Puppy tore out ducts, now thermostat not working?

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concretegardenstx
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 5:15 pm

Bear with me, I am an emotional mess over this right now.

Monday night, we came home, and the house was warmer than usual. There was cold AC air blowing from some vents, not others. We realized that the air was coming in on one side of the house (doublewide, so two halves) and the other half of the house no air was blowing in, except a little from the room closes to the junction. Last night (Tuesday) we discovered that there was a gap in the skirting that gave a puppy access to the underbelly of the house, and as best as we could tell (because we're not sure how to take off the skirting) the puppy has pulled down some of the liner, and insulation, and there is probably a hole in the ductwork. We covered up the hole as we planned on trying to get under there tonight to get a better look to try and fix it.

This morning, when I got up to check the thermostat (it's a programmable Honeywell) and the screen was flickering. It was also noticeably warmer in the house. I changed the batteries but that didn't change anything. I saw online how to reset the thermostat (pressing the up and down buttons at the same time while it is set to HEAT) and it did reset. I then slid the setting back over to COOL and it started flickering again. I could see that the little snowflake indicator was flashing like it was trying to come on, but nothing. I went outside, the unit outside is not coming on. I didn't see any tripped breakers. The inside unit is working, the fan is blowing inside the house (we have it running continuously.)

It sounds like a need a new thermostat, but is it really a coincidence that this happened at the same time as the issue with the ducts? Is the wiring for the thermostat in the same place as the ducts? Any insight is greatly appreciated, as I am short on cash right now, and don't want to call someone out if I don't have to. But I also can't go without AC (family with health issues).

Thank you all so much!
jpingram5
Posts: 205
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 5:34 pm
Location: Orefield, PA
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Sounds like the crossover duct got mangled in the mayhem. Seeing as you say one side of the house is blowing but the other side nothing. In most doublewides they run 2 main duct trunk on each side of the home. And they are joined together with a large piece of flexduct normally. I would look for that crossover piece first to see if there is damage.

As far as the thermostat, it sounds like the thermostat wire is possibly damaged. This would run underneath to your outdoor unit for the AC. It should be a 18/2 wire if you have just an AC unit and not a Heat Pump. If you or you know someone that has a spare thermostat handy to try and use just to eliminate that its not the thermostat bad.
2009 Skyline Sunwood Premier 14 x 80
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