A/C Pros in Highlands Ranch area?

[bryjcom]

So, here’s the update. Had a guy come out who has done some work for us in the past (new water heater, some plumbing work) that we’ve been happy with. Ran through what I had found based on the advice here. He smiled and nodded his head and said “nice . . . that helps to know and probably saves some time.”

Transformer was for sure fried, so he said he likes to go with simple and works his way up from there. He grabbed a new transformer with an inline fuse . . . and it killed 2 fuses in a row. So . . . there’s a short “somewhere”. He narrowed it down to a short someplace on the wiring from the thermostat on the main floor down to the furnace. Problem is, we have a finished basement so a lot of that wiring is hidden god-knows-where. That thermostat has been in place for 10+ years, but he said the short wasn’t where he could see it and it could be pretty much anywhere. Said that wiring is not often very carefully put in place and it can rub on metal/pipes/etc and eventually short. The house is 20+ years old so it could have just hit that point on whatever weak spot it had.

He suspects it may have been a wire for a humidifier we don’t use. His concern was whether or not there were enough good wires to still use the old thermostat and have it work. If not, then he said it would be down to either trying to use a thermostat that ran on fewer wires, or if still shorting then run a new wire down (not fun) or just switch to a wireless thermostat—which the only one he had was $$$ and he said he’d rather not go there just yet unless he ran out of options. He ended up getting it wired back up and working with the old thermostat!!! At least for now, LOL. He said he had no way of guaranteeing that there wasn’t another short in the remaining wires that could go anytime—but said that, if it were him, he’d just let it run and call him if there’s another problem and worry about it then.

He told me the control board I had was notoriously bulletproof and that pretty much the only ones he’s ever replaced were from being submerged. So I guess that’s good to hear.
$260 all in to get up and running again. I may look for a good wireless thermostat just to keep on hand in case of emergency down the road to hedge my bets.

I've dealt with many many shorts in low voltage.. I've never been able to NOT find them and/or isolate them and KNOW which wire is shorted either. Does your buddy have a multi-meter? Does he truly know electrical or just enough to get dangerous?

The only reason I ask is because in 14 years I've only had maybe 3-4 shorts in thermostat wiring going up through the walls to the thermostat. Not saying it doesn't happen, and you may have that issue but it's not exactly common.

I have however, had lots and lots of bad contactors cause this exact issue. He needs to either find the short with his meter to ground and/or isolate the AC low voltage circuit from the furnace low voltage.

Let me know what he finds.. Its kinda rare to have a true short in that wiring.