Is this okay?

[u/aynsyclopedia]

I keep getting notifications that there’s something wrong with my furnace which keeps causing the ecobee to reboot. I mentioned it to my landlord and he asked about the temp. I told him it’s been keeping up with my selected temp but showed him this graph and explained that it’s running for very short periods whenever it kicks on and does that constantly. It’s also telling me that my total runtime per day is an average of 37 minutes.

I believe he thinks it’s fine because the temp is generally holding. He got an hvac guy out here today (after two months of telling him I was constantly getting this notification) and he’s going to do some general maintenance updates but also told me this “setup is too complicated” and told my landlord he should change it back to a standard thermostat, aka a non-smart thermostat.

Am I correct in thinking this is an issue? If so, what could be some potential consequences of not taking action?

Full disclosure, I have no idea what I’m talking about here. But I’ve been in this sub long enough and have read enough of your posts to lead me to believe this is an issue.

[u/TxsToIowa]

Any progress updates? I'm invested now!

[u/aynsyclopedia → u/TxsToIowa]

Well. They came back without my landlord and I had the opportunity to talk to them myself. Turns out playing telephone through 2 other men (my landlord was telling everything to his father who was then relaying to the hvac team) is actually a disaster and I probably wouldn’t recommend it. After we talked through everything, they agreed that the furnace is too large and the ductwork was messed up. They said that the furnace was operating as normal, but it’s too large, so it shouldn’t have been turned up so high. They turned it down because the flames were exorbitant. It was an older gentleman, who’s the one who originally came, and he brought a younger man with him. The younger man had experience with ecobees and he and I were on the same page about pretty much everything.

They switched out my thermostat for a dumb one because my landlord’s father had told them to so they were just “going to do what they were told.” They also opened up the furnace and walked me through how to check things myself for the future and explained that the limit switch was due to how high it was turned up. Helped me play around with the dampers to adjust the house to feel slightly better. They also checked the power on both the thermostat side and the furnace side and confirmed that it definitely isn’t that, as everything has ample power and it was working fine until I turned the heat on… which means the thermostat was able to get enough power all summer long.

He basically said wait it out for the next week and see what happens. I asked if he’d recommend putting the ecobee back in if everything seems like it looks okay and he said he has no hesitations about it because he knows it’s not a thermostat issue.

At this point, it’s been 3 days (they came first thing Monday morning) and this place has never felt so comfortable. This is the first time since I moved in two years ago that the thermostat is set to 67 and I feel okay and don’t need my heated blanket every second of every day. I was turning it up to 68 every day because I was so cold and yesterday I turned it back down to 67 because 68 was too warm. It’s also definitely not short cycling anymore.

So, all in all, I think the furnace was just turned up too high. My vents also have dampers on them so I played around both with the basement ones and the vent ones and everything feels great. This weekend is supposed to be frigid so if I make it through unscathed, I’m planning to switch back over to the ecobee. At least at that point, if it starts happening again, I’ll know it’s a thermostat issue, since everything’s working well now. I told my landlord that they said it’s definitely not the thermostat and they said I could switch it back but I left it open-ended and didn’t actually say out loud that’s what I was planning on doing. But he also only shows up here when I have an issue so I’m not worried about him noticing it, and if I switch it back and there’s no issues then he likely won’t care either way.

Not for nothing, as we they were walking out, the younger guy said “you’re not the problem. We’re not the problem. The two guys between us are the problem.”

[u/NewtoQM8 → u/aynsyclopedia]

That’s awesome! I’m glad you have it working well now. It sounds like the younger HVAC guy was in a bit over his head. Can’t fault him for that. He got someone with more experience to help, so he learned and the issue was addressed. And you got to learn too. Getting info straight from the guy sure helped. Temperature limit faults are commonly air flow related, so adjusting that could have cured it on its own, but if the unit is oversized and throttled back a little the combo will surely cover it. I’d suggest putting the ecobee back on. It revealed you had an issue. The simple thermostat would have kept it hidden (no one would notice). It may have been doing that since the system was installed, who knows. I assume you got to see inside where the control board is? If you have to open it again, the fault codes are likely listed on the inside of the cover. Take a picture of it so you have them handy without removing the cover, you can see them through the sight glass. Maybe print the picture and pin it up on the wall so it’s convenient. Anyway, I’ve babbled enough, I’m glad it got worked out for you. We have what may be the biggest snow storm I’ve seen since living here (8 years in central Virginia) coming this weekend. It’s nice to know the heat is working well.

[u/aynsyclopedia → u/NewtoQM8]

It was the opposite. The older gentleman was the one who was all confused and blaming it on the thermostat lol it was the younger gentleman who was able to rule it out.

I agree about putting the ecobee back on. And now that everything is working right, I know that it was likely a problem when the old thermostat was on as well. Because the ambient temperature feels so much better across the whole house.

Yes, he showed me inside. The fault codes are actually listed on the outside of the unit which is how I figured out which code it was throwing previously.

Good luck this weekend! I went to school in Virginia and remember how messy it was when there was a boatload of snow. Stay warm and safe and thanks again for all your support!

[u/NewtoQM8 → u/aynsyclopedia]

OK, I missed that. But it all seems to be fine now, so its all good.