Alerts vs Alarms on the Comfort Link

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This installation was on a 4-story home, and the tech had not yet gone to the basement to troubleshoot the “infinity” water source heat pump, as he was told he by the homeowner. He was in the attic at the infinity furnace above the 4th floor. He was getting his dcv in the proper range on his A and B green plug on the air handler, 3 to 4 vdc. His indoor board ohm reading was in range, 28k to 32 k. The tech ohmed out the A and B thermostat wires on the water source heat pump from the upstairs. His ohm reading was not in range of a normal infinity board. His reading was around 64.4k. The tech then made the long walk to the basement where the “geothermal heat pump” was located. Bingo.

Now get out there and organize some zone wiring!

Zone equipment would be identified as indoor unit- blue black/ outdoor unit-blue green:

Two bundled cables with exposed multicolored wires on a white background

10) Once you have both cables disconnected remove them from the wire route in the bottom of the foam drain pan.

Disclaimer- This article does not detail on how to reset alarms because a previous article was done on this already. You can view that article here.

When using the comfort link to check out alarms and alerts you might wonder: is there a difference or are they the same? Which one shuts down the whole unit and which one will leave it running or partially running? I will get into that here and clear up some of the confusion with how the Comfort Link controller dictates all of this.

There is a difference with alerts and alarms. In the controls manual it defines these as follows:

T — Alert: Part of the unit is down, but the unit is still partially able to provide cooling or heating.
A — Alarm: The unit is down and is unable to provide cooling or heating.

Let’s start with the alert or code that begins with the letter T. Usually, this is not a full shut down alert code. In this mode the circuit with the problem code will not run and the secondary circuit takes the lead and attempts to condition the space. So, if you were to check alarm history you would see alerts starting with a T for a specific circuit depending on how many are available to the unit.

Now let’s go over when the Comfort Link controller has an alarm light indicated on the unit. It is in an alarm state and will not run without technician intervention. The controller has to be reset and the responsibility falls on the technician to troubleshoot the issue.

Where do alerts or alarms start? In the manual it states they start as pre-alerts. This is defined below :

P — Pre-Alert: Part of the unit is temporarily down. The alarm is not broadcast on the CCN network. The alarm relay is not energized. After an allowable number of retries, if the function does not recover, the pre-alert will be upgraded to an alert or an alarm

For both alerts and alarms they start out as pre-alerts. They get upgraded after a certain amount of startup has been tried. These usually follow a three-strike system or something similar. On the third start if the issue persists it will either go into alert or alarm depending on what it is.

Depending on what code the unit is indicating it can lead you in the right direction. Confirm the controls manual when you can to ensure that the right error code is being defined. Not all Comfort Link manuals are the same nor alarm and alert codes are the same. Each unit differs.