glenn bradley
New Member
Greetings. New here so I will probably step in it a few times as far as usual and customary behavior goes. Case in point; my long title to this thread. Good, bad, don't care? By the way, I am a home owner, reasonably handy but, no where near familiar with HVAC ;-) On to my issue:
I live in a desert basin area of southern California. We don't often require heaters here so they get short seasonal use. The mounting floor of the indoor closet where the unit is installed has been modified so the unit is probably not original. The house is 25+ years old. It is a Payne with a long model number but, why not be complete; 394JAN036045. On top of the Payne is a Carrier unit that then ducts into the ceiling. They match in dimensions and color and I assume they were marketed as one of a selection of matched a units. The Carrier has an even longer model number; 518CXX030000MAAA. Thermostat is a Honeywell of the same era. Trouble shooting with Honeywell's online presence (pretty decent actually) I was able to 99% eliminate the controller as the cause.
Behavior is that the heater will perform a regular cycle. At the end of the cycle the fan (only) will kick on almost long enough to get up to speed and then shut off. It then immediately kicks on again almost long enough to get up to speed and shuts off. All is well until the next normal cycle where the routine is repeated. Sometimes the fan will only re-kick (is that a word?) on once but, mostly twice. Behavior began just after the first of the year. This is my 8th winter in the home.
I have all the registers open and the filter is clean so I do not believe I am causing the unit to run too hard or hot. The side of the blower was quite dirty which surprised me as I am pretty diligent about keeping the filter clean. I believe I found the cause when I noticed an 8" stub from the ceiling of the closet into my unfinished attic area. What's up with that?
There is also an opening dressed into the lower area of the rear wall about 5" high and a foot or so wide. This is just a cutout in the drywall with flashing around the edges allowing entry to the area between the inside and outside walls. Again I am clueless as to the function of this opening.
Glad to have found this forum and hope my problem will add some excitement to an otherwise boring Saturday
I live in a desert basin area of southern California. We don't often require heaters here so they get short seasonal use. The mounting floor of the indoor closet where the unit is installed has been modified so the unit is probably not original. The house is 25+ years old. It is a Payne with a long model number but, why not be complete; 394JAN036045. On top of the Payne is a Carrier unit that then ducts into the ceiling. They match in dimensions and color and I assume they were marketed as one of a selection of matched a units. The Carrier has an even longer model number; 518CXX030000MAAA. Thermostat is a Honeywell of the same era. Trouble shooting with Honeywell's online presence (pretty decent actually) I was able to 99% eliminate the controller as the cause.
Behavior is that the heater will perform a regular cycle. At the end of the cycle the fan (only) will kick on almost long enough to get up to speed and then shut off. It then immediately kicks on again almost long enough to get up to speed and shuts off. All is well until the next normal cycle where the routine is repeated. Sometimes the fan will only re-kick (is that a word?) on once but, mostly twice. Behavior began just after the first of the year. This is my 8th winter in the home.
I have all the registers open and the filter is clean so I do not believe I am causing the unit to run too hard or hot. The side of the blower was quite dirty which surprised me as I am pretty diligent about keeping the filter clean. I believe I found the cause when I noticed an 8" stub from the ceiling of the closet into my unfinished attic area. What's up with that?
There is also an opening dressed into the lower area of the rear wall about 5" high and a foot or so wide. This is just a cutout in the drywall with flashing around the edges allowing entry to the area between the inside and outside walls. Again I am clueless as to the function of this opening.
Glad to have found this forum and hope my problem will add some excitement to an otherwise boring Saturday