02-20-2026 — Failure to complete

Howdy all. Well the “good” weather is ending as I type. It is about noon, and the winds just started towards their 25-45 mph goal for today/tomorrow. And temperatures dropping out of 40-50 range back to 20s and low 30s, with snow. And, sadly, the major piles of snow still haven’t melted away from the last storms.

Almost gone..

So I had the electrician over yesterday.

And things went downhill with American Electric trying to set up that UPS for the furnace.  At one point there was a bright light in the laundry / furnace room as he was in the garage, and the breaker in the panel tripped. LOUDLY! 

This was after many attempts to turn the existing switch into a 3-way switch with up for Utility power, center for no power, and down for power from UPS on the floor. We were previously having issues getting the furnace to run for more than a few moments, while the UPS charged from the utility wall outlet.  

Quite frankly, that’s the whole reason to have a UPS. Charge when possible, power furnace always with either UPS battery, or pass-through utility power.

Then the blower in the furnace stopped pushing air even when only using the utility wall outlet. That’s really not good, and scary considering how cold it can get at night.

After about Five hours, we got it running from the wall but it didn’t seem to be fully functioning. No “breeze” from the registers. Only convection heating of the vents.  

Now I think I know what happened.   The furnace is connected to another box which controls the flaps in the vents. This gives me two heating zones. Downstairs and upstairs. That box is on the wall. And, neither of use realized, it was “plugged” into a utility wall socket back there, and has super thin wires using a 24volt power adapter. Not exactly something I can just replug into the UPS Wires are way too short. 

Anyway, I think the control panel in that unit got out of sync with the sensors it uses inside the furnace.  

We don’t have a clue how those sensors and the control unit work. He’s an electrician, not an HVAC tech.  

But, it is almost guaranteed that unit must be plugged into the UPS when the furnace is, or they can NOT communicate.  

I will be calling HVAC company later today to check things out.  

As for the whole house battery backup, American Electric will give me an estimate on Monday.  

My design was fine, but he suggested a tweak that I hadn’t considered.  Mostly because it means punching a small whole through the concrete wall to where the generator is.  I figured they wouldn’t do things like that. But it will make the run for some of the power cabling much shorter.

He has the distances recorded for all power cables and conduits pieces and parts like inlets/outlets that are needed, that I haven’t purchased.  

It was a long, long day, and I was exhausted, and still am.

The furnace seems to have recovered sometime during the night.  While it was already too warm upstairs for me when I got up (60 degrees), I raised the thermostat a couple more degrees.   While doing morning rituals, the towel on the wall in the bathroom was swaying from the breeze.  It was a very warm breeze. 

And as I was coming downstairs, I could feel the heat on.  You could feel the hot air from the register by the front door, with your had over a foot above it.  And the one by the Roomba, in the family room, at waist high. 

The flag moves in the wind when the heat is running and that register is blowing air.

Same with the one under the tomatoes, in the dining room.  Just getting in the area of it, and I felt the air flow.  Quite warm.    These are the ones we (I and elecrician) were checking after the furnace failed. 

So I may call EDake HVAC and ask about doing the UPS and plugging in the box in the wall at the same time, and if it should work.  But I don't think there is any fixing to do to the furnace. Thank my lucky $$$$  

And I have started moving stuff in garage for the EcoFlow system that was schedule to be arriving tomorrow?

However, OnTrac just changed delivery date to February 24.  That’s Tuesday.  Good. Gives me more time to clear the area in garage.

Kitty didn’t handle the exitement of the electrician arriving well. She was nibbling some treats when he came in, so she wolfed them down (afraid he’d take them?). and ran for the stairs to go hide in her bedroom.. But the stress was too much and she unloaded the treats, and lots of fluids, in about 5 spots as she went to hide. Vomit cleanup time. Fortunately the electrician is also a cat owner, so he wasn’t put off by this.

After he finally left, around 6:30 pm, she came down for dinner. Well I also gave her some fresh cold water at the same time.

She just kept on going back to the water bowl. Apparently it was what she needed to Enjoy Life