thermostat, (let's not think about running wire up to the attic, through the attic, & down a wall) to enable the 2 stage heating. The heat pump needs to be fixed. Is it the freon (let's hope not - more expensive). Is it the circuit board (lets' hope so - the part would be under warranty). Is that it? No, of course not :) The condenser - the metal pipe should be PCV (did I get that right?), the pipe is connected to the secondary, not the primary drain hole, the primary hole has a rubber stopper in it's threaded hole, while will do nothing but allow the water to come out if it over flows & there is no T-pipe to clean it out if it needs to be.
*Note* I may have incorrectly described some of these issues - it's a lot to take in :)
Comments from the heating cooling guy:
(Looking at that condenser portion) "I've never even seen it ran to the secondary - and I've been doing this since I was 16."
(About the heat pump wiring) "This guy used 8 wires and it needs 2, it looks like he connected stuff till it came on."
Before you get the wrong idea - this guy was pretty cool - he let me follow him around the whole time and explained everything he was doing to me, and didn't get frustrated when I asked for clarification. I think he is skilled and knowledgeable and the bottom line is -
There are virtually no building codes in Lincoln County - any dumb-ass can build a house and sell it - and we bought one of those houses.
Do I think everything is a disaster and we are going to blow up? No. He was going to live in the house himself, and if he had problems, he could fix them himself. What I do think is that he didn't really know how to do things properly, and he just cobbled stuff together until he thought it worked.
What can we do? Sadly, all we can do is sink a lot of work, money & time into this house. I've called an electrician to get a quote on "electrical work" on the house (I left this on their voice mail). I am fairly certain "electrical work" will translate into "Re-wiring the entire house" after they take a look around.
The plumbing should probably be looked at. The siding. The insulation. Essentially every component of a house.
