The Honewell zone damper for the upstairs heat trunk didn't work

[Kaleva]

Installed it a few years ago because I wanted a way to keep the upstairs from getting too warm during the heating season. The t-stat is downstairs located in the foyer and thus the furnace will continue to run during a call for heat even if the upstairs is already warm enough.

Well, it worked great for about 1 season as I put a t-stat in the master bedroom which had the sole purpose of controlling the zone damper. Sometime during the second winter it would just make a clicking sound and not close. I tried to work on it with no success and not having the money to purchase a new one, I disconnected the wiring to it and that was that. Today I decided to work on it again and see if I could fix it.

This time I watched a YouTube video and followed along, discovering the problem with the damper was a nylon gear with some teeth broken off. The guy on the video said this was a common problem and explained how to flip the gear 180 degrees and thus make it work. I did that and now have a working zone damper and it cost me nothing but time.

Here is the video:

Since I installed central air this past summer, I'd like to install another damper in the downstairs trunk.