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New Thermostats

waybomb

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
So, over the winter I bought to new thermostats. One for the first floor hvac which heats and cools all three floors, and then another for the third floor ac unit.

Everything worked before I did this.

Installed the hvac unit, programmed it, put it on heat (it was cold out when I did this), and it worked fine. I did not test cooling because of outside air temperature.

So, this Saturday, I decided it's time to turn the ac on for the summer.
Set the first floor to cool and off it went, just fine.

Walked upstairs, turned it on, I hear the air handler, but no compressor/fan. OK, so I am thinking new tstat, I must have screwed up something. Get the book out, and reread how to set it up for cooling only, and I had that right. So I disconnect the yellow wire and touch the red. I get a small spark, but no go on the condenser. So now it wasn't me; I have a load from the contactor present!

Go outside, pull the cover off after pulling the disconnect, and two fried mice and an electrical section full of dead foliage, stinkin to high heaven, and a bunch of chewed wires.

Fixed the wiring, pulled the contactor out, and these little bastards placed dead foliage in between the moving contacts and the stationary contacts. Did I say this stunk to high heaven?

Cleaned it all up, put it all back together, and everything was fine.
It's nice to know something about something!
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I have a friend in the HVAC business. He cleans up dead mice and reconnects the wires for me about every other year :hammer:
 

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
You guys should have seen what a nest of rats did crawling into a 5" underground Duct and chewing on 4160 Volt line feeding a Xfmr at a UPS facility in Williston, VT.

We pulled the cables out and replaced them, made up all the 5KV terms in less then a day. With new cable, the cut outs were happy again. Not a cheap day, I will tell you that, but UPS has deep pockets.
 
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