Hello HVAC Pros, I haven't had any luck solving this through my HVAC contractor, and I appreciate your info and help.
Quick background... my energy bills are killing me, so I spent some time tracing where all my household energy goes using energy monitors.
I have two outdoor condenser units (each are 3 ton Lennox Signature installed in 2020) that are powered through a dedicated AC sub-panel. There are no other loads on this sub panel. My sensors say that even with the AC's off, the sub panel is drawing 80 watts continuously. Hooking up a current transducer (CT) to each of the hot wires between the two-pole breakers and the condenser control board shows 20 watts draw on each phase wire (x4 wires = 80 total watts).
If I turn off the breakers in the sub panel, then my home energy consumption drops 80 watts. Turning on the air conditioning via the thermostats works fine. The units start up and the air handler pushes cold air after the evaporator coil cools down. Removing the 24v control wires between the air handler and the condenser do not affect the current draw at the condenser when idle.
Is there a reason for this? I can’t find anything about this in the air conditioner manuals. Searches online don't mention any reason why residential condensers need to draw power all the time. The company that installed the units confirmed the current draw using their own equipment. But they say they've never had a customer inquire about this before and don't know why each condenser is using 40 watts. The manufacturer won’t help me to understand the purpose of why idle condensers need power since I'm just a homeowner.
I want to just flip off the breakers since I don’t want to just waste 80 watts 24/7 during the winter on these two idle condenser units. But I'm curious what the units could possibly be doing with the electricity. I'm in California so I'm not worried about a mega-freeze jamming up the compressor scrolls or something extreme-weather related. As far as I'm aware, I don't have a low ambient kit installed since I only run the ACs when it's hot out side.
I also checked the Eaton breakers for the air conditioners, and there is no voltage drop or resistance caused by a faulty breaker.
I hope someone here has seen this before and can recommend what might be happening. It doesn't seem like the condensers are faulty, but I don't want to just kill the breakers in case something useful/valuable is actually happening.
Quick background... my energy bills are killing me, so I spent some time tracing where all my household energy goes using energy monitors.
I have two outdoor condenser units (each are 3 ton Lennox Signature installed in 2020) that are powered through a dedicated AC sub-panel. There are no other loads on this sub panel. My sensors say that even with the AC's off, the sub panel is drawing 80 watts continuously. Hooking up a current transducer (CT) to each of the hot wires between the two-pole breakers and the condenser control board shows 20 watts draw on each phase wire (x4 wires = 80 total watts).
If I turn off the breakers in the sub panel, then my home energy consumption drops 80 watts. Turning on the air conditioning via the thermostats works fine. The units start up and the air handler pushes cold air after the evaporator coil cools down. Removing the 24v control wires between the air handler and the condenser do not affect the current draw at the condenser when idle.
Is there a reason for this? I can’t find anything about this in the air conditioner manuals. Searches online don't mention any reason why residential condensers need to draw power all the time. The company that installed the units confirmed the current draw using their own equipment. But they say they've never had a customer inquire about this before and don't know why each condenser is using 40 watts. The manufacturer won’t help me to understand the purpose of why idle condensers need power since I'm just a homeowner.
I want to just flip off the breakers since I don’t want to just waste 80 watts 24/7 during the winter on these two idle condenser units. But I'm curious what the units could possibly be doing with the electricity. I'm in California so I'm not worried about a mega-freeze jamming up the compressor scrolls or something extreme-weather related. As far as I'm aware, I don't have a low ambient kit installed since I only run the ACs when it's hot out side.
I also checked the Eaton breakers for the air conditioners, and there is no voltage drop or resistance caused by a faulty breaker.
I hope someone here has seen this before and can recommend what might be happening. It doesn't seem like the condensers are faulty, but I don't want to just kill the breakers in case something useful/valuable is actually happening.
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?2226079-Air-conditioning-condensers-each-draw-40-watts-when-idle&goto=newpost
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