supplemental heat running too hot

[dbh]

Last Year I had a heat pumped installed and have had about 1.5 year of problems with it. I live in Montreal Canada and the pump was installed so that I could air condition in the summer and save on heating in the winter. Many people have heat pumps here (air and not buried) so that we can get a dual electric energy rate? If the temperature is above –11 degrees Celsius then we pay 3.3 cents per kilowatt and under we heat with oil and pay a much higher electrical rate. Given that January and February are very cold we will be heating with oil and the electrical saving will be realized during the other 10 months. Enough for the heat pump rational. The heat pump basically ran most of last winter with insufficient freon gas. The original contractor has vanished or will not respect his warranty and I had given up on him. In the summer I noticed while air conditioning that the whole unit was frosting up. I decided to phone Sears and have them look at it. I had concluded that problem was a lack of gas. Sure enough the Sears technician added 3 pounds of gas in 20 minutes and charged me for 2 hours of service-I guess he needed breakfast. I phoned sears after my wife told me that they had filled the unit up and they explained that if it leaked again they would look for holes. My immediate reaction was why did they not look for a hole with the other 1.5 hours that I had paid for. One month latter the unit was frosting up again. They came back and filled it up. This time being wiser I refused to pay and asked why they did they not look for the problem. It turned out that they would have to send in a specialist to look for the hole. I thanked them for the extra gas and immediately asked around at work for another service firm. Sure enough a new company that seemed much more on the ball arrived. The technician found a leak outside the oil furnace at the joint between the coils and the piping running outside to the actual unit. He explained that they would have to install a pressure valve and this would definitely take care of the problem. This was in September. Two month latter as the temperature started to drop I noticed that the heat pump was spinning and not stopping. The outside temperature was about –6C. I walked down into the basement and noticed oil leaking out of the pressure valve coupling. The technician showed up again and said that he had never seem a pressure value unscrew itself. The new leak was exactly were the old one had been. He was perplexed and said that the only way this could happen was with extreme pressure. He said he guessed that it was his fault (very reluctantly) and that it would be at their expense. I asked him over the phone to look at the furnace fan because it was always running faster since the heat pumped had been installed. On my arrival home my wife presented me with a new 200 dollar invoice. Apparently he had discovered that the fan on the furnace had been “doubled wired” and had been running really hot causing the coils to heat up too much. They proposed to add on another expansion valve on the outside of the house. Being very suspicious now I let two weeks slide. I have now noticed that when the supplementary heat comes on the entire expansion valve and the piping going outside becomes incredibly hot and I wonder if the supplementary heating is actually the problem. I don’t think that I need another expansion valve since once would seem enough and they have not really located the problems. So here is some of my question:

1) Can I control how long the furnace will run for via the thermostat to prevent the coils from heating up too much?
2) Can I put in a stronger furnace fan blow harder?
3) Should I put in another expansion valve?
4) Can a fan really be doubled wired and acting like a heater?
5) Can the supplementary heating and the furnace both run simultaneously.

Thanks
Frustrated heat pump owner

[Ed Imeduc]

Thats a long tail for sure. I think Id look for a new hvac tech guy or gal. I cant see so many TXV on the unit

#1 yes its all in how its wired up

#2 Yes but dont think thats it, ducts ok, filters clean, coil clean cold air return ok. furnace in the home and on its own duct work for years ? Then just the H/P put on it?

#3 Why is it bad ?????Is the check valve on the by pass there ok by it??? Driers ok any noncondensables in the unit

#4 No put it can burn up ( thats a new one heat from the blower motor)

#5 Yes and No how its wired or if the outdoor tstat screws up. Not sure if the power company has anycontrol over the unit there. Like here for what you have there would be just a outdoor tstat and set for what temp you would have H/P are Oil for heat.

ED ;)