Malden Housing Authority

Challenge: Identifying a Cause and the Solution to Malfunctioning Heat Pumps

The Malden Housing Authority (MHA), an assisted/affordable housing provider in Malden, Massachusetts, preserves, extends, protects, creates, and expands public and affordable housing opportunities locally while maintaining and sustaining the affordability and improving the quality and condition of existing developments and units. In this endeavor, ATCO was hired to help support MHA’s facilities department, which manages over 43,000 units throughout the city of Malden.

After completing a recent energy project that replaced 172 mini-split heat pumps, ATCO technicians began to notice that condensing units were losing a lot of coils. The MHA needed to quickly identify the cause of this malfunction and a solution to restore heat pumps’ safety and functionality in MHA units.

Analysis

ATCO inspected the heat pump wiring and noticed that they were losing a lot of coils in the condensing units. We were able to identify that the cause of the coil failure was a wire inside the unit that was laying on the condenser coil, causing the wire to chafe and then arc, which then resulted in a hole in the coil.

Solution

ATCO determined quickly that this malfunction was a factory defect and that they coil replacements were covered under the LG warranty. After ATCO contacted the local representative and arranged for LG to reimburse MHA for each heat pump experiencing the malfunction, our technicians inspected each unit to document the location of the wire and make any necessary changes to prevent the arcing.

Results

Working closely with the MHA, the ATCO team was able to gain access to each unit in the housing authority quickly, thereby speeding up repairs. Upon completion of the project, all units were covered under the original warranty, and no additional coil replacements have been necessary.

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