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That Horizon quote has their really long extended warranty baked into it as well. 10 years parts and labor isn't standard at all. I'm a big fan of supporting local small businesses, they'll take care of you in the long run imo.
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May 7, 2020 17:41
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How else is the ceo at Horizon going to afford another cabin in the Alleghenies?  skipdogg posted:That Horizon quote has their really long extended warranty baked into it as well. 10 years parts and labor isn't standard at all. That's pretty impressive actually.
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May 7, 2020 17:45
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Well I'm assuming it's a long extended warranty.
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May 7, 2020 17:54
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As we've discussed before in this thread, SEER ratings are like MPG ratings for cars. They are a mathematical approximation of average energy use, given a perfectly installed, brand new unit. Because you're rather far north of the mason-dixon, energy for the AC is not a major part of your bill for most of the year. The difference between the two quotes for you is going to be quality of install, and how much you think you will need that 10 year warranty service. The independent guy has a lot less overhead, which is a significant part of why his quote is lower.
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May 7, 2020 18:08
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MRC48B posted:As we've discussed before in this thread, SEER ratings are like MPG ratings for cars. Thanks. My local energy company is offering a $750 rebate to go to a 15+ Seer, so I'm going to have the local guy price up the higher seer unit. I might end up being able to get the better system for the same cost in the long run anyway. (york ycs to ycg.) AFewBricksShy fucked around with this message at 19:02 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 18:58
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I'd probably get another quote or two, while being more specific with the equipment to get an apples-to-apples. Not that's I'd pay thousands of dollars for it, but a warranty that includes labor is very valuable. Most HVAC companies screw you on warranty repairs, even doing such shenanigans as charging refrigerants as labor to get around parts-only warranties. I'd definitely want at least a 1-year P&L warranty, so that you know if anything goes wrong, you don't pay a dime to fix it. Most major issues are going to show up in the first year anyway.
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May 7, 2020 19:08
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AFewBricksShy posted:I need to get a new heating and AC system in my house. My old ac (which was replaced roughly sometime in 2007) went (the fan and capacitor went on the outside unit), and the heater (which is 30 years old) has a cracked heat exchanger. I found the sales slip to my Horizon installed system the PO did (6 months before having to relo, woo), and list was like $19k, but final sales price was about $9k. So somewhere they came up with a 50% discount. That's a hell of a margin! I think Dkhelmet called every place in our area when he replaced his, might want to hit him up for info.
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May 7, 2020 19:17
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B-Nasty posted:I'd probably get another quote or two, while being more specific with the equipment to get an apples-to-apples. The local guy is giving me 10 year parts, 5 year labor. The expensive guy is 10 and 10.
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May 7, 2020 19:18
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Alarbus posted:I found the sales slip to my Horizon installed system the PO did (6 months before having to relo, woo), and list was like $19k, but final sales price was about $9k. So somewhere they came up with a 50% discount. That's a hell of a margin! List price has absolutely no relation to real price. Stuff is often discounted 50-80% off list depending on a lot of factors.
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May 8, 2020 17:48
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As with all hidden-price poo poo shows you don't get out bed below 50%. Dealer-driven HVAC is no different.
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May 8, 2020 17:59
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God, I hate to drop into a thread full of experts and beg for free advice, but here I am: last summer we had a Fujitsu Halcyon system installed, and now it’s not working. And the people who installed it have fuckin’ covid. No, literally, the entire business has shut down because both of their A/C guys have the coronavirus. Anyway, it was 86°F here in Seattle today, with more scorchers on the horizon. The remote controls work, but the units don’t respond at all. I flipped the breakers and still no dice. Anybody got any magical hints or tips before I start trying to find some non-warranty folks to fix the things? Cause I’m guessing the first guys caught covid from all the home entries, and I’d rather not risk that bilateral exposure if there’s any way around it.
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May 10, 2020 04:14
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Hey, I'm looking for some thoughts on what I should look for in a window unit (or maybe portable) AC. I've got a 5000BTU window unit that I got for free from the last person who rented my apartment - it's kinda old, noisy, and isn't really doing the job, though I suspect that there's two factors that might be at fault: 1) It's not strong enough - the room I'm trying to cool is a living room with other spaces attached with no real ability to close them off, totaling something like 350sq ft? Some quick googling suggest I might want closer to 8000BTU for that much space. (Though i suspect I can maybe get away with less because I'm somewhat close to where the AC would go and I don't need the far corners of my room icy cold?) 2) I'm maybe not doing the best job insulating/sealing the unit? I basically inherited the unit and sorta just figured how to stick it into the window out of desperation, there was some foam padding stuff that was with the unit and I try to stick that in the gaps between the window frame and AC, but it's only doing so good of a job and I still end up with some gaps. The window style is like this 2-wide frame with 4 windows in tracks, and I need to pull out 3 of the 4 panes in order to get the unit in. Is there much considerations beyond BTU/fan control and if it will fit your window? I understand portable style units are less efficient (particularly if they have a single hose) but for what it's worth, electricity is included in my rent - does that change much, or will it just be cycling a lot adding to the noise factor? e: Sorry if this isn't quite the place of this sort of question? Oxyclean fucked around with this message at 22:29 on May 10, 2020 |
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May 10, 2020 22:27
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elise the great posted:a Fujitsu Halcyon system Find the user manual for your unit and see if you can get an error code. most name brand mini splits will tell you what is wrong with them. also, basics. power at the unit, fresh batteries in the remote. etc. Oxyclean posted:Hey, I'm looking for some thoughts on what I should look for in a window unit (or maybe portable) AC. 1: The most important for portable/windows is to make sure you have the power outlet you need for the size you want. some need 240v oven/dryer style outlets. some can get away with 120v regular outlets, but need to be on there own breaker. 2: more insulation is always more better. get some rigid pink foam and cut a window adapter. edge it with soft rubber foam tape for sealing. 3: this thread is slow, and hvac is complicated, and can't always be solved via forum post. there are a wide variety of reasons that unit isn't doing the job you want. it could be undersized, low on refrigerant, the coils are dirty, the compressor has worn out valves, a lot of things. undersized is probably the first problem though.
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May 11, 2020 01:01
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We have a central exhaust fan on the roof of the apartment building, hooked up to every apartment (total 43). The inlets are theoretically balanced but in practice everyone fucks with them and opens them wide, removing any balance from the airflow. As a result, my top floor apartment is stuffy as hell, with not much air movement through the ventilation system. In some other apartments, it's much better. I imagine any balancing of the system would only bring temporary resolution until the people mess up the inlet sizes again. Is it a wise idea to just stick an extra exhaust fan inline for my apartment? Or would this cause undesirable side-effects?
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May 11, 2020 13:16
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Is the fan just for the bathroom exhaust, or do you have general exhaust in your unit? A bathroom exhaust is usually 25-50 CFM, so I'm surprised you can even tell the difference honestly. For bathroom exhaust, I doubt adding an inline fan really affects anything. If it really means that much to put one in and wire it up. Something like that could be more involved that you think.
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May 11, 2020 14:57
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Alarbus posted:I think Dkhelmet called every place in our area when he replaced his, might want to hit him up for info. What a fun thing it was too. Two months after I bought the house the AC coils started to cave in.  You do want to make sure you're getting something with an AHRI Certificate, some installers just mix-n-match and bullshit. Based on our usage patterns, going from a 80 to 96% AFUE saves around $3000 over 10 years, so it's worth considering break even points when chasing AFUE and SEER. My original calcs for the Delaware Valley put SEER 16 at the max, anything you're paying over that is wasted money and won't ever be effectively realized. I called 4 vendors and got multiple quotes for each. Goodman is the bargain bin of brands and doesn't really have a vendor certification system, so you can either get a great installer or a lovely one- it's worth keeping that in mind. Not that you're guaranteed a bad install, just that they can be really all over the map. Other nameplates will boot them from reselling if there's too many complaints. My house is 2200ft, two story, 1993 construction 2x4 wood framed with insulated walls, forced air and low-e windows. Of all the vendors, we liked Walton and IT Landes best, with IT Landes winning since they did an actual drat Manual D calc for my house. They also had a ton of good references both residential and commercial and are employee owned. 2 year labor on install, 10 on parts. We went with a variable speed 17.5 SEER, 96% AFUE unit. We'd do 16, but there wasn't a pairing for it. $9148.60 installed. It was a premium over the smaller, less technical installers, but we really liked the professionalism and  they brought to the table. That, and we wanted to just get it done and have a quality install without having to pester a smaller group like Anytime.Other things to consider is going from single to two stage, and single to multi to variable blowers. Even "variable" blowers aren't truly variable, they're more "selectable". You only get truly variable systems once you get into the absolute top of the line systems, with actual computer controls and not just thermostats. Going to multi-stage can make you more comfortable by evening out smaller temp swings without having to turn the system onto full blast, which is one reason why we selected it. 10 years warranty on labor is awesome, but I wouldn't pay $5000 for it. My bottom barrel quote for a whole install, AC and furnace was $5,242.00. For $15k I'd just keep replacing the whole drat thing every three years, wearing a tuxedo the entire time. 
DkHelmet fucked around with this message at 22:05 on May 12, 2020 |
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May 12, 2020 22:01
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I've got an oil furnace that runs off 2x tanks in the basement, and it keeps getting air in the line (I assume, since draining the pump always fixes it). The furnace and tanks are in opposite ends of my L shaped basement so there's about 70ft of copper line hanging from the joists between them. My oil delivery/repair gal says air in the line is just something you have to deal with with dual tank setups. Is there something else I should be looking at? I'm planning on getting the whole thing serviced soon, beside changing the fuel filters is there anything else I should make sure to have them to do?
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May 14, 2020 15:04
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Okay, here's a really weird question: I'm in Central Florida working at a buddy's 60s-era house with a semi-detached unfinished 1 car garage. In the back of the garage is a finished laundry room with a mostly-sealed door into the garage. The laundry room has an AC vent attached to the house AC by a 30 foot insulated flex duct with about 360 degrees of turns, but no return (thanks, PHO!). It works well enough, replacing the air the dryer exhausts outside with conditioned air from the interior system, and generally the laundry room is no more than 10 degrees off from the home interior. There is an electric heater in the room for the 3-10 days of winter a year we experience here. The problem is that the garage is being converted into a woodshop and I'm worried about dust intrusion into the laundry room. We're going to have a dust collector and exhaust fan in the garage, so the garage should theoretically operate at negative pressure, but again it's unfinished and from the 60s so it leaks air like a sieve and the 1000 cfm exhaust fan won't make an appreciable difference in pressure. The laundry room, being attached to ac but with no return, should operate at positive pressure when the air is running, but the amount of air coming out of the vent is nearly imperceptible, even with the door open and the AC going full blast, probably due to the 30 foot snaking flex duct. How can I ensure that the back room doesn't start sucking sawdust? I was thinking about putting in an in-wall vent fan with a filter to force the pressure differential without feeding sawdust into the room, but would that feed un-conditioned air back into the main house? Is there some sort of one-way vent or damper I could install to prevent that? Are there other solutions I'm not thinking about? Thanks, HVAC goons. Shit Fuckasaurus fucked around with this message at 15:18 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 15:10
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Nevets posted:I've got an oil furnace that runs off 2x tanks in the basement, and it keeps getting air in the line (I assume, since draining the pump always fixes it). The furnace and tanks are in opposite ends of my L shaped basement so there's about 70ft of copper line hanging from the joists between them. My oil delivery/repair gal says air in the line is just something you have to deal with with dual tank setups. Sounds like you have a single line system. I'm not familiar with how a dual line system would work on a dual tank setup, but dual line systems have a return and are self bleeding. Unless you have a very long run, any air, including "I completely ran out of oil" is handled by resetting the burner once. It will run long enough to bleed and start firing before it trips again. Worst case you're standing there for another 60 seconds until you can reset it a second time.
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May 14, 2020 16:15
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Nevets posted:I've got an oil furnace that runs off 2x tanks in the basement, and it keeps getting air in the line (I assume, since draining the pump always fixes it). The furnace and tanks are in opposite ends of my L shaped basement so there's about 70ft of copper line hanging from the joists between them. My oil delivery/repair gal says air in the line is just something you have to deal with with dual tank setups. Any chance you can run the oil line along the floor? Overhead lines are somewhat notorious for issues with air lock/vacuum strength issues for the little pump on the burner. Do you have conventional tanks (drain on bottom) or something like a Roth where the oil line comes out the top? If it's the standard tank, easiest and best would be to run the line on the ground so that gravity keeps it fed. If you have no choice but to go overhead, you can look into a 'Tigerloop', which are designed to help with this.
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May 14, 2020 20:04
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Conventional tanks, and running the line along the floor is technically possible but pretty involved with the walls etc. already in the basement. Tigerloop looks like an excellent option and not too expensive. I should be able to just mount it on the wall behind the burner where the supply comes down.
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May 14, 2020 20:44
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Bird in a Blender posted:Is the fan just for the bathroom exhaust, or do you have general exhaust in your unit? A bathroom exhaust is usually 25-50 CFM, so I'm surprised you can even tell the difference honestly. General exhaust, yeah. There's a 0,7 kW fan on the roof, shared by 40 apartments. I have two exhaust pipes - one going to the central fan, the other used locally for my kitchen hood, terminating as an open pipe on the roof. When I add more ventilation, which pipe should I use? On one hand, splicing into the kitchen exhaust pipe would mean my extra airflow does not gently caress with the general exhaust. On the other hand, might this just divert some of my outflow from going to general exhaust, instead of adding more? I am looking at adding something like a Cata 125/320. The spec sheet says 30W and 365 m3/h, which comes to 215 CFM. Does that sound about right? 30W seems awful low compared to my dinky kitchen hood fan which has 120W on the label and is barely effective. EssOEss fucked around with this message at 22:02 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 21:59
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Nevets posted:Conventional tanks, and running the line along the floor is technically possible but pretty involved with the walls etc. already in the basement. Tigerloop looks like an excellent option and not too expensive. I should be able to just mount it on the wall behind the burner where the supply comes down. In addition, if you have any leaks in the line, fix them. High viscosity fluids do weird things under flow.
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May 14, 2020 23:14
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EssOEss posted:General exhaust, yeah. There's a 0,7 kW fan on the roof, shared by 40 apartments. I have two exhaust pipes - one going to the central fan, the other used locally for my kitchen hood, terminating as an open pipe on the roof. That is too much exhaust in my opinion. That would be like running your kitchen exhaust fan all of the time. At least in the US, apartments get 30-50 CFM (50-85 m3/h) of general exhaust and that is out of the bathroom fan. So you're looking at 5 times that much. I was thinking you would just put in a regular bathroom exhaust fan to act as a booster. If you really need that much exhaust, you could probably just turn your kitchen exhaust fan on all day instead of adding a whole new fan. If you did add that fan, it would likely be way too much CFM for your bath duct to handle. It would probably be fine for your kitchen exhaust duct, but you would have issues trying to run both that fan, and your kitchen fan at the same time. Keep in mind that your energy costs are going to go up if you do this. In addition to running the fan, you're also going to have to condition your space more as you'll be throwing conditioned air out the roof and sucking in more outside air.
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May 15, 2020 16:27
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It's getting hot again and I'm thinking about improving our A/C system. House was built in 1922, forced air HVAC was added at some point in the past. Heat works fine, the whole house is evenly warm, but upstairs is too warm in the summer. The furnace and A/C unit outside were replaced when the house was renovated before we moved in, 5-6 years ago. As soon as we moved in, I sealed every leaking duct I could find in the basement, and added some manual dampers to force more air upstairs, which helped, and added ceiling fans. The upstairs ducts do not feel like they are moving the same amount of air as downstairs, and upstairs stays pretty warm, so I've been thinking about two possible modifications I could make without total replacement. There is no return duct upstairs at all, and the front of the house on the 1st floor has a return at the bottom of the stairs. I guess the intention is to pull air down the stairs, but hardly any air is felt to be moving into this duct. Each upstairs bedroom has a duct (3), as well as the upstairs bath. First thought would be to change the bathroom supply duct to a return. The supply duct for the bathroom is directly next to a return duct in the basement, so I think it would be pretty simple to disconnect it from the supply and hook it to the return. Second thought would be a duct fan on the supply ducts to the bedrooms, attached to a duct thermostat to only operate when cooling. Ideally I would reduct the entire house, but that is something that we'd need to save up for. These two thoughts seem pretty cheap, and are both reversible if it makes it worse,. Good idea, bad idea? Any suggestion on other things to check?
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May 17, 2020 14:10
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Is there a general rule about haw far the condenser for a heat pump unit can be from the indoor vent/evaporator (I hope I have those terms right, but you know what I mean)? My home is basically an ideal candidate for a heat pump. Small footprint, the living room and kitchen are semi-open, and it's a single story ranch, so I can even open the doors to the bedrooms to help them get warm in winter/cool in summer. And my heat is currently all electric baseboard, so it's about as expensive an option that there is for my area (~1000 sq ft home, and my electric bill in winter is almost $300. Going from my last home, heated with natural gas and more square footage, it was only ~$130 a month for gas, and $50 a month for electric.) Rough layout, not to scale (and there's a large open window/breakfast bar thing between the living room and kitchen, it's not a 100% solid wall, and it's not as long as I made it there:  My garage is right alongside the left, maybe only 3' of space between that wall of the house and the garage wall. No room to put the condenser there. The back wall has a porch that starts about halfway across the kitchen and goes all the way across bedroom 2. I also don't think putting the evaporator in the kitchen is a good spot, cause it would never reach bedroom 1 and 3, it needs to go in the living room. But as far as wall space to put it goes, the only spot really is along the left wall close to the garage. The front/bottom wall in the pic has a large bay window I didn't draw between the left wall and door, and as said, this is horribly not to scale and the wall is not as long as it looks there. But there's no room right behind where the evaporator would go, can the lines go back along the wall of the kitchen to the back of the house? That's maybe 18-20'. It could also in theory go around the corner to the front of the house (like 6', at most?), but I'd prefer not to have a giant condenser right in the front of my house, lookin' all ugly. Especially since I have very tentative plans to put a front porch on my house in a few years.
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May 22, 2020 16:03
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18-20 feet isn't even approaching the realm of problematic. Remember, there are plenty of condensers sitting on the ground for 3rd story apartments.
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May 22, 2020 17:05
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Hey thread - What the heck is this:    I believe this is the switch that controls power to the furnace. I can see the power come down from the floor joist above into the lightswitch box and then back out again to the furnace whip....but what is this weird chime thing coming out of that box that has two wires running.....somewhere...? I've purchased a 2-gang and a new gfci outlet and new switch to replace these things with (and add an outlet because why isn't there one?!) but I want to figure out what this extra square box that says chime on it is doing.
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May 22, 2020 17:18
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It's a doorbell transformer, probably powering your thermostat, but it could also be powering your doorbell?
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May 22, 2020 17:21
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DrBouvenstein posted:Is there a general rule about haw far the condenser for a heat pump unit can be from the indoor vent/evaporator (I hope I have those terms right, but you know what I mean)? Are you thinking whole home ducted forced air? Or mini split? For the latter the units often come precharged for a decent length of lineset, and can (should?) be adjusted for your actual length. There are units I skimmed that can have 164' of lineset. You will want something in those bedrooms to actually force the air to exchange with the rest of the house. Linesets fit inside 2x4 cavities if that's what you're worried about. https://www.fujitsu-general.com/us/resources/pdf/support/downloads/halcyon-2019-full-line-brochure-02.pdf (Page 21, 25)
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May 22, 2020 17:31
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Guy Axlerod posted:It's a doorbell transformer, probably powering your thermostat, but it could also be powering your doorbell? Ok so presumably I would want to keep this, how do I do that safely? Pigtails off to it?
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May 22, 2020 17:33
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H110Hawk posted:Are you thinking whole home ducted forced air? Or mini split? Was thinking mini-split, so is there a way to put some kind of return (or duct?) in the bedrooms with that? I know that there wouldn't be a lot of cooling or warming in those rooms with a minisplit in the living room, but I do stress it's a small house and I would put a fan or two around to get some flow, and I only really use the one bedroom anyway.
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May 22, 2020 17:41
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Sterling_Archer posted:Hey thread - Based on your description that's your boiler shutoff (ideally would have a red plate) and a repurposed doorbell transformer being used for your thermostat. Flip the switch to off and see if your furnace controls go dark and your doorbell still works to confirm. Why are you trying to add an outlet there? Leave the circuit that feeds your boiler alone. And if for some reason you do this, don't put your furnace power behind a gfci.
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May 22, 2020 18:02
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TacoHavoc posted:Based on your description that's your boiler shutoff (ideally would have a red plate) and a repurposed doorbell transformer being used for your thermostat. Flip the switch to off and see if your furnace controls go dark and your doorbell still works to confirm. I'm trying to add an outlet for a condensate pump. Why not GFCI? There is a water heater next to it and a condensate drain next to it so I figured it'd be safer to have than not.
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May 22, 2020 18:16
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Sterling_Archer posted:I'm trying to add an outlet for a condensate pump. Why not GFCI? There is a water heater next to it and a condensate drain next to it so I figured it'd be safer to have than not. I'm probably wrong, but I think the in-rush current on the furnace will blow the GFCI every time it turns on.
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May 22, 2020 18:33
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SourKraut posted:I'm probably wrong, but I think the in-rush current on the furnace will blow the GFCI every time it turns on. More that if it false trips, you end up without an operating furnace. In regions with freeing temps, this will inevitably happen when you're not home and you could end up in a freezeup situation.
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May 22, 2020 18:37
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TacoHavoc posted:More that if it false trips, you end up without an operating furnace. In regions with freeing temps, this will inevitably happen when you're not home and you could end up in a freezeup situation.
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May 22, 2020 18:51
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TacoHavoc posted:More that if it false trips, you end up without an operating furnace. In regions with freeing temps, this will inevitably happen when you're not home and you could end up in a freezeup situation. Ok so a regular outlet would be ok then? I want to add a condensate pump so we don't have to empty a bucket but there isn't an outlet in the area.
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May 22, 2020 19:48
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Sterling_Archer posted:Ok so a regular outlet would be ok then? I want to add a condensate pump so we don't have to empty a bucket but there isn't an outlet in the area. Yes. Equipment outlets are not required to be GFCI (I believe that is still the case anyway).
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May 22, 2020 20:44
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Perfect - thanks all.
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May 22, 2020 21:01
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