In this short Ask Derek Cole episode, host Derek Cole answers two homeowner questions. The first concerns an outdoor heat‑pump that shuts off while the indoor blower continues running, forcing the caller to cut power with a circuit breaker. Derek explains that the most likely cause is a malfunctioning control board that fails to communicate the shutdown signal from the outdoor unit to the indoor blower, and he advises calling a qualified HVAC technician rather than using the breaker, warning about the dangers of high voltage. The second question asks why the caller wakes up with a dry nose and experiences static electricity. Derek attributes this to low indoor humidity in winter, recommends installing a whole‑house humidifier (rather than a portable room unit) to add moisture, reduce skin and nasal dryness, eliminate static, improve comfort, and allow the thermostat to be set lower, thereby saving energy. He also notes the ancillary benefits for pets and overall indoor air quality.
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Hey, on this episode we talk about humidifiers and why is my unit not turning off inside the house. You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey, this is Derrick Cole. Welcome to Episode 70 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show, answering your home and energy questions. And I got a few from the weekend and that storm was kind of bad last night.
I was—
I'm not gonna lie, I was just a little bit scared, and then I went back to sleep. But anyway, let's get into this show.
My heat pump will shut off but blower motor inside will not. I have to cut off with circuit breaker. Any ideas what could be causing it?
Yeah, so your outdoor unit has stopped running, the indoor section or the blower section of the unit is still running. And you're shutting it off with a breaker, right? So it sounds like a circuit board problem. So what's happening is you're getting a signal coming into the board from the unit saying, "Hey, it's— I'm good, I'm satisfied." You got a signal going out to the blower motor saying, "Okay, shut off." That signal is not getting back out to that blower motor saying, "Okay, it's time to shut off." So it sounds like a board problem. So I would get a technician out there to take a look at it and make sure That is really the problem because you should never have to turn your unit off with a breaker. The panel itself and breakers in it is something you should not have to mess with at all unless you're an electrician because this voltage is dangerous and you don't want to be messing with it if you don't have to. So get someone out to check it out and they will find out it's probably a board problem. It's a communication problem. The board is the communication of those two parts, of the outdoor unit and the indoor section. When that board stops communicating, one or the other has trouble. In this case, the indoor unit.
Why do I wake up with a dry nose and the house is a ball of static?
A ball of static. That's because you don't have a humidifier this time of year, so like Sunday, for example, I think somebody— said the dew point was like 3 degrees. So that's very, very dry air. So if you have a humidifier, a whole house humidifier, not a room humidifier. Now, if you rent or something like that, I understand you might need a room humidifier, but it's kind of like a room air cleaner. If you shut the door, then magically everything's not going to stay in that room. So that's why you need a whole house solution with just a whole house air cleaner or humidifier. Back to my point, humidifier in the summertime, we have too much humidity, especially in Southeastern North Carolina. I mean, you go outside, it's 90 degrees, 70% humidity, you're like, oh my gosh, the sweat is sticking to me. Well, in the wintertime, you don't have that challenge anymore. So you need to create humidity in your house with the humidifier. It's going to do two things. One, it's going to stop the itchy skin. It's going to stop the dry mouth, the dry nose. It's going to stop the static electricity. It's going to make you more comfortable, and you can actually lower the thermostat temperature inside because now you have humidity. Humidity is like a blanket, warm and toasty blanket going over you. So if you have a 40% or 30% humidity in the house, you can now not worry about 75 degrees temperature setting. You can actually probably go to like a 72 or 70 and still be comfortable. So it's going to save you power in that sense, whereas your unit's not running all the time to keep up with that higher temperature, and you're going to be more comfortable. All the babies, the dogs, the cats You will stop shocking them, which I'm sure they're not liking this time of year. And when you take that jacket off and you see electricity going everywhere, you won't have that problem anymore because you have humidity. So whole house humidifier is the answer. If you can't do that, then go with the room humidifier if you must. Again, it's just not my recommendation because there's not a magic fairy that comes and says, oh, You have a room humidifier and a room air cleaner. Oh, this little, this little bedroom is going to be sealed off from the rest of the house and nothing's going to happen to it. You'll be nice and comfortable. Doesn't happen. That's why you go to people's houses with room air cleaners and they have about 7, 8, 9 of them. Well, you know, this problem could have been solved with the whole house air cleaner. I mean, the air is circulating anyway, so might as well knock it out with the air cleaner, right? Same thing with humidifier. Actually takes water, goes over— most of them takes water, goes over a pad or a filter, has the water run over, and then it mists into humidifier or steams in the ductwork. So you have that humidity or moisture being added to the system. That make sense? Yeah, cool. All right, episode 70 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Be sure to ask your questions, hashtag #AskDerrickCole, and we'll get them on the show.
