Heating/cooling trick

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Ivan the Butcher

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When I worked for the second largest slumlord in Columbus Ohio, I had a HVAC guy with some interesting ideas on customer satisfaction. Some clients complain about being hot or cold no matter how the equipment was working. We even had office staff that couldn't be satisfied.

His solution was a form of phycological warfare! In that some people just need to have control! So his solution for an otherwise working system was to install an inexpensive thermostat on the wall of the office or other "Cool Room". No wires, just a thermostat on the wall that they could "Adjust the heat any time they liked."

I thought he was nuts! But I watched as the complaints at the home office fell to near zero! For Thermostats in a locked box, his "solution" was to remove the lock so they could adjust 'til their heart was content. Then he would install a thermostat in the hallway on the opposite side of the wall (with a lock on it). No matter how many t-stats you have in series, (for heating) The lowest set one will control the kick on temperature! The reverse is true for cooling too.

I ordered in a case of 48 inexpensive t-states and made 48 people happy. Until the next guy to have that job figured out what we did and shot his mouth off!

Just keep this in the back of your mind, for when you need it.

Ivan
 
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In commercial office buildings, we used to install accustats in the return duct and run the fan on low. There were several dummy stats throughout the space to give everyone “control”. When the accustat made, the fan VFD would ramp up and cooling (or heat) would come on. Every now and then, someone would complain that nothing happened when they adjusted their stat. We just explained that the stat controlled a damper in a VAV box and the damper operated silently. There were always skeptics, but it worked 95% of the time.

PSG Control T-70
 
Ivan the Butcher said:
When I worked for the second largest slumlord in Columbus Ohio, I had a HVAC guy with some interesting ideas on customer satisfaction. Some clients complain about being hot or cold no matter how the equipment was working. We even had office staff that couldn't be satisfied.

His solution was a form of phycological warfare! In that some people just need to have control! So his solution for an otherwise working system was to install an inexpensive thermostat on the wall of the office or other "Cool Room". No wires, just a thermostat on the wall that they could "Adjust the heat any time they liked."

I thought he was nuts! But I watched as the complaints at the home office fell to near zero! For Thermostats in a locked box, his "solution" was to remove the lock so they could adjust 'til their heart was content. Then he would install a thermostat in the hallway on the opposite side of the wall (with a lock on it). No matter how many t-stats you have in series, (for heating) The lowest set one will control the kick on temperature! The reverse is true for cooling too.

I ordered in a case of 48 inexpensive t-states and made 48 people happy. Until the next guy to have that job figured out what we did and shot his mouth off!

Just keep this in the back of your mind, for when you need it.

Ivan
Click to expand...


We did stuff like that a few times mostly in cube farm offices. It most certainly cut down on service calls!:D
 
Ivan the Butcher said:
some people just need to have control! So his solution system was to install an inexpensive thermostat on the wall. No wires, just a thermostat on the wall that they could "Adjust the heat any time they liked."
Ivan
Click to expand...
This is very interesting, I witnessed this first hand and could not believe it. I had a similar situation with a tenant whose chief complaint was that her second floor apartment wasn't warm enough for her.

I theorized that the reason was that the thermostat was on a lower floor and it was a steam heating system. Once the lower floor came up to temperature, the boiler shut off; leaving less heat for the second floor.


So, I set out to move the thermostat to the second floor. I was working evenings at my job and started on the project one morning, getting the 2nd floor thermostat installed but didn't have time to hook it up because I had to head off to work.


Well, the tenant called me the next day to thank me and told me how warm it was in her apartment and how much more comfortable it was for her. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't connect it to the furnace yet.


I never needed to hook it up after that! Sometimes people just need to have control of their situation or believe that they do.
 
Last edited:
My last job was as a boiler operator for the State of Kansas. It was basically a heat plant with three 300 and one 450 horsepower Cleaver Brooks boilers. We supplied steam for five big buildings including the Capitol building. I would guess in the neighborhood of 4,000 employees. Just try to keep that many folks happy and comfortable. The thermostats were sectioned by floors or large segments of the buildings. Many hot and cold ladies on the same floors.

All the thermostats were air operated and you could hear a light hiss when adjusting them. I gave them the same suggestion to put a thermostat in every cubicle and hook it to air. I think if they heard that hiss when adjusting their personal thermostat there would have been at least 3,000 happy State employees.

They didn't take my suggestion, so I just retired. One happy ex boiler operator.
 
We put a new T stat in the CEO’s conference room and never hooked it up to the system. Oh, the joy of seeing a 300# man turn red when he found out, after two years, that the stat was a placebo! It worked well for a couple years! One brain surgeon cut all the grass with a push-mower with no blade! Different story, same book!
 
I remember reading in a professional audio magazine years ago that some studios installed a "producer strip" on the mixing desk to let certain persnickety producers "help". Wasn't connected to anything internally but let them feel they were contributing without messing up the mix.
 
Maybe I missed the boat but...,


Mercury said:
So, I set out to move the thermostat to the second floor. I was working evenings at my job and started on the project one morning, getting the 2nd floor thermostat installed but didn't have time to hook it up because I had to head off to work.


Well, the tenant called me the next day to thank me and told me how warm it was in her apartment and how much more comfortable it was for her. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't connect it to the furnace yet.
Click to expand...


Without a controller was the furnace just constantly running?

confused.gif
redface.gif
 
Your “fix” reminds me of this:

In the Kurt Vonnegut novel “The Sirens of Titan”, the Martians, descendants of human colonists, board their space craft for the invasive of Earth.
The craft only has two controls, an “on” and an “off” button.
The “on” button activates the automated controls that fly the craft to a predetermined invasion point.
The “off” button does nothing. It is just there to give the occupants a false sense of security with the illusion that they have some control of the process.
 
wundudnee said:
All the thermostats were air operated and you could hear a light hiss when adjusting them.
Click to expand...

Man, I hate pneumatics with a passion. When they’re working, it’s great, but I’ve rarely come across a system that hasn’t been buggered and jury rigged beyond any hope of restoring it to its normal operation.
 
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