u/Solid-Ad3143

We have a guardian series 10 KW generator, with an RTS transfer switch. Our battery maintainer was failing for years before I finally diagnosed it, despite a handful of texts not being able to tell me why we were eating batteries multiple times a year.

I put in guest charge Pro battery maintainer but that just died also.

I realized the battery maintainer also Powers the 12 volt bus inside the transfer switch.

I was thinking to install a good quality outdoor battery maintainer at the generator, cut the line between the generator and the transfer switch, and put in a replacement OEM maintainer inside the transfer switch to keep its 12-volt bus active.

Thoughts??

Generac sent me the wiring diagram a few years ago that I'll dig out but I'm not sure if I can decipher that on my own

I'm PMing the design of a fairly complex commercial build in a rural setting, for a charity with minimal budget. Complex is 6,900 sqft, 9,600 sqft incl. basement.

1 of the many shockers was needing pre-heat and post-heat coils on the ERV systems — to the tune of 60 kW load — 205k btu ! The building heat load is just under 200 k btu. I directed my MEP engineers to switch ERVs from resistant heat to hydronic, as our 600 amp electric service was maxed out.

Building Details
The building is zoned general assembly, so technical occupant load could go up to 100 ppl per ~900 sqft zone or 282 ppl for the complex. There are 4 ERV zones / units. Climate is southern Canadian rockies (-30C / -22F design temp). Heat plant will be either air- or ground-source heat pump with propane boiler back-up.

Questions

1. Is this typical and expected to have ERV pre-heat coils, with a load more than the building heat load? It just feels insane to me.
2. Does my instinct to go hydronic make sense? If so should we upsize the heatplant, or just upsize to ~500kbtu propane back-up boiler and depend on that whenever temps are below freezing.
3. Any other advice on this? I know my engineers are following code + comfortable buffer for their sign-off, but we can't push around that too much.

It is a huge learning curve us that — even though all our existing infrastructure is in the "high-end residential" category — this build will is project at double the cost per sqft of others. Our current main lodge was built in 1996 as a BnB and doesn't even have ventilation, we just open windows!

thanks :)

TL;DR: a manufacturer sold me a defective heat pump, they also improperly calculated our building's heat load, resulting in ~$20k of damages (unneeded repairs, testing, engineers' analysis) + $15k to replace to re-install the unit + $20k to install a propane boiler we didn't plan on needing.

A manage operations for a non-profit Canadian charity. We fundraised for this specific capital project based on fixed-fee quotes from both manufacturer and supplier. A Vancouver lawyer told me not to hire professional legal advice, that my case feels clear, I speak well and should handle it myself in small claims.

Questions

1. Is it worth a final reach out to the manufacturer to state that we are about to file and would still settle for the cost of damages?
2. Can I / should I file two separate claims? One for damages and replacement of the defective unit they sold us, and two for mis-calculating our heat load, which resulted in in a different "basket" of damages? Total damages I could easily account in the $50k to $60k range, so we'd lose out a lot with the $35k small claims limit
3. We operate in BC and are physically located in BC (where the unit was shipped and installed). But our corporate registry is in Alberta, with extra-provincial registration in BC. Will I need to file in AB or can I file in BC in our local town? I am hoping that this would be in our favour as the manufacturer is on the other side of the country and would have to fly out for a settlement hearing, might convince them to settle (unless it's all virtual now?)
4. Do I need to know which pieces of law to reference our case off of? Consumer protection, negligence, misrepresentation, etc. ? I think in small claims I do NOT but want to be clear.

thank you!

Case Brief, for context

1. I spent ~20 hours on the phone designing a heating system upgrade with two manufacturers in winter 2024 and picked the one that had a better price, better warranty, and larger boiler (for our large building).
2. We purchased the equipment directly from the "manufacturer". They claimed to manufacturer the units, but I believe they misled me and our just distributors of cheap units manufactured by a large discount brand in China. It is 100% made in CHina, which I did know at purchase, but the Canadian company appears to have no involvement in manufacturing which is misleading
3. I hired a licensed mechanical contractor to install the unit. The Manufacturer had a training call with the contractor to advise specifically how to install the unit to meet their requirements. Both partied provided a fixed fee for their work (guaranteed price).
4. As a charity with limited funds, we fundraised sufficiently for this job.
5. Within weeks of install, the unit was throwing alarms — the manufacturer told us it was not properly installed — our installed followed their directions exactly. Since we purchased the unit ourselves we were on the hook. We spent about $10k on "repairs" the manufacturer told us were necessary. They literally said "if this doesn't work, we will send you a new unit shipped for free". When it didn't work, they said "no it's still your install problem, you can buy a new unit and ship us the old one and maybe if we find a problem we'll refund you something". It was meant to have a 7-year extended warranty
6. After that, I hired a mechanical engineer and 3rd party mechanical contractor to test and inspect the system. I worked with them physically on the test and design. We irrefutably proved that our installed exceeded requirements, the "repairs" were unnecessary, and that their unit was not properly designed. Engineers and testing was another $5k
7. When I explained what we saw inside the unit, the manufacturer's rep "no, it's not built that way". I sent him a photo and he said "ok Iet me find the technical drawings". That was back in July. Still no technical drawings. So I think they lied about having any involvement in manufacturing these units.

Separate but related issue:

• I was going to hire an engineer on design to calculate our building heat load. The manufacturer said "you dont' need one, we do that for you for free".
• Given the above, I no longer trusted that, and hired a different mechanical engineer to calculate our heat load. It was almost double what the manufacturer told us — which means the equipment we installed was no sufficient to hear our home anwyays
• This meant we needed to urgently install a propane "back-up" boiler for $20k last Fall in order to have heat for this winter. We had no funds raised for this.