I had a PAYNE heat pump installed a few years back and the guy was a moron. It has never functioned correctly and now, it's down altogether.

I need a good HVAC guy who isn't a damn crook.

Anybody?

24 hours, 24 looks and not 1 reply.

Hmm. It's lookin like my theory that there is no such thing as a good HVAC man that's not a crook is proving to be true.  

I use to know a really good one, but he died not to long ago!  He use to come out every spring and every fall to do a check up and service, he use to charge $35 to do this. If he found anything that needed attention he would get you and show you what was wrong, tell you why it needed to be fixed and how much it would cost for him to fix it, and he was always very reasonable. This spring I called a different guy  (because of the death of my regular guy) he charges $50 to do what he calls a tune up! When he was done he handed me a bill for $180! He charged me $20 for a new filter (which I never told him to change and I had a box of filters sitting on the floor behind the furnace). He charged me for using a shop vac to clean out the blower (which I thought was part of the tune up). Charged me for a pound of R-22 because he said the AC system was low and needed charged, although he never carried any Freon in to the house and he never went back to his truck while working on the system. He charged me for sealing the firebox, he said he could see some light shining through the seams and had to seal them with high temp RTV, you would have to pull my furnace almost totally apart to even see the firebox and he was only here about 45mins!  

So I can give you the name of who not to call (if your around Grant County)! If you do find a good one let us know, Im sure everyone is wanting to find one!

Well, this thing I have is supposed to be teh SHIZNIT.

It's like 18 SEER or something and PAYNE is supposedly top of the line stuff. This was told to me by one of my commercial HVAC guys who came here and looked at it and got it at least working.

It's a 412 (I think) system. They call it a "super gas" and it's supposedly teh bestest thing evar.

The moron who installed it had no clue of how to deal with this type of unit (according to my commercial guy) and only half-ass hooked it up and fried the TMZ (I think) when he installed it trying to charge it.

He also only hooked up 1 stage of the gas burner for emergency heat. This makes it cycle on and off as the temp in the fire box drops when it's really cold. Hell, this last winter, it couldn't even maintain temp when it got real cold. Luckily, my old faithful kerosene saved our chilly asses.

My commercial guy is just too far away to make it most of the time so rather than impose on him (he'd come if I asked), I thought I'd try to find somebody local.

It ain't lookin too good though.  

And I'm just south of the Kenton County line in Pendleton County. 10 minutes out of Walton if anybody's considering this.

I'm about ready to take the whole damn thing out and use it for target practice and get a regular furnace and central air.

Fuggin heat pumps anyway. I ought to have my ass kicked for buying into the hype.

It's too far from me. My advice would be to contact Payne and let them know your story and see if they can tell you someone in the area that installs a lot of their product. If you raise enuff stink and in the right way they may help with the cost a little, don't expect a freebie but a discount isn't out of the question.

From your details it seems like the heating issue could be in the way the equipment is being controlled. As far as the no cool I nee a lot more details. Is the outdoor unit trying to run does the indoor fan run? Etc?

Outside unit runs.

It was sort of working for a couple of months. In cooling mode, it would put out air that was roughly 8 degrees cooler than outside ambient which sucks but it was something.

Now, it just moves air without cooling it at all.

I got a recommendation from a friend on a guy. He's supposed to be here Tuesday.

If he turns out to be the very rare guy we all seem to be looking for, I'll turn everybody on to him.

There are a lot of good hvac guys out there. But there are also twice as many that just started this spring and next year will be working somewhere else in another industry. None the less today they are the best service man on the planet, these will get you in more trouble then ten mechanics can get you out of in eleventeen million calls.

My guess right now armchair tech it is. Low on gas. Leak prolly in one of the joints at the cond unit.

Just an FYI.  The normal temp drop across an evaporator coil is about 20 deg. So air coming out of the registers should be 20 cooler than the air going in the return.

Does your unit have an outdoor air temp sensor and does it lock out the HP below X outside temp. This is a must have for a set up like you describe.


Also if it's not cooling turn off the outside unit. But I'm sure you have already done that to protect it.

I thought a likely culprit may have been a leak so I have the unit set to just circulate air occasionally. It must have an outdoor air temp sensor as the t-stat shows outside temp.

I'm gonna have to try to explain all the woes this thing has over the phone to this guy. Not an optimum situation but, as usual, I'm out of town working.  

MARVELOUS.  

Thanks for your help.

If you ever get up around here, holler at me and if I'm in town, we'll shoot the place up.

IM sent.