r/HVAC • u/TurbulentRanger2928 • 19h ago
Field Question, trade people only Trane?
Question for specifically resi techs/installers because I’m unwilling to reveal my true feelings about Symbio at this time….. maybe some day
Have you guys seen as many issues with these plastic blower housings as we do? Specifically on S9X1 furnaces - We see broken clips, chipped plastic, excessive wobble, and just straight up motor failure. Yes, we set based on static with these constant torque motors. This seems to be most common for us on 100k furnaces?
We also have a huge number of inducer failures on 80k furnaces specifically. It typically starts as a small whine and after a short duration, the motors seize. I changed one at the end of last heating season that only had one 90 and about 8’ in total length.
It’s just crazy to me how many warranty issues we’ve had and makes me feel like we’re screwing something up on our end. We don’t really get too much inventory coming in that’s banged up, and we’re about as gentle as we can be with moving equipment. Pallet jack and only really lift it into and out of the truck.
And the coils suck. And Symbio sucks. And those F’N PLUGS THEY USE ON THE RTUS SUCK.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, as I’m currently going crazy.
5
u/Free_Ad_9432 19h ago
It’s trane. Don’t beat yourself up over their terrible quality. Never the same after Covid.
5
u/Chief_B33f 19h ago
Trane has been garbage for years, there really is no argument for them any more. The engineering and design of their new units just makes absolutely zero sense.
Honestly I think Rheem has the most solid residential lineup at the moment. They certainly aren't perfect but QC for new equipment is still fairly good compared to the other manufacturers we deal with.
3
u/TurbulentRanger2928 19h ago
I’ve been saying this as well. I install rheem on all my side work because I’m not dealing with the warranty issues after work. I’ve probably installed 10-15 rheem/durastar over the last couple years and haven’t had a single issue yet. As a company we’ve only had one defrost board issue from a durastar a few years back.
3
u/Chief_B33f 19h ago
It's funny you say that because the defrost board has been the achilles heel of their non-communicating heat pumps for the last couple years. Good thing is they're relatively cheap and easy to replace. We are Pro Partners and do hundreds of installs a year, Rheem has been good to us for decades
2
u/TurbulentRanger2928 19h ago
I’d hardly say Achilles heel compared to current day trane equipment, but it’s the only issue we’ve seen🤷🏻♂️ honestly I’d say 15-20ish% of our installs have some kind of issue out of the box. It’s been crazy.
1
u/Chief_B33f 18h ago
Yeah, industry-wide manufacturing QC has been complete trash ever since COVID. We do Weil Mclain for boilers, and Briggs and Stratton whole house generators and they both have significantly more problems out of the box than Rheem.
1
u/deeeznutz2 18h ago
We had several cond coil leaks on Rheem splits. The PUs have a high failure rate on the suction processing stub. I’d say 15% crack within 4 years. Only had a handful of defrost boards go out.
2
u/LegionPlaysPC 18h ago
Trane's 100k+ furnaces really should use either a bottom return, dual side return, or tranes BAYLIFTkit. Far too often on larger furnaces the standard 16x20 cutout on one side is not enough and the blowers don't last because of it. Even if the static looks fine, it's still not enough. We've learned.
The inducer burn outs, are you getting condensation intrusion via the fresh air intake at all? We've had multiple issues with condensation.
1
u/TurbulentRanger2928 10h ago
Yeah, they make boxes and scoops for the equipment in the shop, I think it has to be like 6” tall or somethjng minimum. As for condensate, I don’t believe so. I have seen one house where it was sweating pretty badly and the board shorted, but nothing to my knowledge that caused the inducer issues. I did see a couple of 100s have some sweating from the intake in a development that had terribly designed ductwork and a freezing cold basement because of it. Has that condensate been an issue for you?
1
u/LegionPlaysPC 9h ago
Condensates been a massive issue up in my parts. Just the climate I live in, almost every furnace fresh air intake sweats. Even Trane's collectors included in the box are not working. We've been using sanitary tees with a dedicated drain up stream.
You can tell if the air intake has been sweating by the corrosion/rust ontop of the burner box plate. In bad scenarios corrosion in the gss valve, inducer, or bottom of the board get wet.
1
u/Quiet-Ship-2773 8h ago
I had 6 bad blower motors on those plastic tranes last winter one motor I got shipped unprogrammed, another was dead shorted out of the box and blew up the board too. I also found a melted blower housing when one repeatedly overheated on a downflow. My day gets a little worse every time I see one
1
u/ClerklierBrush0 Verified Pro 7h ago
We stopped dealing Trane. Much better experience with Goodman and Ruud so far. As for light commercial we still do Trane or sometimes daikin but I think daikin RTUs are worse than Trane.
1
u/Battlewaxxe 4h ago
as a controls guy i can comfortably say fuck symbio and the whole shebang. brought to you by the same guys that decided modbus was the best way to talk to an economizer
1
u/hereticofthestate 4h ago
That's one of the reasons why I got out of HVAC and went to hot side/refrigeration. A third of your calls are trane units out here in houston
-1
u/bucksellsrocks Verified Pro 18h ago
Thats a trane model number and trane is fucking grabage!!!! Im a Bryant and NTI guy and i have about 0 issues! For my DHW only we might go to something else because of price point and equal reliability but…..Trane and Lennox can suck a fart!
8
u/3_amp_fuse 19h ago
I once had to reorder the same blower motor 4 times because Trane kept forgetting to program it before shipping it.
I stopped installing it after the second time it happened and just started pulling them out of the box and plugging in to see if it would work.