nickg5
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Heat and A/C unit and electrical issues
The home appeared to have an oil heating system since there was an oil tank near the house. Not so. The home inspector said the a/c did not work but the heat did and he referred to some equipment under the house that provided heat. There was too much of some difference which only allowed the heat to get to around 61 degrees. Too low.
Maybe you know the terminology on how what you see in the photo provides heat. The plastic grille was going to be replaced.
No GFCI outlets and it was said that all outlets had an open ground. Solution for that?
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The manufacture date of the unit was 1987.
The inspector said the temperature differential was not acceptable and the term I was missing was "air exchanger."
We can call an HVAC person for possible repair or replacement.
https://getscribeware.com/understanding-open-grounds-and-options-for-repair/
The inspector said the temperature differential was not acceptable and the term I was missing was "air exchanger."
We can call an HVAC person for possible repair or replacement.
https://getscribeware.com/understanding-open-grounds-and-options-for-repair/
"all outlets had an open ground ": how old is the house? It's unlikely that every one would coincidentally have the same problem. More likely is that it is older, 2-wire wiring and that 3-wire outlets have been installed without the ground being connected. It should be easy to remove a cover plate (usually one slotted screw) and check to see if there are two (typically one white and one black) wires, one on either side, and a third, uninsulated ground wire. My suspicion is that there is not ground wire.
If the wiring is 2-wire, you could have ground wires run, but that can be complicated and expensive, though likely less than having the full wiring replaced. You'd want to make sure that just adding a ground wire everywhere meets Code.
Another option is to pull the front panel off the breaker box. You should see one black wire on each single breaker, a bunch of white wires going to a wiring block, and (this is the critical one here) a bunch of uninsulated wires going to the same block.
My comments are about U.S. standards. I don't know about elsewhere.
If the wiring is 2-wire, you could have ground wires run, but that can be complicated and expensive, though likely less than having the full wiring replaced. You'd want to make sure that just adding a ground wire everywhere meets Code.
Another option is to pull the front panel off the breaker box. You should see one black wire on each single breaker, a bunch of white wires going to a wiring block, and (this is the critical one here) a bunch of uninsulated wires going to the same block.
My comments are about U.S. standards. I don't know about elsewhere.
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Another option is to pull the front panel off the breaker box. You should see one black wire on each single breaker, a bunch of white wires going to a wiring block, and (this is the critical one here) a bunch of uninsulated wires going to the same block.
..............yes true but the panel is installed behind a kitchen cabinet so the cabinet would have to be taken down to be able to open the door on the panel.
The house is at least 1968 or older. We were prospective buyers but walked away. Too many other issues.
..............yes true but the panel is installed behind a kitchen cabinet so the cabinet would have to be taken down to be able to open the door on the panel.
The house is at least 1968 or older. We were prospective buyers but walked away. Too many other issues.
yes true but the panel is installed behind a kitchen cabinet so the cabinet would have to be taken down to be able to open the door on the panel.
That suggests there's been some homeowner hacking done as there's no way a professional would have covered up the breaker box. You need access to reset a breaker AND for maintenance, i.e. replacing a breaker or seeing what's in the box.
The house is at least 1968 or older.
The speculation on a two-wire system with grounded outlets is spot on. 2-wire was standard nearly everywhere until at least the mid sixties. Depending on your location that house was probably built with 2-wire was still to code.
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