Can I share a personal win?
Hey mods, delete this if you need to. I just figured out how to fix a problem with my heating system that's been stressing me out for weeks and I needed to share with someone because my wife says she can't hear me rant about home repair issues anymore. TL:DR - Spent $3k for HVAC guy to fix my heating system but the problem wasn't fixed. Instead of paying him more to try again, I spent hours watching youtube and with a few cheap tools from Amazon, I diagnosed and solved the problem that would have probably cost me thousands of dollars more. My house is old and everything in it is old and falling apart. I have ZERO experience in anything home repair related. We have a 4 zone closed hydronic heating system. A few weeks ago, 1 zone wasn't getting hotter than 68F and the other zone wasn't getting heat at all. I called the HVAC guy and he said the zone valve controllers were worn out and needed to be replaced. Quoted me $600 PER zone valve. He recommended replacing all 4 since they were all the same age. I was relieved that it was a quick fix and was willing to dump whatever money needed to get it resolved because temperatures were dipping down below 20F here in NJ and I was stressing the fuck out. So with the service call charge, I dropped $3k to replace the controllers. A week goes by and I don't see any improvement. I'm about to call the HVAC guy again, but I'm pissed that we didn't fix the problem. So I'm online for hours trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Air locked pipes, blockage, bad pump, bad pressure valve, could be anything. I spent so many hours trying to bleed the lines but it didn't fix anything. Finally decided to check the circulator pump. Called the HVAC guy. $350 service charge and $1000 if the pump needs to be replaced. I look up the pump and it's $135 and maybe an hour of labor. I watch hours of youtube videos and am feeling like I can do this on my own. I'm about to order the pump when I watch one more video that has a guy who says to check your aquastat before replacing your pump. What the hell's an aquastat?! More hours of research and watching videos. I order a $13 multimeter off Amazon and open up the aquastat box. Lo and behold, no voltage between the circulator pump leads C1 and C2. So I call up the HVAC guy again. He says it looks like the aquastat needs to be replaced: $350 service charge and $1500 to replace it. Fuckin hell. I look up the Honeywell aquastat online and it's $368. More hours of videos and I convince myself that I can do this. I order the part online. My wife tells me to not do anything that will end up with me electrocuting myself. But I'm committed now. I'm watching a few more videos on how to replace the aquastat just to cover all my bases and then I find this random video of this guy who looks like he's about 90 years old and he's dismantling the exact same aquastat I have and he has the same voltage loss between C1 and C2. He opens it up, takes the circuit board out, flips it around and shows how one of the soldered leads look a bit burnt out. He re-solders it, reassembles the unit, and voila! it works. I tell my wife to not bother me for 2 hours and I sit in front of the aquastat planning my course of attack. I meticulously detach all the wires, unscrew the unit from the boiler, carefully remove the circuit board and when I flip it over, there is one soldered piece that looks a little brown. I take my $10 soldering iron from Amazon and re-solder that part. At this point I don't care if it doesn't work. I've got the new aquastat on the way and now I have some experience with the wiring. So I put the unit back together and reattach the wires. I don't even secure the MC cable sheath to the box since I'm just going to be taking it off again to install the new unit. I turn on the power, pull my multimeter out and W - T - F. I'm getting 127 VAC at C1 to C2. I turn on my basement thermostat to call for heat and Jesus H Christ, the boiler kicks in and the pump starts up. I check the 2 zones that weren't getting heat and they're both slowing heating up. I go upstairs. My wife and kids are asleep already. I cancel my aquastat order. I dust off my bottle of Macallan 18YO and pour myself a double. The end. submitted by /u/Tokeee3 [link] [comments]
Hey mods, delete this if you need to. I just figured out how to fix a problem with my heating system that's been stressing me out for weeks and I needed to share with someone because my wife says she can't hear me rant about home repair issues anymore.
TL:DR - Spent $3k for HVAC guy to fix my heating system but the problem wasn't fixed. Instead of paying him more to try again, I spent hours watching youtube and with a few cheap tools from Amazon, I diagnosed and solved the problem that would have probably cost me thousands of dollars more.
My house is old and everything in it is old and falling apart. I have ZERO experience in anything home repair related. We have a 4 zone closed hydronic heating system. A few weeks ago, 1 zone wasn't getting hotter than 68F and the other zone wasn't getting heat at all. I called the HVAC guy and he said the zone valve controllers were worn out and needed to be replaced. Quoted me $600 PER zone valve. He recommended replacing all 4 since they were all the same age. I was relieved that it was a quick fix and was willing to dump whatever money needed to get it resolved because temperatures were dipping down below 20F here in NJ and I was stressing the fuck out. So with the service call charge, I dropped $3k to replace the controllers. A week goes by and I don't see any improvement. I'm about to call the HVAC guy again, but I'm pissed that we didn't fix the problem. So I'm online for hours trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Air locked pipes, blockage, bad pump, bad pressure valve, could be anything. I spent so many hours trying to bleed the lines but it didn't fix anything. Finally decided to check the circulator pump. Called the HVAC guy. $350 service charge and $1000 if the pump needs to be replaced. I look up the pump and it's $135 and maybe an hour of labor. I watch hours of youtube videos and am feeling like I can do this on my own. I'm about to order the pump when I watch one more video that has a guy who says to check your aquastat before replacing your pump. What the hell's an aquastat?! More hours of research and watching videos. I order a $13 multimeter off Amazon and open up the aquastat box. Lo and behold, no voltage between the circulator pump leads C1 and C2. So I call up the HVAC guy again. He says it looks like the aquastat needs to be replaced: $350 service charge and $1500 to replace it. Fuckin hell. I look up the Honeywell aquastat online and it's $368. More hours of videos and I convince myself that I can do this. I order the part online. My wife tells me to not do anything that will end up with me electrocuting myself. But I'm committed now. I'm watching a few more videos on how to replace the aquastat just to cover all my bases and then I find this random video of this guy who looks like he's about 90 years old and he's dismantling the exact same aquastat I have and he has the same voltage loss between C1 and C2. He opens it up, takes the circuit board out, flips it around and shows how one of the soldered leads look a bit burnt out. He re-solders it, reassembles the unit, and voila! it works. I tell my wife to not bother me for 2 hours and I sit in front of the aquastat planning my course of attack. I meticulously detach all the wires, unscrew the unit from the boiler, carefully remove the circuit board and when I flip it over, there is one soldered piece that looks a little brown. I take my $10 soldering iron from Amazon and re-solder that part. At this point I don't care if it doesn't work. I've got the new aquastat on the way and now I have some experience with the wiring. So I put the unit back together and reattach the wires. I don't even secure the MC cable sheath to the box since I'm just going to be taking it off again to install the new unit. I turn on the power, pull my multimeter out and W - T - F. I'm getting 127 VAC at C1 to C2. I turn on my basement thermostat to call for heat and Jesus H Christ, the boiler kicks in and the pump starts up. I check the 2 zones that weren't getting heat and they're both slowing heating up. I go upstairs. My wife and kids are asleep already. I cancel my aquastat order. I dust off my bottle of Macallan 18YO and pour myself a double. The end.
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