Bypassing Faults

“Bypassing furnace faults, especially safety switches like pressure switches, is generally unsafe and should be avoided as it can lead to overheating, damage, and potential hazards. Instead, address the underlying issue with a qualified HVAC technician.”

Good ol’ Google AI. It ain’t wrong.

Every industry has a version of “turn it off and back on” (yeah, not just you, IT department). In HVACR, it’s a handy dandy bypass.

Aveon Air blog content has been IPV heavy (okay, IPV exclusive) for the past six months by necessity, but I haven’t forgotten its roots. And I haven’t forgotten what I learned working alongside the man who would call me a pussy one minute and slap my ass the next, even if he cost me a few million brain cells. Luckily, he often claimed that most concepts could be understood by “anyone with a single fucking brain cell”, and I do indeed have a minimum of one remaining.

I also have enough basic knowledge, experience, and intelligence to talk the trades, and enough humility to know that I only scratched the surface when it came to HVACR (I will use “HVAC” more frequenly as I rarely, if ever, worked in refrigeration…my last brush with it was narrowly avoiding a trip to the morgue, but I still have many months of increased lethality ahead of me, so time will tell…) My EPA 608 Universal certification was weaponized to shame me, but I am so much more than a laminated license to chill. Lolz. I dove into HVAC a la Revelation 3:16. I did not half ass any of it. I whole assed it, and it stuck.

Most of my ‘prentice hours, which weren’t utterly all for naught, were spent on jobs that involved furnaces. I also helped on installs/changeouts, and enjoyed the electrical work. I was beginning to find a groove in some respects, and developed little idiosyncrasies that served me well – like using my favorite pair of needle nose pliers to strip sheathing of off wire; pinching the end and rolling the tool over and over. Worked like a charm. But I digress…

I remember comdemning at least one unit with a cracked heat chamber, and have had countless conversations, watched dozens of videos, and been party to lessons, debates, and diagrams of this terminal diagnosis. So much attention is directed toward detection, because there is no such thing as a crack small enough to be safely ignored, but unfortunately there is not enough awareness of the underlying conditions: the red flags that lead to the inevitable red tags.

As I began to learn about the danger of strangulation, the first common thread that materialized between advocacy and HVAC, like a silky strand of a spiderweb made visible by a kiss of morning dewdrops, was thermal imaging. Thermal imaging can detect signs of strangulation not evident to the naked eye, and HVAC techs use thermal equipment regularly. While this is important to know and thermal imaging can be a crucial tool utilized to substantiate that a victim has indeed reached the end of the line of coercive control, I have been steadily working backward from this moment. Detection, prevention, incessant mention of the warning signs…like a bloodhound, I’m tracking the real prize. This crime is too lethal to be content with shoring up responses and reactions. We need to train our eyes elsewhere – and we can start with the cabinet door. The equipment will tell on itself over and over again, and we should endeavor to see it and believe it the first time.

The fuck am I rambling on and on about?

Error codes.

When a furnace detects that something is amiss, it tells you. It doesn’t shout or ding or print out a detailed report. But it indicates, by way of blinking lights, that an error of a specific nature has occurred. It is letting you know “I am too hot”, or “I am under far too much pressure”, or “I am not communicating with the thermostat”. So on and so forth.

The correct course of action is to investigate each and every error to the point of true resolution. Any shortcut, dismissal, or repeated misattribution will result in poor system performance, loss of efficiency, and a shortened lifespan. Just as water can carve its way through stone, heat will carve its way through metal. And you may be the best damn tech at finding a crack and slapping on a tag, but that is reactionary. After the fact. Far too late.

Many error codes can be resolved with minor action and minimal effort: changing a filter; tightening a thermostat wire; cleaning a flame sensor.

Other error codes can only be resolved with extensive action and intense effort: replacing undersized ductwork; addressing poorly installed or malfunctioning drains and vents; analyzing and mitigating environmental factors like excessive moisture or unusual airborne contaminants.

The remaining error codes are the red flags indicating that which will only lead to red tags body bags. The steady pulses will return again and again. No amount of action or effort can salvage what nature and nurture conspired to slaughter.

When it is evident that a system is not fit for operation, every HVAC technician should strive to understand why for the sole purpose of avoiding a similar design. An undersized or oversized unit may appear to do all of the things a properly sized and skillfully installed unit can do. Overnight guests may feel plenty warm, but the flames cradling them for such a short time are continuously compounding harm. A morning will come when the guests have departed and the hosts are but ghosts…

An undersized unit is inadequate, and it will attempt to compensate by running continuously, stressing and straining and overheating. It will consume resources with reckless abandon, an inefficient soul suck, and yet the rooms will never quite shake the damp chill of winter. The family will sacrifice all that it has, and it will never be enough.

An oversized unit will rage into action, heat surging from the registers, sweat soon beading on foreheads. Moments later it will dramatically shut down, stymied by ordinary limits, frustrated by barriers it could easily blast apart. Roar and crash. On and off. Start and stop. Hot and cold. Expand and contract. It will steal all of the peace and any hope of predicting where the mercury will rest. The family, exhausted by chaos, will layer up only to strip down again, grappling with an abundance of everything they never wanted and more.

Moral of the story: don’t ignore error codes.

Jumper wires are meant for temporary troubleshooting. Stop using them to conceal predators, killers, and cowards.

DO NOT BYPASS FAULTS.

There is no safe amount of CO escaping from a cracked heat exchanger, cracks always progress, and even a small amount of CO can kill within minutes.

There is no safe amount of pressure than can be applied to the neck, violence always escalates, and strangulation can kill within minutes.

An ounce of red flags can prevent a pound of body bags, if we investigate error codes to the point of true resolution.

We can red tag dangerous men long before we toe tag women.