OT: A/C

[sledog]

Air Conditioner - not Atlantic City.

Need to replace a cental air conditioner in my house. Anyone have suggestions / experiences with the brands? Currently have a Trane.

 

[B1GEast]

Order what you need from the site below and hire a local contractor to install it.

I have a split system and needed to replace both the coil and condenser. If your furnace is old and you have the cash, you might want to replace both at the same time. You don't have to, but you can save on the install. Good luck.

Alpine Home Air Products: Contractor-grade furnaces, heaters, air conditioners and indoor-air quality products at wholesale prices.

 

[sledog]

The local contractor is usually the problem. One who installed a separate unit for me ~5 years ago disappeared - don't know if he left the business, moved, died, or all above.

 

[boog204]

I live in a condo and went cheap with a local chain... Price was right and I'm planning on moving in the next year so was looking for cheap and reliable until it is someone else's problem.

 

[MadDogRevival]

Can I go into my 'old man/back in my day' mode?
Seriously, good luck with this. Use Yelp or whatever other service/business review is available. Solicit opinions of friends and such. Reviews and blind luck are the only thing that have worked for me.
HVAC and commercial refrigeration guys who know what they're doing and who won't kill you on price and who will stand by their work are a rare breed indeed.

Had a walk-in cooler on the fritz at the bar. Guy A, 20 years experience, nice guy, troubleshoots and says "refrigerant low, added some, might be a leak, let's give it a few months to see what happens, may need to replace/solder the evaporator - they go on this unit."

3 weeks later I'm dicking around with the timer in the compressor circuit (which was not needed), and a significant spark comes off of it. Turns out a screw was loose, and the compressor wasn't getting enough current to come on. Fix that. 1 week after that, telling a tipsy young bar patron about it. Guy says he "does HVAC on the side." LMAO because half of the work done on old, smokey dive bars is jury rigged garbage. But he's different. I can almost smell the competency on him. He's almost outraged that the other guy would leave a leak. He insists on getting his gear. He comes back 10 minutes later with a "sniffer." Dude spent an hour sniffing the system and determined that the only leak was a solenoid valve, which was connected via flare fittings. He tightens both fittings. Leak gone.

11 months later and my electric bill has been 100 bucks less a month, and the cooler has been tit.

I asked the guy what he wanted to be paid after he fixed the leak. He said, "well, let's make it 50." When I stopped laughing I told him, "young fella, you have no idea what you're worth." I gave him 150 and he gets his first drink free every time he comes in.

I'm friends with a local mason - young guy - who just doubled - DOUBLED! - his rates because he's so busy and he's getting requests for twice the work he can do. Fewer people want to work. Every year that goes by it gets tougher to find quality people to do good work at a reasonable rate - particularly in the trades. Sad but true.

Okay, I'll put away my belly-button high polyester pants now.

 

[temery]

I've been looking into a mini split system (heat and ac), but I still haven't gotten a straight answer as to why the heat in a mini split is any different than the baseboard electric heat that everyone cursed ten years ago.

I keep hearing how mini split heat so so much better - Why?

 

[Tex-Lager93]

I kind of lean toward choosing the right contractor rather than the perfect brand. Similar to other home appliance brands - many of them are made at the same facility with the same materials. I just recently had to replace - and went with American Standard...which is a sister company of Trane. It's made on the same line - but I did like the fact that both are made in the US. Ultimately, my decision was influenced by the current offer...they have a promo running...up to $1000 back or 36mo 0% interest financing.

 

[auror]

Can I go into my 'old man/back in my day' mode?
Seriously, good luck with this. Use Yelp or whatever other service/business review is available. Solicit opinions of friends and such. Reviews and blind luck are the only thing that have worked for me.
HVAC and commercial refrigeration guys who know what they're doing and who won't kill you on price and who will stand by their work are a rare breed indeed.

Had a walk-in cooler on the fritz at the bar. Guy A, 20 years experience, nice guy, troubleshoots and says "refrigerant low, added some, might be a leak, let's give it a few months to see what happens, may need to replace/solder the evaporator - they go on this unit."

3 weeks later I'm dicking around with the timer in the compressor circuit (which was not needed), and a significant spark comes off of it. Turns out a screw was loose, and the compressor wasn't getting enough current to come on. Fix that. 1 week after that, telling a tipsy young bar patron about it. Guy says he "does HVAC on the side." LMAO because half of the work done on old, smokey dive bars is jury rigged garbage. But he's different. I can almost smell the competency on him. He's almost outraged that the other guy would leave a leak. He insists on getting his gear. He comes back 10 minutes later with a "sniffer." Dude spent an hour sniffing the system and determined that the only leak was a solenoid valve, which was connected via flare fittings. He tightens both fittings. Leak gone.

11 months later and my electric bill has been 100 bucks less a month, and the cooler has been tit.

I asked the guy what he wanted to be paid after he fixed the leak. He said, "well, let's make it 50." When I stopped laughing I told him, "young fella, you have no idea what you're worth." I gave him 150 and he gets his first drink free every time he comes in.

I'm friends with a local mason - young guy - who just doubled - DOUBLED! - his rates because he's so busy and he's getting requests for twice the work he can do. Fewer people want to work. Every year that goes by it gets tougher to find quality people to do good work at a reasonable rate - particularly in the trades. Sad but true.

Okay, I'll put away my belly-button high polyester pants now.

I have a similar story with my commercial walk-in cooler. I went through I think 4 companies/contractors including multiple visits by several of them over a year and a half. Most of them well-reviewed and/or with positive recommendations from the local industry.

The cooler was getting "stuck" either on or off. Less than 4 years old, should last for 15-20 years. Freezing inventory or not cooling at all. They'd all get the cooler WORKING, but none of them fixed the root cause. After 2nd incident, I was demanding to them to make sure they fixed the root cause. They'd all find something off, a wire mis-installed (to their opinion), this thing was loose and possibly shorting, the coolant was low and causing short-cycling, etc.

First instinct for all of them naturally was temperature controller. We had it replaced the first time it happened, then again I think with a better model by one of the later guys. I had a hunch something was getting literally "stuck" on or off, and most likely culprit was solenoid valve. Finally a guy finally checked it and replaced the valve. Voila. No more issues for the past year.

Needless to say, I'm attempting to clutch onto that guy for other work, but he passed me on to who I assume is a former apprentice of his. New guy made a slight mistake on something, but at least owned up to it and made it right for free (eating the cost of a part).

My point is they all know how to get a cooler/HVAC to run again. They don't always know how to fix what's causing the problem (especially if it's not a leak).

 

[uconn13]

Can I go into my 'old man/back in my day' mode?
Seriously, good luck with this. Use Yelp or whatever other service/business review is available. Solicit opinions of friends and such. Reviews and blind luck are the only thing that have worked for me.
HVAC and commercial refrigeration guys who know what they're doing and who won't kill you on price and who will stand by their work are a rare breed indeed.

Had a walk-in cooler on the fritz at the bar. Guy A, 20 years experience, nice guy, troubleshoots and says "refrigerant low, added some, might be a leak, let's give it a few months to see what happens, may need to replace/solder the evaporator - they go on this unit."

3 weeks later I'm dicking around with the timer in the compressor circuit (which was not needed), and a significant spark comes off of it. Turns out a screw was loose, and the compressor wasn't getting enough current to come on. Fix that. 1 week after that, telling a tipsy young bar patron about it. Guy says he "does HVAC on the side." LMAO because half of the work done on old, smokey dive bars is jury rigged garbage. But he's different. I can almost smell the competency on him. He's almost outraged that the other guy would leave a leak. He insists on getting his gear. He comes back 10 minutes later with a "sniffer." Dude spent an hour sniffing the system and determined that the only leak was a solenoid valve, which was connected via flare fittings. He tightens both fittings. Leak gone.

11 months later and my electric bill has been 100 bucks less a month, and the cooler has been tit.

I asked the guy what he wanted to be paid after he fixed the leak. He said, "well, let's make it 50." When I stopped laughing I told him, "young fella, you have no idea what you're worth." I gave him 150 and he gets his first drink free every time he comes in.

I'm friends with a local mason - young guy - who just doubled - DOUBLED! - his rates because he's so busy and he's getting requests for twice the work he can do. Fewer people want to work. Every year that goes by it gets tougher to find quality people to do good work at a reasonable rate - particularly in the trades. Sad but true.

Okay, I'll put away my belly-button high polyester pants now.

sounds a lot like the stories told by Mike Rowe in his book Profoundly Disconnected, which focuses on the lack of skilled tradesmen in this country, and/or an unwillingness to do "dirty" jobs that might not make you rich, per say, but will keep you well fed and out of debt

 

[MadDogRevival]

I keep hearing how mini split heat so so much better - Why?

Electric baseboard works on the same principal as a curling iron or electric stove top: send electricity through a high-resistance material, thereby generating heat. 100% efficient, to be sure, but the underlying electric is expensive.
Minisplit (and geothermal) uses a "heat pump," which is an A/C running backwards. If you stand outside next to a window A/C unit on a hot day, you will feel a bunch of heat being thrown off the unit to the outside. That is the A/C taking the heat energy from inside the structure and moving it to the outside of the structure.
If you turned the A/C around, you'd have a "heat pump". The heat pump would take the heat from outside of the structure and move it into the structure. That works fairly well, and more efficiently than just using resistance electric, at higher temps. IIRC, below about 35 efficiency tapers off.
We had a place with a heat pump in Manchester that worked well until it got below freezing - then the resistance heat kicked on automatically and the electric bill would triple.
I've seen mini-splits advertised that can heat with a heat pump down to 10% - not sure about how much the technology has improved, but it seems as though it has.

 

[Danzz]

I've been told that the contractor is more important than the brand.
Have a Lenox system and it works fine.
The advantage of the mini split system is you don't need duck work and each unit can be controlled individually similar to window room air conditioners.

 

[B1GEast]

I've been told that the contractor is more important than the brand.
Have a Lenox system and it works fine.
The advantage of the mini split system is you don't need duck work and each unit can be controlled individually similar to window room air conditioners.

How are you going to get the forced air into the rooms without registers?

I can understand zone area temperature adjustment, but not individual room temperature adjustment.

I may not have understood your post.

 

[Kathy]

I've been looking into a mini split system (heat and ac), but I still haven't gotten a straight answer as to why the heat in a mini split is any different than the baseboard electric heat that everyone cursed ten years ago.

I keep hearing how mini split heat so so much better - Why?

Put in a minisplit sytem in 2010 mainly looking mainly for ac. 2000 sq ft home 2 units on first floor attic unit upstairs with a vent in each bedroom. As long as temps outside 40+ dont use the furnace and eletric bill not a ton higher. AC works great. It was my oil company that installed and the owner told me heating more efficient and cheaper than oil im my baseboard heaters. Wouldnt think twice about doing it again

 

[MadDogRevival]

How are you going to get the forced air into the rooms without registers?

For your typical mini-split, you are not.
The concept of central air is this:
Suck air from all over the structure and pass it over a coil inside the structure that absorbs heat from the air into coolant in the coils and blow that structure air back out to all the rooms through a system of duct work. Pump the heated coolant to the outside of the structure and dump the heat into the outside air. This system requires a very large blower fan, duct work, and registers in every room that you want conditioned air. Can be inefficient if duct work is not insulated and runs through unconditioned space (like most basements and attics).

A minisplit is essentially the same thing, minus the very large blower fan, duct work, and registers. A minisplit sucks in room air, runs it over coils with refrigerant that pick up the room heat and dumps it to the outside of the structure, but the minisplit simply spits the room air directly back into the room. That's why you only see one unit on the wall for a minisplit - it's both sucking and blowing at the same time - think of it as being stuck in the AAC - not ideal, but it works for one room.
The huge bonus of the minisplit is - no duct work, easy install, very efficient. They have DIY minisplits that come pre-charged. The big downside is - useful for a single room only. You can, of course, have multiple minisplits to accommodate more than one room. Likewise, you can have a minisplit system that has multiple wall-mount sucker/blowers that all pump refrigerant to the same outdoor unit (condenser) to dump heat outside, but it's still a minisplit. Another downside to minisplits is that they can be unattractive. I love the theory and application of the minisplit - don't like the giant white box on the wall. Going to work on a system for my place that incorporates the white box over a closet so it's hidden.

 

[temery]

What would two mini splits cost, installed? The first estimate I got was $7,500, which seems high.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Can I go into my 'old man/back in my day' mode?
Seriously, good luck with this. Use Yelp or whatever other service/business review is available. Solicit opinions of friends and such. Reviews and blind luck are the only thing that have worked for me.
HVAC and commercial refrigeration guys who know what they're doing and who won't kill you on price and who will stand by their work are a rare breed indeed.

Had a walk-in cooler on the fritz at the bar. Guy A, 20 years experience, nice guy, troubleshoots and says "refrigerant low, added some, might be a leak, let's give it a few months to see what happens, may need to replace/solder the evaporator - they go on this unit."

3 weeks later I'm dicking around with the timer in the compressor circuit (which was not needed), and a significant spark comes off of it. Turns out a screw was loose, and the compressor wasn't getting enough current to come on. Fix that. 1 week after that, telling a tipsy young bar patron about it. Guy says he "does HVAC on the side." LMAO because half of the work done on old, smokey dive bars is jury rigged garbage. But he's different. I can almost smell the competency on him. He's almost outraged that the other guy would leave a leak. He insists on getting his gear. He comes back 10 minutes later with a "sniffer." Dude spent an hour sniffing the system and determined that the only leak was a solenoid valve, which was connected via flare fittings. He tightens both fittings. Leak gone.

11 months later and my electric bill has been 100 bucks less a month, and the cooler has been tit.

I asked the guy what he wanted to be paid after he fixed the leak. He said, "well, let's make it 50." When I stopped laughing I told him, "young fella, you have no idea what you're worth." I gave him 150 and he gets his first drink free every time he comes in.

I'm friends with a local mason - young guy - who just doubled - DOUBLED! - his rates because he's so busy and he's getting requests for twice the work he can do. Fewer people want to work. Every year that goes by it gets tougher to find quality people to do good work at a reasonable rate - particularly in the trades. Sad but true.

Okay, I'll put away my belly-button high polyester pants now.

Without trying to thread jack, where I'm at in the south masons are in such high demand, contractor hire them away from each other one week at a time. You'll see two buildings on opposite sides of the street being built. They alternate each week as to which one gets worked on because each Friday the crew leader bids the contractors against each other. If they balk, he goes to site #3 and his crew works anyway. Got so bad the county government started up a mason apprentice program just to help with the shortage.

Back to A/C and HVAC. Definitely concur with the word of mouth but also believe product matters. A $3000 A/C unit and a $8000 A/C unit are priced that way for a reason.

 

[Kathy]

What would two mini splits cost, installed? The first estimate I got was $7,500, which seems high.

8 years ago 2 minisplits 1st floor and attic unit witn vents in each bedroom cost about 8000. Mine are daikin. Have 2 outside condensers.

 

[methodology]

Where are you located. I know an hvac guy who is one of the top commercial companies in the state. I can ask who he recommends for residential

 

[MattMang23]

Call Andrews Oil in South Windsor. Please.

 

[temery]

sounds a lot like the stories told by Mike Rowe in his book Profoundly Disconnected, which focuses on the lack of skilled tradesmen in this country, and/or an unwillingness to do "dirty" jobs that might not make you rich, per say, but will keep you well fed and out of debt

It doesn't help that shop classes are the first cut when there are budget problems. We need more voc high schools, and to bring back wood shop, metal shop, cooking, sewing, etc.

 

[temery]

8 years ago 2 minisplits 1st floor and attic unit witn vents in each bedroom cost about 8000. Mine are daikin. Have 2 outside condensers.

Is the attic unit a condenser, or an actual heat/AC mini split thingy?

 

[Kathy]

Is the attic unit a condenser, or an actual heat/AC mini split thingy?

It is attached to a condenser outside. I attached 2 photos one is what it looks like in hallwat ceiling and the other is a vent there are four 2 in master and 1 in each other bedroom

 

[Kathy]

Vent

 

[imno1]

I put in American Standard ( both furnace and A/C) 2 years ago. Works great. Much better than my older system. Where do you live?

 

[huskyinfl]

1. Get a proper heat load calculation for your home.
2. Company is Key - newer machines are built for efficiency and not long usage - you will have issues - and you need yearly service or you will void your warranty.
3. Installation is key... like others have said - over charged / undercharged - wrong size duct work - unit too big /small these will all be issues in the future. Crap in your lineset can wreck your unit.

4. All the units suck - its the install that is key. What you are paying for is the noise level of the motors, a blanket on the inside to muffle the start/stop - seer rating. Manufacturers make it impossible to process warranty parts - so you want a large company that can actually afford to deal with all the BS.

Minisplits - look at mitsubishi - they just actually came out with a new machine this year - you can have upto 3 air handlers (the part that goes in your room) attached to one outside condenser. $7500 is so high.

Your sales guy should take AT LEAST 30 minutes scoping out the job - the machine he wants to sell you is the easy part - but all of the parts and measurements take time. If he doesn't get in attic / draw out your system design or account for all parts (PVC, Copper, Breakers/Panel) etc run away - He is just spitballing a number. Most HVAC companies first price will have 45-50% profit - negotiate.

If your sales guy doesn't know how much your job actually costs by doing a thorough analysis - dont trust that company.

Only work with licensed companies that pull permits & make sure they register your equipment - or when it breaks you are SOL on 10 years free part replacement. The county inspector is your best bet to review the quality of installs.