++ ATOT official NEF thread part IV ++

[bigboxes]

Yeah, you live with freeze miser. Got warmer here. Got the a/c running this last week. Sucks.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Haha I actually covered my AC and turned off the outside shut off. It won't be seeing any electrons until late June.

 

[MongGrel]

ni

 

[bigboxes]

Wearing shorts and no socks right now. Wish it would cool down just a tad.

 

[Rubycon]

Haha I actually covered my AC and turned off the outside shut off. It won't be seeing any electrons until late June.

The hermetic compressor has a crankcase heater that is energized as needed to ensure no liquid refrigerant accumulates in the cylinders. You can open the supply disconnect for the season to conserve power but remember upon closing the switch in the spring be sure to allow at least a few hours to half a day before a call for cooling is allowed.

Slugging is bad for positive displacement reciprocating compressors. If you're lucky it won't start and trip out on overload as is common with residential single phase motors relying on capacitors to assist with starting. If it's partially flooded and does manage to start you may not be so lucky and see a considerable drop in capacity due to damaged or broken valves. The repair is costly and not a typical DIY project as well.

 

[MongGrel]

ni

 

[Red Squirrel]

The hermetic compressor has a crankcase heater that is energized as needed to ensure no liquid refrigerant accumulates in the cylinders. You can open the supply disconnect for the season to conserve power but remember upon closing the switch in the spring be sure to allow at least a few hours to half a day before a call for cooling is allowed.

Slugging is bad for positive displacement reciprocating compressors. If you're lucky it won't start and trip out on overload as is common with residential single phase motors relying on capacitors to assist with starting. If it's partially flooded and does manage to start you may not be so lucky and see a considerable drop in capacity due to damaged or broken valves. The repair is costly and not a typical DIY project as well.

I don't think mine has anything like that, but it does say not to operate it under 15C. They do say there is a special kit you can add to it if you do need to run it at that temp. So it might be what you describe. It's a scroll compressor I believe.

Actually I wanted to mention something to the guys at work about the new units they installed, they run in a active/standby configuration for a week or two at a time. Problem is the idle one gets snow accumulation on top throughout that time. Wonder what happens when it finally does fire up. It survived the winter (sorta... they have tons of issues with it not related lol) so maybe it's not a big issue. I'd be worried about the fans. Maybe they don't turn on right away though because of it being so cold.

 

[Rubycon]

The kit is called a motor master and its purpose is to vary the speed of the condenser fan motor. At low ambients the condenser fan is cycled/modulated to prevent the head pressure from dropping too low. Snow is usually an issue for heat pumps where the outdoor coil is the evaporator and gets COLD. The defrost cycle simply stops the fan and runs the unit in cooling mode making the head pressure soar and the outdoor coil gets HOT. It will "steam" or "smoke" [sic] often times causing the owner to panic, not understanding the defrost cycle of a heat pump. You live not far from Santa so you would not be using a heat pump unless it was one of those fancy "hyper heat" units that can do 95% capacity down to -20!

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah heat pumps would not work well here. You can drill holes in the ground going 100ft+ deep and use geothermal, but you need a lot of loops that can alternate otherwise you just freeze up the ground. The heat can only generate at a certain speed.

Our premier Kathleen Wynne is actually trying to ban natural gas in the whole province too, what a joke. She probably lives in like Toronto and has no clue about what a real winter is! She also looked into banning wood stoves I believe. I really need to get one until it's too late, as if they ban them, old ones might be grandfathered in... hopefully.

 

[Rubycon]

Would they ban saws, axes, and splitters too?
Oh and if they saw lots of smoke from your chimney...

And look how they clean them in Russia!

 

[Red Squirrel]

That is actually not a bad idea! lol. I don't know how good it is for getting rid of creosite buildup though.

Freaking russians lol. Thing is about Russia is you can do crazy stuff like that and not get in trouble. I'm sure you'd get trouble in North America because some asshole would complain.

 

[Rubycon]

That looks like it could be a pellet stove stack. They don't accumulate much creosote if they are kept in good order. They will get lots of fly ash stuck in the liner and after a few tons of pellets it can build up an inch or more thick. Sucking on it with a two stroke blower would certainly pull at lot out but the proper way to clean is have a vac with a good filter at the bottom and a person up top with a brush.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah personally I would have used the blower to blow into it from the other end instead if sucking that crap through the blower, which is not really designed to suck stuff like that to begin with. Of course if you have any leaks in the chimney you'll be in for a big mess. But idealy it should be built very tight for safety so good way to test.

 

[Rubycon]

The flue should be airtight and a healthy liner is.
Some folks actually carry their (pellet stove) outdoors and use a leaf blower to clean it more thoroughly.
A good sweeping will suffice for the stack liner though.

 

[bigboxes]

moo

 

[eldorado99]

ni

 

[bigboxes]

moo

 

[bigboxes]

night moo-ves

 

[MongGrel]

ni

 

[MongGrel]

ni

 

[Red Squirrel]

Bed time nef

 

[bigboxes]

morning moo

 

[bigboxes]

and the meek shall inherit the Earth.... *jam*

 

[sdifox]

Ni

 

[Mixolydian]

Garbage truck nef