Should we be testing the heat function on a central AC/heat pump when it’s 90 degrees outside?
On a 90* day in Florida, if the family brought granny home from the airport and the house was somehow set at 65*, wouldn’t they be able to quickly bring the temperature up to comfortable for granny’s benefit?
Maybe run the AC, then the heat?
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This is what I do and I’m in Florida.
All it will do is shut itself off if it gets too hot. There is a high temp relay in the heat exchanger area.
Use heat to test A/C in the winter, but no need to do anything for heat unless it is hotter than what the thermostat will go up to.
Thank you !
Jean Barger
New Smyrna Beach
Around here most of what we see is electric heat strips, and yes we run the heat briefly at the end of the inspection and document the temperature differential while the heater is on.
Why?
You’re running the thing outside of design conditions.
All you should be doing is to see if it will respond to operating controls.
It takes time to get things up for that temperature test. What if the high temp control fails. May burn the house down. If it were to be a furnace, you could crack the heat exchanger and kill someone.
This all it is.
Intended for once in a lifetime use.
To see if it works or not. If it is working properly the supply temp will typically go over 100 degrees in a few minutes. Some of them have a delay and may take a bit longer.
In Fla. You don’t have a “few minutes” in the summer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for turning it on, but nowhere (except a few FU State HI Rules) are you to analyze equipment when the conditions are outside the design parameters of the equipment.
The rate of the temperature rise from 40F to 100F can and will cause problems if you run things till they get up to 100F so you can do some test that will be inconclusive 100% of the time.
You say you have mostly electric equipment in your area. Have you pulled out a heat bank and looked at the components in there? There are a bunch of components in there that you can not fix with a reset button.
No. I have been told by clients that after I called a heater not operating as intended the HVAC tech came and confirmed the heating element was not properly wired.
I’m talking about how fragile electric heat banks are. What components are in there. They are designed to shut down permanently from numerous sources of high temperature conditions (the same conditions you are creating in your test).
You found a bad heater, which is great. But you could have caused the problem with your high temperature testing procedures. Something like a dirty filter, or a/c coil can exponentially increase the potential of failure.
Half the inspectors here have discussed if it is OK to run the heater in summer. Yes you can if you don’t over do it. My discussion on this subject is for these people. You may run your test safely, I don’t know. But there is a high majority reading this are listening to your brief test procedure, without knowing the potential ramifications of conducting a test outside the equipment design parameters.
Your clients are happy you found bad heaters, but can you be 100% you didn’t contribute?