Hurricane Matthew flooded my small basement. I live in a rather old (pre-1900ish) home with what looks like an old root cellar that was converted into a basement, probably in the 70s or 80s when central HVAC was added to the house. It measures 11' x 30' The rest of the house is over a crawlspace. The access to the basement is via exterior stairs.
I've lived in the home since 2010 and other family owned it since 2007. The house is on top of a fill and considerably higher that most of the terrain around it. As far as anyone in the neighborhood knows, the basement has never flooded (one 70+ year old neighbor's lived there his whole life). However, 10 inches of rain followed by 15 inches a week later will make things happen that have never had before.
My basement filled with 21 inches of water, exactly how much water it took to start filling up the condensate pump. Miraculously, my condensate pump managed to keep what I'm sure was thousands of gallons of water from filling the basement. I used a well pump to pull the remainder out, which had to be repeated the next day when another 6 inches came in through the soil. I now have a utility pump sitting in the low spot and plan on installing a permanent sump pump with battery backup in the coming weeks. We only lost power for 16 seconds during the entire storm according to the software on my UPS.
Unfortunately, the air handler for my HVAC, including the control board and transformer, as well as the lower thermostat for my water heater were all below 21 inches. I replaced the controller board, transformer and both water heater thermostats ($80 for the controller board, $10 for the transformer, and $8 and $14 for the lower and upper thermostats) Much cheaper than calling in guys to fix it, and probably faster since they were all busy responding to folks with much more damage than me.
Anyway, to my point. I have an energy monitor. Prior to replacing these parts, my house idled around 2000 watts - that was just normal stuff running, standby power on TVs, TiVos, PCs, Networking equipment, fridge, freezer, etc. when I knew the HVAC and water heater were not active (checked muliple times when away from home over the previous year) Now, after replacing these components, my house idles around 1300 watts. I wonder which was the culprit. If this continues to hold true, at $0.095 that should net me close to $50 a month in savings.
This intrigued me, however, the only similar things I've found through online searches were cases where a mis-wired HVAC thermostat caused emergency heat to engage whenever the AC kicked in. As best as I can tell - looking at my system's specs and peering into its guts, my system (a Goodman Gas furnace with AC) does not have emergency heat, and I wired it back EXACTLY the same way it was before. I don't think it was the hot water heater as it seems I would have had steam coming out of my pipes it was constantly drawing power. Maybe the transformer was bad.. but it seems like that 700 watts would have had to be going somewhere in the form of heat if that was the case.
My final theory is that my energy monitor is going bad and not reporting accurately anymore. I'll figure that out when the next power bill comes, though I may be able to check the meter since they swapped out our old analog one for a digital once a couple of months ago.
Anyone else ever experienced something like this?
I've lived in the home since 2010 and other family owned it since 2007. The house is on top of a fill and considerably higher that most of the terrain around it. As far as anyone in the neighborhood knows, the basement has never flooded (one 70+ year old neighbor's lived there his whole life). However, 10 inches of rain followed by 15 inches a week later will make things happen that have never had before.
My basement filled with 21 inches of water, exactly how much water it took to start filling up the condensate pump. Miraculously, my condensate pump managed to keep what I'm sure was thousands of gallons of water from filling the basement. I used a well pump to pull the remainder out, which had to be repeated the next day when another 6 inches came in through the soil. I now have a utility pump sitting in the low spot and plan on installing a permanent sump pump with battery backup in the coming weeks. We only lost power for 16 seconds during the entire storm according to the software on my UPS.
Unfortunately, the air handler for my HVAC, including the control board and transformer, as well as the lower thermostat for my water heater were all below 21 inches. I replaced the controller board, transformer and both water heater thermostats ($80 for the controller board, $10 for the transformer, and $8 and $14 for the lower and upper thermostats) Much cheaper than calling in guys to fix it, and probably faster since they were all busy responding to folks with much more damage than me.
Anyway, to my point. I have an energy monitor. Prior to replacing these parts, my house idled around 2000 watts - that was just normal stuff running, standby power on TVs, TiVos, PCs, Networking equipment, fridge, freezer, etc. when I knew the HVAC and water heater were not active (checked muliple times when away from home over the previous year) Now, after replacing these components, my house idles around 1300 watts. I wonder which was the culprit. If this continues to hold true, at $0.095 that should net me close to $50 a month in savings.
This intrigued me, however, the only similar things I've found through online searches were cases where a mis-wired HVAC thermostat caused emergency heat to engage whenever the AC kicked in. As best as I can tell - looking at my system's specs and peering into its guts, my system (a Goodman Gas furnace with AC) does not have emergency heat, and I wired it back EXACTLY the same way it was before. I don't think it was the hot water heater as it seems I would have had steam coming out of my pipes it was constantly drawing power. Maybe the transformer was bad.. but it seems like that 700 watts would have had to be going somewhere in the form of heat if that was the case.
My final theory is that my energy monitor is going bad and not reporting accurately anymore. I'll figure that out when the next power bill comes, though I may be able to check the meter since they swapped out our old analog one for a digital once a couple of months ago.
Anyone else ever experienced something like this?
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