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Posted by Jason on May 9, 2007, 12:16 am
> My heat pump has never been all that great, but near the end of winter
> (here) it pretty much stopped working altogether. Here's the back-
> story:
>
> My house is about 1700 sq.ft (heated), and has a single heat pump. I'm
> not sure what size it is, but it's a Bryant, and I'm wanting to say 3-
> ton. It was installed in 2000.
>
> It has worked fine until about 4 months ago, when we noticed a
> ridiculously high power bill (roughly double the usual, which has
> never been too cheap anyway). I started paying attention, and noticed
> that the heat pump was pretty much running all the time, just to keep
> everything at the right temperature.
>
> After a couple of weeks, it went on a downward slope. I would have the
> thermostat at 74, but noticed that the temperature never went above 71
> or 72, and it was still running all the time.
>
> I called out the company that originally installed it, and after a lot
> of "I'm not sure" and "everything seems OK here," they finally
> guesstimated that the problem is what they called a "UV Valve." The
> tech said that all of the voltages were right, and everything was
> kicking on correctly, so this was literally the only thing left that
> it could be. He called the home office, and they sent out another guy
> a few days later to confirm (I wasn't here when he came to confirm,
> but he left me a voicemail).
>
> Here's the problem: the estimate to replace this UV Valve was a
> whopping $950! The original tech said it would probably be $600, but
> the tech that came to confirm when I wasn't here was the one that gave
> the higher quote. This makes me worry that (a) they saw my nice house
> and cool car in the garage, or (b) they found out what business I own,
> and think that I have money to pay extra (which I don't have, thanks
> to the nice house and cool car in the garage!)
>
> I don't want to go in to too much detail, but I also had to have a
> minor repair done to the heat pump after I bought the house that makes
> me question the quality of the original installers work. It seemed as
> if they installed something that they knew would fail, possibly with
> the intention of getting paid to come and fix it at a later date. I
> can explain more if necessary.
>
> So here are my questions:
>
> 1. Based on the symptoms I posted, does the diagnosis of a faulty UV
> Valve seem reasonable?
>
> 2. If so, would an estimate of $950 seems fair to replace that valve?
>
> I hate to say "please reply urgently," but the temperature here is
> going to be close to 95 by the weekend, so I have to decide pretty
> quickly whether to pay someone else a $100 "diagnostic fee," or to
> just trust this one. It turns out that every HVAC guy in the county
> charges a minimum $100 fee, just to come and look at the darn thing!
>
> TIA,
>
> Jason
After reading further, the guy MUST have meant "reversing valve." I
can't find anything on a UV valve except for in reference to gas heat,
and a sticking reversing valve seems to have similar symptoms.
- J
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