Category: Faulty Device

My ice maker has never worked since I bought the house, but I didn’t care. But actually although it didn’t work it still was using burst of power when the fridge kicked in.

Long story short, my central AC compressor went out last July on probably some of the hottest weeks of the year. While there was probably no way to prevent this on a 20 year old unit, Sense helped my troubleshoot the issue and to get a technician in as soon as possible to replace my whole HVAC system.

While I was on vacation I noticed that my well pump was starting every few minutes. I contacted my neighbor who found one of my lawn watering valves was stuck open. Got lucky … didn’t drown my lawn.

Sense identified my well pump and with a generic name (heat source). 

The pipe that was drawing water in the well had a hole rusted through. The pump would only get up to 32 PSI and never shut off. I didn’t realize it because I still had water pressure to all my sinks. I had to replace 100 feet of pipe and at the same time I replaced the pump. It was 22 years old. Sense shows the energy usage before the pump was changed (running 24 hours a day) was about $5 a day. Or, $150 a month. Now after it was changed about $0.50 a day. Or, $15.00 a month. We knew our electric bill was much higher for six months or longer, but it was hard to pin point. Now, with Sense connected we will now save over $100 a month. 

While I’m away from home, I like to check in on what’s happening at home using the Sense app. One such time last year, I was having a beer in Mexico City while my house was sitting empty back in the US. Expecting to see few devices running back at home, I was surprised to see a large amount of power being used, to the tune of 5kW. The pattern of power usage showed a large device turning on and off. This seemed very strange, so I looked at the usage pattern closer. A large device would turn on, increase in power usage linearly for a minute or two, then turn back off, only to repeat again a few minutes later. I concluded that this must be the heat pump based on the size of the power use and the ramping-up behavior, and that a safety cutoff must be activating to turn the unit off every now and then. A call to my next-door neighbor confirmed my theory, and he temporarily solved the problem by pulling the cutout.

Ultimately, my Nest thermostat was the cause of this problem, as it had commanded the heat pump compressor to turn on constantly, without turning on the indoor blower. This caused an overpressure condition that cycled the compressor on and off as the high pressure switch activated and deactivated. I was glad to catch it in time that my compressor didn’t burn out!

Sense alerted me to abnormal cycle rate of my deep chest freezer. Come to find out that it was shorting out and the insulation was slowly burning each time. It was all black and charred and I thought the burning smell was the fan above it. This saved my house as it’s a new freezer with R-600 which is explosive. Thank you sense and saving my house I JUST bought 3 weeks ago.

Sense was telling that a 1500W load was on full time with about a 50% duty cycle and Sense identified it as the Emergency Heat in the AC unit. I live in Florida and emergency heat only comes on if it is too cold for the heat pump to operate effectively. It turned out the relay that turned on the emergency heat was shorted closed and the heat was always on and the over temp sensor is what was causing the 50% duty cycle. Once it was fixed my bill dropped by about 1/2.

I had a circuit breaker that was tripping when I charged my electric vehicle. I was able to tell in Sense that it was drawing 24 amps, and the breaker is rated for 30 amps. I bought a replacement circuit breaker and replaced it myself – I didn’t have to call an electrician or spend time on the phone with tech support for my EVSE!

My Sense monitor tells me when I am having problems with my agriculture watering system.

Occasionally I get mud in the line which does not allow the individual zones to turn off completely allowing a continuous leak in my watering system.
My pressure pump runs about every 3 minutes when the agriculture watering system is running. My Water System, when it is leaking, causes the pressure pump to run every 15 minutes to 90 minutes. I have to call in a man to repair the damage to the watering system because of this. The system will flood my yards if it is not turned off when it is leaking.

Sense has allowed me to monitor my irrigation system and my well consumption, from anywhere in the world if I know what I’m looking for.