Hallowell Acadia stuck in stage 1 only

2010-Dec-10

Something is wrong.

The second floor system is working great. The 1st floor one is fubar. The heat always blows out cool. Ok I don't know the temp, but it seems like the 1st state heat. When you put the thermostat up a few degrees, and it goes to stage 2, or stage 2 blinking, the air temp is the same. Emergency heat mode, same thing. Seems like it is stuck on stage 1. So with outside temps 35 high and 10 low right now, it's tough to stay warm. The upstairs unit does compensate, but that is not the answer.

My installer went out of business, but i know the guy, he went to work for someone else. I called him, he says Hallowell has not returned his call(s). Connecting that with recent speculative comments in posts about Hallowell layoffs/buyout/etc.

Also a friend of mine had the same thing happen to him at the same time. He build a 5000 sq ft house at the same time i build my house, and has 2 4-ton units and 1 3-ton unit. One of his is doing the same thing.

Anyone have any idea or advice?

Does anyone know a good Hallowell Acadia install/service guy in the Mahopac NY area (50 miles north of NYC)? I dont want to call random guy.


2010-Dec-14 update

OK I think it is fixed now.

A guy from Mt Kisco Mechanical came out to the house and looked at it this morning. First thing I asked him, was how many Hallowell Acadia's he had worked on before. None, he said, but we all went through the training. That made me a little nervous. Anyway I explained the situation, he checked out the thermostat, air handler, and heat pump. Asked me for the manuals to check some more stuff. He said the heat pump unit had a blinking error #6, he would have to call Hallowell. Also, he showed me a jumper on the air handler (just like on a computer motherboard) which was set to "no heat" instead of "heat". So that was why the emergency heat mode on the thermostat did not work. So I guess in the past year, when my thermostat showed 1+2 blinking, I was not getting any heat from those heat strips.

He called the Hallowell number on the front of the manual, got passed to voicemail, and left them a message. Not even 2 minutes later his phone rang, it was a Hallowell technician. The error #6 was some sort of internal compressor lockout. So I think he just had to pull the disconnect, wait like 15 seconds, and put the disconnect back in, to clear it. The Hallowell guy said that the compressor tripped because it got too hot, it was working too hard. Usually 2 reasons for this would be, (1) not enough air flow, (2) problem in the coolant system.

The filters were fine, air flow seemed ok. The Hallowell guy said something like 20 degrees subcooling. The service tech checked the R-410A coolant, it was low. He said there is likely a slow leak somewhere, probably since original installation, and I should get it checked out in the Spring. He topped off the 2nd floor unit which he said was ok, but on the low end. So he added 14 lbs. He checked out both units, dip switches, wiring etc. The attic unit also had the strip heaters off, he changed both to on.

I'm thinking I might go back and disable them to save money/prevent them from going on. Might this cause any problems with the units/compresors/etc?

Here is what the service tech wrote up

So the rumors about Hallowell getting bought out / going out of business may or may not be accurate. They were super responsive for me today, and they helped the service tech over the phone to get my problem diagnosed/fixed. And it does not appear to be a Hallowell equipment problem.

So hopefully everything is fine now. I'll see how it goes in the next few days. Any comments would be appreciated.


UPDATE: PLEASE READ MY OTHER POSTS ABOUT THE HALLOWELL ACADIA. I'm having compressor problems like many other Hallowell Acadia Owners...

Also if you deal/install/own a Hallowell Acadia, please join the Hallowell Acadia Google Group.
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Hallowell Acadia update

OK I have not posted on my blog for a while, but I figured I'd share the results of the Hallowell heat pumps.

For the 2 month period 05-Jan-2010 to 02-Mar-2010, I used a total of 6465 killowatts, for which NYSEG charged me $746.67. So that is 373.33, for the 2 coldest months of the year.

That covers all of my electric usage - lights, appliances, plasma tv, etc, an 80 gallon electric water heater, and the Hallowell system. I keep the temperature set at 68 all day, and 65 at night (1 am to 9 am).

I am extremely happy with that. I would estimate that my electric water heater accounts for about $80 per month. The lights, appliances, plasma tv, etc I am guessing to be $100-$120. Which would leave my Hallowell heating cost at around $183 per month for Jan and Feb.

If I had been heating my house with oil (natural gas not available here), I would have to believe I would have gone through a 275 gallon tank in 3 weeks or less. Thats how much usage I had at 2 prior houses, which were half the size of the new one, but less well insulated. So lets say 13 gallons of oil, for 57 days is 746 gallons. At a price of $2.40 a gallon, that would have cost me $1792 (or $896) for the same time period.

That sounds shocking to me? Anything wrong with my math? $183 for Hallowell, $896 for oil?

Here are my actual bills:

January Bill

February Bill


UPDATE: PLEASE READ MY OTHER POSTS ABOUT THE HALLOWELL ACADIA. I'm having compressor problems like many other Hallowell Acadia Owners...

Also if you deal/install/own a Hallowell Acadia, please join the Hallowell Acadia Google Group.
.

Hallowell Arcadia - cold weather heat pump

OK so I've been researching like crazy, trying to find the best way to heat my dream house. This is probably my biggest worry in this whole project. Oil heat is just going to be too expensive. I've been thinking that geothermal is my only reasonable long-term option. So I e-mailed a whole bunch of geothermal installers in my area, and one of them came back to me with a much cheaper, but almost as efficient system: the Hallowell Acadia cold weather heat pump.

I sort of ignored this suggestion, but then a week later I Google'd the thing. Well I almost crapped myself. It seems to good to be true, and you know what they say about things like that. The cost would be less than the combined cost of a Hydro-Air cooling system plus an oil burner heating system.

Does anybody know if this is real, or just a scam/scheme??? Please, pass along any information you have about this system.

And I'm going to collect links about this system. I'm sure you could find these same links yourself with a Google search...

The company website:
http://www.gotohallowell.com/

Some dudes named Kevin and John seem to have installed Hallowell Acadias in their own homes:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.html?forumID=50&threadID=301971&start=30&tag=forum-w;forums06
You can also find other references to the Hallowell Arcadia if you search the CNET forums.

A story with a video of the Acadia system:
http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/Acadia-heating-beats-the-cost-of-oil-/1216432211.html

McGuire Air Force Base, Fort Dix and Marlboro NJ residents Phyllis and Seymour Garr install Acadias:
http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2008/0724/front_page/003.html

WCVB TV Boston (ABC channel 5) runs a story on the Acadia:
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/asseenon5/16831616/detail.html

Architect Ed Nilsson of Marblehead MA, installs an Acadia:
http://www.dailynewstribune.com/state/x1542098757/Home-features-two-energy-saving-systems

Yup, even on Bob Villa's website:
http://www.bobvila.com/OnTheLevel/Big-Energy-Savings-for-the-DoD-2982.html

CNET green news article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9859871-54.html?tag=cd.blog

An article in the Architectural Record:
http://archrecord.construction.com/resources/conteduc/archives/0603edit-1.asp

An article from the Reuters newswire:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS127072+10-Mar-2008+PRN20080310

Not sure who the lazy environmentalist is:
http://www.lazyenvironmentalist.com/pages/2008/01/efficiency_and.php

Last but not least, a thread I started on heatinghelp.com:
http://forums.invision.net/Index.cfm?CFApp=2&Message_ID=412460