I just moved into a small apartment that has oil tank / water baseboard heaters. At first the furnace would not come on at all, after hearing the "click" in the thermostat. Maintenence was sent 3 times before finally replacing the "relay switch", (that's what i was told anyway). Now that it's warmer weather and I don't need heat, I turned the thermostat all the way down to 50 degrees and I still hear the furnace run periodically but the registers don't actually get hot. My questions are, what's wrong with the furnace, if anything ? How much electric does the furnace use by coming on when the thermostat is off ?
Why does the furnace run periodically when the thermostat is off
hvac
Related Solutions
You should check the wiring in the furnace. There are no standards for thermostat wire colors, so you can't always trust the color of the wires. Seeing how the wires connect to the furnace, is a sure fire way to figure out what's what.
The O (cool mode) and B (heat mode) terminals are usually used for a reversing valve, in heat pump systems. I'm not familiar with oil systems, so I can't say for sure what they would be used for.
Some thermostats have separate O and B terminals, like this.
Others have an O/B terminal, and use a jumper to select which should be used.
There is no reason that you should have that much variation in your basement and top floor. It is either a storage area or a living space. If it is a living space then you have a huge insulation issue down there. Trying to solve that via more registers is idiotic. If your main level is heated properly a well insulated basement should need very very little heat. Any living space should have access to heat/air but the last HVAC guy sold you his stuff without fixing the problem.
Do not restrict the airflow. If you have to constantly close registers or are adding filters this is a huge waste of money. You are burning fuel to have a good percentage of your air hit a dead end. So this just makes no sense at all.
Understand that your main HVAC issue is the size of the unit. Anything you do to cripple the output will cost you money and your unit will not last as long.
Options...
- Insulate your basement.
2a. Sell your furnace, install properly sized one.
2b. Live with what you have. Let it do its thing. Keep thermostat upstairs. Understand it will short cycle when it is warmer out.
The problem is most HVAC companies you call will know you have a problem and will solve it based on what they are best at or what makes them the most money. And unless you allow them to tear the whole thing out none will fully guarantee a marked improvement. And of them giving advice about filters or doing whatever to make your system less efficient I would never do business with them.
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Best Answer
This is one possibility, from my distant past... In a house with hot-water heating that I lived in as a teen, the boiler and hot-water heating were controlled in a different way:
Whenever the water in the boiler dropped below a certain temperature, the burner came on and heated the water in the boiler jacket. This would go on as long as the system was turned on, winter, summer, whatever. None of this water circulated to the radiators, until...
When the house thermostat called for heat, the circulating pump came on and pumped the hot water from the boiler around to the radiators. Of course, if the pump returned cold water from the radiators to the boiler jacket, the burner would eventually sense this and come on to warm the circulating water.