So my previously working hot water recirculation system stopped working immediately after my hot water heater was replaced. Plus it now mixes hot and cold water so that I need to shut it’s water supply off. The installers insist that they did not break the recirc. system. I find it hard to believe that after 10 years it chooses to break in the two hours they are here. My guess is that they left the motor running (it has a light type switch) while there was no water in the system and burned it out. Is this possible? Or did such an amazing coincidence as they describe more likely occur? Then I have them come out to check things out and they charge me for the visit. This might be reasonable in some cases, but we have two hot water heaters, and when the checked things to see if they were working following replacement they turned on a faucet supplied by the other heater. Had they turned on a correct faucet they would have discovered there was no hot water. So I maintain that the second visit was really just the completion of their installation, and I should not be charged. Here is what they wrote on the charge ticket:
“Found HTR to be normal. Found circulator to have open winding when valve on recirc line is open water from cold side back feeds to hot. Valve closed and no recirc allows water for hot side to go its normal path.”
Now I thought that there was supposed to be a check valve to stop the backflow of water. He makes no mention of a check valve. And what is a winding?
I can’t answer weather they are lying or not but will play devils advocate for a minute.
Whenever working on anything be it cars, homes or people. Fixing one thing can cause problems on another thing. Turn off the water to a old house you can find when things are repressurized things start leaking. Replace an alternator find the battery is bad too.
Whenever you have someone work on something you don’t understand you have to trust them to do things right. If you can’t trust them find someone else that you can.
Well, clearly, I don’t trust these guys at all. They did not examine the water heater, they just said “Yep, it’s leaking.” Now it probably was, but there are other things to look at first. Then they “tested” their work on the other water heater. And I still maintain that since they never tested anything the first time, and would have found I had no hot water and could have made their case in person at the time of original replacement that they are totally out of line in charging me for the second visit. Tomorrow, I will nicely ask them to return the check my wife made out while I was at work, and then if they say no I will kindly write letters to the BBB and any and all regulatory agencies I can find.
Motor windings. Scroll down a bit for a photo and technical description. Basically, the windings in a motor make it go around. An open winding means the motor won’t go. This can be caused by overheating, overloading, locked rotor, etc. Windings can be replaced, but on a fractional horsepower motor it’s usually not worth the price.