Heat Is Still Not Pumping At The Mansion

Don't worry about Mrs. HM. She has not yet succumbed to hypothermia. Today (Monday) she's not even getting out for her scratchers. That chore falls to Farmer H, who is galivanting about Hillmomba like it's a warm summer day. It is not. Not worth a trip in half-heated T-Hoe.

As for our Mansion's heat pump... the service guy DID show up this afternoon. Farmer H was here to climb the 13 rail-less basement steps four times, to fiddle with the thermostat. Here is the diagnosis:

The compressor of the heat pump is locked up.

HVAC Guy said he's never seen this happen! And that he will replace this unit with a brand new one. Well. I guess that's a good thing. Although THIS one was brand new out of the box when it was installed, according to Farmer H. It will cost us NOTHING, so there's that. But we are still without a working heat pump until the new one is ordered and arrives and is installed. Something I really want hanging over my head to fret about.

Meanwhile, the HVAC Guy also looked at our indoor furnace unit, which has been heating the Mansion on Auxiliary Heat for probably months now. Since the same problem with the temperature slowly dropping also happened back in December with our first below-freezing cold snap.

Farmer H had thought that maybe this furnace just didn't have enough coils to adequately heat the Mansion. He said the companies are building them with fewer and fewer now, since many have outsourced their manufacturing to other countries. Anyhoo... HVAC Guy found a DISCONNECTED WIRE inside that furnace. Which meant that only HALF of the coils were heating up.

"Huh. Isn't THAT interesting! Didn't the same thing happen to the unit you had installed at the flip house?  But you thought maybe you had knocked it loose?"

"Yeah. I might of. But it also could have happened at the factory. I think that's what happened with this one, since it was NEW out of the box. He hooked it up, and now you notice how it's running right. It kicks off and on now."

"Well, I haven't noticed that yet, but I DID notice the burning smell when it started working on the other half of those coils."

"I'm just relieved we have heat. He'll get the new heat pump ordered, and once that's put in, we'll be back to normal."

Yes. The Mansion will be fine. Which does nothing for my winter trips in T-Hoe.