An upset neighbour produced a call in the afternoon to ‘da boss’ who sent me to investigate.  The immediate problem was water leaking from somewhere at a storied location the company had nothing but problems with for several years.   Water water everywhere….  not making it to the sink.

The first test was the condensate pump, which seemed to work, and so I followed the line to confirm that the water was actually coming out the other end.

Here I found the first problem, a slightly kinked line going into the P-trap.  I found about 2 full feet of tubing inserted into the drain, which is far too much, IMO, so I pulled it all out, snipped off the excess, and tried to blow air into the the line.  No joy.  None at all.

The clients’ brother in law had redone the flooring a few weeks ago, and hid the tubing – which ran ALL the way around the living room, dining room, and then into the kitchen – in baseboard trim.  Removing it led to this…  another kink at the corner.

That now makes two, so there is probably another and all the trim had to go.  At the next corner I found this…

followed by a section of trim that came off only in splinters as it was polluted with brad nails, and not surprisingly this.

Joy of joys…  A brad had pierced the tubing (center palm) along the far wall of the dining room.  Until a permanent solution came about, some electrical tape at the kinks and hole acted as band-aid, and I went to retest the pump.

Bucket in hand, that is when I found the door to the furnace room, which was outside on the *&^*% balcony , had been left slightly ajar, and the line had frozen solid.  Prying the tube off carefully so as not to break the hose barb on the the pump, I pulled it back into the house for thawing.  In the meantime I found a lame hair drier to thaw out the pump itself outside in the furnace closet.

After getting it thawed, kissing the floor to fish it back through the hole, and hooking it up, I was ready to try again.  Bucket in hand, I filled the pump, which ran, but this time the water didn’t go anywhere.

Thinking the pump was NFG, I went to get another, came back to change it, and with no other way to test for power but to hold the float on the pump and flick the wall switch, I found it squirted water up in my face just fine.  The pump was ok, then….  Scratching my head, I went back into the house to look for a problem, and sure enough there was another kink which had happened as I pulled the line back through the wall to re-attach it.  Nice.

Always good to find the problem, at least I didn’t have to change the pump now.  So back to testing..  I re-adjusted the line to rid it of the kink, got my bucket once again, crossed my fingers, and this time the water flowed freely.  Go figure.

All I had to do then was see the furnace operational, and home I could go… but nooooo….

The client has a Nest thermostat without the ‘c’ terminal, and it was doing the equivalent of Microsoft’s “please wait” (while your house freezes).  The homeowner was aware of the issue, but didn’t share that with me, and I ended up leaving once I learned this was a known issue.  No, neglect isn’t covered….  Nor that of the in-laws.

The sour Frenchman downstairs can learn later what the cause was.  Or perhaps not at all.  It remains to be seen what will be done to remedy the issue, but I’ll know eventually.

====News Flash=====

More problems at the same location!!  It’s the “all inclusive” gong show!

Apparently the system is all frozen up again this morning and the electrician was pointing at those two marrettes going to the pressure switch, until he found the problem to be an intermittent 24V supply from the motherboard.  OMG, what a nightmare this one is.  Here is the appropriate visit from:

The marrettes were there because apparently the client had placed a heater directly on the inducer motor before a proper baseboard heater was installed, and had melted the pressure switch.  OOOooh that smell, can’t you smell that smell…

Come to think of it, that might go a long way to explain the failing motherboard.

The truth of the matter is that before hi efficiency furnaces came along, there was no concern with condensate from a furnace, and you could put the a furnace and hot water tank out on a porch in a cubby-hole with fewer problems.  It is still stupid, and a problem waiting to happen, as evidenced above.

Eventually, all the other units in the complex will have to upgrade their furnace as well, which is fine, because we’re never doing another one.

Moral of the story is…..

Never, ever, ever buy a condo.