You sit on the job?

 

Sit down on the job??? As much as possible. Don't you???




Here's some more Goodman Junk for ya.
I had all of my calls CLOSE together today. Did 6 of em and never drove more than 2 miles in between! The last 3 were no more than 1/2 mile from each other!

I hate it when the installers leave the caps off.
Especially these shallow type used on Goodman's.

So then I got to cut down my new brass caps to screw on without bottoming out.

See the difference after trimming? If they bottom out the O-Ring will not seal and the cap is worthless. Goodman has that nut on the schrader valves that require you to use shallow caps.

The main problem was loose aluminum wires at the breaker, causing it to heat and trip. But I couldn't help notice the LARGE leak from the run cap.

Then around the corner I did another stack relay. There's the NEW magnet relay. A REAL fan relay.

Couldn't help but to notice the drain overflowing into the secondary on this one.

So I installed a TEE real quick and blew out the drain. I don't even bother to change every trap. The crap blows out great. Just like running the garden hose to it. I'm sure the critics will chime in on that one...

Oh man. ANOTHER bad run cap on another 2 yr old unit.
That's the NEW cap there.

Then down the street and to ANOTHER bad stack relay. In went another magnetic relay. I chuck them piece of sh*t stack relays.

Here's the funny part. The woman tells me her neighbor had me fix the same problem. Hmm. I think. It's all a blur to me with all of the homes looking the same and I'm in the same neighborhoods ALL of the time. I go look it up in my notes on my laptop. No sh*t. I was out a few weeks ago to her neighbors house on the left. And 2 weeks before that I fixed the same thing 2 houses over on the right!!!

Then on my last call, no pics, ANOTHER bad stack relay. Damn. That was 3 more bad stack relays in ONE DAY all within 2 miles of each other. 2 of them within 1/2 mile of each other! THAT is definitely a HIGH failure rate if I did say so myself!

 

Hey Payson HVAC - who is the company that installed most of the units you've shown in your pics? What brand of equipment does your company install? I installed a 12 seer
2 ton goodman A/C a few weeks ago and they had a real cheesy
looking GE motor that they used. It was 2 halves riveted together and not nearly as big as the ones I've seen in your pics. Run across those yet?

 

You know you shouldn't be complaining though. I could change out stack realys all day, easy money.

 

You know you shouldn't be complaining though. I could change out stack realys all day, easy money.

No doubt man.... job security

Im thinking of sending a thank you note to the factory that makes the GE capacitors, I've made some serious $$$$ replacing those.

Im suprised your still changing those stack relays from 2000-2001....as in suprised they have lasted this long lol

 

Sommething you should consider...
save one weeks worth of parts and send them back to goodman.
I live in the northern part of the U.S and we don,t see any of that!
Someone somewhere would need to explain your Failure rate if I was seeing it
Then I could sleep at night

 

coolmist, yeah that's the small HP motors. But I think Trane even has those ones too. Must be a GE thing. But those don't seem to be failing much. Not that I've noticed.


As for the stack relays. I don't just change the 2000-2001 ones. I change the 2002-2003 ones as well. Just as sh*tty as all of the others. I even get them that are still in the late 90's ones. All the stack relays suck.

I don't really want to metnion the co. cuz some of them occasioanlly look in here since I showed them this page some time back. They laughed at a lot of the pics you guys have. Now I been posting my pics like silly and they probably wouldn't like it much.
But carrying a camera and taking pics of this sh*t actually has been keeping me sane.

 

OK. It was Saturday. Those punks make us work 6 days a week all summer and sometimes in the winter. No mercy here in AZ and it is a right to work state so you are screwed.
(The union has been knocking on their door though and all the company does is send letters to my mail box, and in my check telling us how EVIL the union is. I've never been approached by a union rep, yet the company has gone out of their way to tell us how the union is harassing the emplyees. None of my co employees have seen any union reps either.)


Ok Here are a few calls I did.

First thing off. I get a leak check that the last tech decided not to look for or something. But I get the call to go and look for a LEAK.

After checking the ID coil section FIRST I go out back to find the always so obvious CAP TUBE LEAK!
One of the most popular leak on a Goodman besides an ID coil. So I moved it away from the other tubes and welded it up.

Then I get a call behind another tech. Call back. Well. It blows the 24V fuse in the furnace. The most likely problem is a short in the t-stat wire in the wall! SOmetimes a nail/staple gets to the cable and the vibrations make it eventually touch the conductors. I hate these because it will NOT show a short when it doesn't run because the nail, etc doesn't continuously touch. It's random as the unit runs until it gets worse.

So the last tech messed with it and if you look here you see only ONE wire in the t-stat is connected to the contactor on this straight cool. The other leg of the contactor is connected to GROUND. He used the copper pipe for common and I guess disconnected the common form the t-stat wire hoping it would be ok. All I could do short of pulling a new wire on a hunch was hook the common back up but use a diff color wore for the contactor instead of yellow. Maybe that will buy them some time or work without any other probs.

Now here's a crazy call!
I try to open this lady's side gate to go to the back yard but the gate is locked. So I went through her already open garage to the side door that SHOULD go to the back yard...

I open that door and am like "what the hell?..."
She made some make shift cat living area. First of all she had part of the Garage closed off with sheet rock for the cats. Many cats. And it has a opening to this room outside!

These pics are not the best because I went back here and took these pics real quick before she could notice.
There must have been 10 or more cats in this room. They scurried around like crazy when I surprised them.

Oh. And there were about 10 more cats and 4 or 5 dogs inside the house too. The lady had about a 4000 sq ft home. Probably just her and her animals!

It smelled pretty bad in the garage and around this area upstairs. Sad.
Oh. There was NOTHING wrong with her units. She THOUGHT they were maybe running a little too often. Well. Maybe all the ANIMALS and them coming in and out has something to do with it?

 

what does right to work state mean?

 

what does right to work state mean?

I can't say as I know exactly but pretty much it means every man for himself.

 

In a "right to work" state, when you sign the papers before you take the job, there is a clause that says; "either party may terminate this employment at any time for any, or no, reason."
I probably didn't quote it exactly but, like i-got-ideas stated, it's basically every one for themselves. You or your employer can end your employment with their company at any time for any reason or, for no reason.

 

A right to work state is a state that allows you to work without having to belong to a union. I am sure there is more to it than that but most of the growing areas are in right to work states where the employers don't have to deal with union issues

 

Yup. No union. The union is knocking on their door though. The company has been printing and mailing out lots of anti-union mail to all of the employees like crazy.

They are scared I guess. They'd have to give us paid Holliday's and sick days, etc which they don't give to ANYONE except office personel.
None of the installers even had any vacation either until just recently. Seems like a coincidence since the union supposedly was talking to the installers, etc.

As a tech, I've yet to run into a union rep.

 

The adventures continue.

This is my map program I use on my lap top to find my jobs.
This shot shows a few days worth of calls before clearing the map. That's how many break downs and HOW CLOSE to each other I get them in these new housing tracks!
That's approx 1.5 square miles.

Another liquid line that rubbed the reversing vlave. One of the more popular leaks on the 2002+ Goodman Heat Pumps.
Nothing like fixing that same problem over and over in the same track.

Another blower wheel. There was actually a NICE cat walk for a change.

This was when Goodman was actually....GOOD. If you can actually catch yourself saying that.
Other than the electrical wires that burned often, I'd actually put this style condenser up against most others!
Goodman F**ked up when they stopped making them this way. These were QUIETER by a LOT! Hardly leaked. And were EASY as sh*t to work on!

A co worker wanted me to bring this to attention. Goodman's run cap and blower sit right off of the drain pan. The motor sucks water all over itself and the cap.

Bad stack relay. No surprise!

Then up the road to find a LARGE leak in a few yr old Goodman Heat Pump.

Oh. And this is the GE motor someone mentioned that has a riveted seam. I haven't had to replace too many of these. But they are not very popular either. There was nothing wrong with this one.

Well damn if this bad stack relay was not just 2 streets north of the other stack relay call. All in the same day!

More magnetic relays to replace the P.O.S. stack relay.

 

Another bad Bristol comp. RIght in the middle of a cycle it shorted to ground!
According to the story the Home Owner told me anyway. "...the lights dimmed. Then no more cool".

There were a few other calls including yet another indoor coil leak. All but one of my calls today were grouped no more than 1 mile form each other!

Now this was crazy, and I was lucky to get this picture. I was getting a drink at the corner store and saw this truck drive by me and out of the parking lot. I grabbed my camera as he almost got away.
What you are looking at is a Motor Home / travel trailer style roof mount A/C on the roof of that truck!
It was mounted to the cab with plywood!
I think they were running it off of a generator!

Oh, the things I see in Goodman Country.

You should see some of the cars these people drive. They look like this...

That car says "The FAST and the FURIOUS" on the side.
I could whoop that cars A$$ with my 3/4 ton company vehicle!

I took those pics myself. I used them on another site, that's why the bottom one has all the captions.

 

goodman

I had a call today on a goodman with a bad stack relay , I was smiling to myself while I was writing up the bill & made a mental note to check out your daily report on goodman country . Keep up the good work . bh

 

Yeah. You gotta love them stack relays. They always were junk. Especially the NEWER ones. Nothing like parts getting CHEAPER as far as quality goes!


Had a short day. Not as many calls were in Goodman Country.

Had to change out a motor on about a 2 year old air handler.
The oil was just dripping out of the motor. It stained the inside of the air handler it leaked so bad.

Wonder how long it will take for the water to suck up into the new parts and rust them? Goodman Engineering. You got to love that. Engineered to BREAK!

Well, this wasn't exactly a Goodman failure. It was the dumb a$$ electrician who ran the copper ground wire right next to the contactor!

Easy fix.

But after having the unit off ofr 5 minutes the compressor wouldn't re start. This is one of those resip comps that has the little yellow sticker on it saying "This compressor MUST have start assist!"
Well what does Goodman give those compressors for a start assist? A P.O.S. PTC style start assist. Worthless because they have to COOL down completely before they give ANY start assist on the next cycle. Here in Phx you need 20 minutes for those things to cool down!
The new ones are so small/ The size of a "C" battery. That's it in my hand!

So I chucked that P.O.S. and installed a potential relay and start cap.
Now that f*cker starts every time!

Well. that was all I took pics of for today.

 

GOODMAN

I can see by your posts that you are a top flight tech.
I,ve only been posting since the beginning of June and find your posts very interesting.
I have been installing goodman units since the early 90,s and have not seen any of the failures you show and discribe.
I am in the Northeast where the cooling season is short lived (MY LUCK LOL).
You on the other hand are in the heat belt where inferior Equipment will Fail.
My Question is this (REMEMBER I<M NEW)Have you ever told the Goodman Company about the Failure Rate and what is thier reponse?
I,f I saw the Failure rate That you See I would be beating a very loud Drum AT the GOODMAN DIST.
P.S

 

goodman

I,ve had lots of problems with goodman , But I dont want to go to all the trouble of taking pictures and posting my days log . Altho I do enjoy reading about Goodman country ! I have replaced many blower wheels & stack relays . And the biggest problem around here is the burner that dont light . I found out on this board the fix was to replace the burners with the ( becket inshot ) Id say Quality control is more of a problem than just being cheap . Let the man have his fun , after all he's not making this up , hes just posting what he does for a living . And of coarse its funny too ... bh

 

Thanks guys. Honestly I just LOVE this board. And carrying a dig camera just makes what would be a more boring job at times all more worth while. While right now I'm just in an area with hardly anything older than 5 years that's all I've got to share until I get back out there with the old stuff which is about to happen soon ;-P


It's been surpringly slow lately.

Look. I actually had a home out here that DIDN'T have a Goodman!

That's a 5/8 shaft motor in a ICP (Heil/Tempstart, etc) that I installed a truck stock 1/2 shaft back into. Of course the unit in the picture is NOT the ICP, it's the master cool that was mounted next to it which I used as a work bench ;-P

I used the 1/2 to 5/8 shim kit I luckily had on hand.

Now. To start yet ANOTHER debate. WHy the heck did they try 5/8 shatfs? I heard the idea was that 5/8 shaft would have more beairng contact, bigger bearings, and last longer. What do some of you think of 5/8 shaft motors. A good thing or a bad idea?

Then of course I had THIS unit. The STACK RELAY went bad. The on call tech instructed the H/O to turn off their unit, wait and try it again. The fan finally came on so he told them to set the fan to "on" to keep it on until service.
Well...the compressor must have already been damaged from the slugging when the ID fan didn;t operate because by the time I got there the next day or so the compressor was shorted to ground and had tripped the breaker! I also noticed the 247 motor was shot, worn bearings.
No pics of the OD stuff because of H/O presence.

While I was changing the stack relay out for a Honeywell one I saw all the rust in the secondary.

Been leaking for a while it looks and here I see the drain pan cracked.

Let's see now. 2 year old system. Broken stack relay, helped cause the OD fan to wear out and the comp shorted to ground. And to top it off, the primary drain pan is cracked!
Nice equipment indeed! Even nicer to have to explain why a 2 yr old system has so many problems...

Had to check out this beast today. It was actually installed OK as far as duct strap went, etc.

But why would anyone pick a Goodman with NO TXV and NO variable speed as a candidate for a ZONE SYSTEM???
Sure, many will say no TXV or VAr Speed needed. But it would be nice.

It's hard to see in the pic but you got to love the way they run dump zones. They argue that THIS SETUP is just fine but I am not convinced.
They take a run from the supply through a barometric damper pressure relief and dump it right back into the return plenum 10 inches form the blower!!!! (That's the bypass flex ductin the rear).
Now I would think you should at LEAST dump it several feet from the return plenum to allow more time for the air to mix.

Oh yeah. One of the new fangled (really cheap) Gemini gas valves in this Goodman furnace.
This home may actually burn down when the gas valve sticks open before the zone system has time to become a problem LOL!

 

Lennox also used to use the 5/8 shaft blower motors on their 5 ton drive units. The cost of the motor is extremely high. The last one I bought cost about 3 times as much as a similar 1/2" shaft motor.

Yes, I think the idea there is to distribute the weight load over a larger bearing surface area, but the 5/8 shaft motors don't seem to show much increased longevity over the 1/2" ones.

The most reliable 5 ton drive motors seem to be the double shafted models, but they're also pretty expensive. Seems like the wheels hold up better on them too, though.

I see lots of problems with the wheels and motors on 5 ton drive systems, especially Lennox. Most of this I attribute to the weight of the wheel. When I replace a motor in one of them which has a belly band mount, I usually try to position the motor a little further into the blower housing so that I can position the wheel a little closer to the motor on the shaft to reduce the stress, while still trying to keep the wheel centered within the housing.


[Edited by midhvac on 07-03-2004 at 03:06 PM]

 

Ive ran into the 5/8 shaft motors a few times, always in ICP stuff, no good reason for it other than to make it a problem for the service tech, ICP loves to make things difficult for us I think. one time in particular I told a homeowner he wouldnt have air over the weekend because the manufacturer used an oddball motor and the universal ones I carry on the truck wouldnt work..... several curse words were uttered

I keep a package of the 5/8-1/2 bushings on the truck now

 

Questions for Payson HVAC

What is the part number of those Honeywell relays you use, and who makes those 5/8" to 1/2" sleeve kits you have. I'm not familiar with either of these parts, and they would have come in handy a few times in the past.

By the way, have you ever had a Goodman unit with a compressor that had a bad internal spring in it? I had a Condensing unit that the customer called saying it was making a noise. Turned on the unit and you could hear the motor smacking the comp housing about every three to four seconds. Unit is six years old, and customer had just bought this winter so it may have done it for a long time and previous owner had thought it was normal or just ignored it.

Thanks

 

The 1/2 to 5/8 sleeve I just buy at ARS (Arizona Refrigeration Supply) but I'm sure other have them too.

The Honeywell relays are called the Honeywell Fan Manager. Umm, not sure of the model number, it's too late to go out to the van and look
But just ask for the Fan Manager. It has the little circuit board on the relay.


As for the compressor, many Goodman's sound like garbage so it's hard to tell at times what is NORMAL noise or not! I have to admit many of them are the split systems where who knows how well the start up guys did at vacuuming down the systems. While the Package unit Goodman's are not the quietest either, they seem to be not as bad and more consistant in sound.

I've heard a few Trane comps break a spring where the inside motor/pump was bouncing off of the housing.

 

Yet another blower wheel shooting apart on a 5 ton Goodman heat pump!
The new wheel made my LAU is a sh*t load beter than the other one. Carrier, who also had a mess of blower wheels shooting apart on their 50** pkg heat pumps also went to a LAU.


Replacing a stack relay with a magnetic type Fan Manager is as easy as 1-2-3 ;-P

Gawd, these stack relays SUCKED! Who the heck though these up? And what's more amazing is they lasted LONGER running 5KW heat strips than running a 3 amp blower motor!!!

Then out here on the edge of Goodman Country is some York units.
Too bad they couldn't leave room to work on the blower in this attic. Not only is the inso in the way here, the blower wheel housing is almost as wide as the inside of the furnace! I couldn't reach my hand in there to center the wheel on the shaft so I had to completly pull the blower!

So I had to pry the housing out just far enough to adjust the blower. A blower the last tech didn't tighten the set screw well enough evidently!
You can also see the CAT WALK is ONLY under the furnace! And there is a duct where I needed to access the blwer section! I had to stand in the scuttle hole and reach over the entire time on this pain in my a$$!

The shaft was so burred, my heavy duty puller would hardly budge the thing.


Not shown is yet ANOTHER bad stack relay for the day plus another 247 motor on a barely 2 yr old Goodman unit!

Not sure how much more Goodman Country will continue. I may not be working this area much here pretty soon. Might be doing more commercial again. If I do them in central Phx I'll probably still find some good hack jobs