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Thursday, June 21. 2007
It sounds a little bit like a wind ... Posted by Ben D. Benner
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11:51
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Defined tags for this entry: AC, air conditioning, duct, energy efficiency, heat, hot, HVAC, weather
It sounds a little bit like a wind tunnel in here now
The duct work replacement job is about 95% done now.
I had to run out to Lowe's real quick to get some registers that we hadn't gotten around to replacing. For some reason I thought they were going to do a pressure test or something. Nope, they just wanted to close the registers as to avoid stuff coming through the vents while they were redoing everything in the attic. At one point the garage was full of the old duct work, I mean pretty full of it. I believe they just finished setting up the last duct as it now sounds a little bit like I am in a wind tunnel here in my home office. I am going to wait for the OK from them to open back up the register, but I am hoping that all the sudden increase in airflow means that my thoughts on the general air pressure coming from the vents is correct. More to come. Laterz Friday, June 15. 200764 degrees and dropping
The AC guys wrapped up their work and had me sign-off on the paperwork about 10 minutes ago.
I got out the ladder and shoved the old remote thermometer up into the vent to get a read on the temperature. The temperature coming out of was 64 degrees. It has dropped down to 62 since they left. The house thermometer in the hallway along with the one in the kitchen have both dropped a degree. One interesting thing is that when the blower would kick-on before, it would just about suck the air-filter up into the duct. This one wasn't nearly as powerful. I mean I could hear it come on and see if "grab" onto the air-filter, but not in the same manner. It would appear that the blower as a whole isn't quite as powerful as the old one and just doesn't pump the same amount of air output as the old one. However, some of that might change when they re-do the duct work next week. I would guess the following: #1. The old ducts aren't sealed well to the unit or the wall. #2. That the old ducts were put in inefficiently, thus the air coming out isn't as cold as it could be. #3. That the old ducts might actually be bigger than the ones that are going to be installed. I would guess that smaller ducts would mean a higher output of airflow, because it would add pressure to the amount of air being pushed. Anyway, the outside unit is about 1/2 as noisy as the old one, which is nice. I noticed that I tend to have the TV up louder than I normally do when the outside unit is on. I don't think that will be the case anymore. I hope the house is nice a chilly when Gina gets home. I need to run a few errands. Oh yeah, I am going to crawl up into the attic either tonight or in the morning (ie when it isn't insanely hot) and take some pics of the new inside unit. I can't wait to compare July's electric bill against last years. Laterz. Friday, June 15. 2007"This will take about 6 hours"
The new HVAC is being installed today.
I originally thought it was going to take maybe like 3-4 hours. The guy told me "This will take about 6 hours." that was at around 9:00 give or take 10 minutes. However, it apparently took them longer than they thought it would to remove the old attic unit. He apparently had to cut the old one in half to remove it, it was that big. The new unit looked a lot smaller. I had the notion to take pictures of the new unit, for comparison to the carcass of the old unit, a few minutes too late. They have already take it up into the attic to. I got some pics of the old unit. I will upload them later. There is a serial number on the old unit, maybe I will be able to find out some background information for comparison to the new unit I bought and get a better guess on the difference in energy efficiency. Then again, it is an old unit, pretty sure made before the whole 'Energy Star' energy rating stuff, but who knows. Back to the grind. Laterz Friday, June 8. 2007Got the first quote
I will leave off the service provider's name (for now) if I pick them then I will say who Alex works for.
I have to say as sales people go, Alex is a better one. Not too pushy, provides plenty of information, and is a Michigan State graduate. The price of the entire thing comes out to about $5,838.00 (i am pretty sure this is before tax). Now, a couple of things to note. Like my previous entry stated I was expecting something in the $4500 (before tax) range. So there is a bit of sticker shock that comes with the price Alex gave me. However, since I have no idea how much this stuff costs I guess the shock is a bit out of whack. Here is the breakdown of what we are getting for our money. $5,293.00 = 3Ton Carrier SEER 14 rated unit. This unit is not only the AC it is also a new furnace. Which is nice because the existing furnace is as OLD as the existing AC unit. Alex pointed out that the existing furnace has a standing pilot light, which is costing about $1/day. I am not sure it is a full $1/day, but I can say that the gas bill is always consistently over $35. Even in the months where we really are not at home. And with the replacement of the furnace, that means when I want to keep the house above 65 degrees in the winter, it won't cost me $180/mo to do it. $945 = Duct work (and labor associated with removing the old duct work). This includes removing the old ducts that are currently connected and a bunch of duct work that is up there that apparently someone just left up there. Since I just about never go up into the attic, this had to be the previous owner as it is extremely unprofessional looking (I am quoting Alex a bit there.) To be honest, I thought some of that unconnected junk duct up there was actually connected to something. Another thing is that given what I know of the previous homeowner's ability to choose vendor's it might have just been a shady vendor who redid the ductwork. Regardless, both Gina and I were impressed with Alex. I just got the callback from the other HVAC company I called. Since I am going to bash the guy a little bit, I will not mention his name. However, his demeanor on the phone was not professional. Also, he was being pushy. Given that we had just spent some quality time with Alex talking about HVAC stuff I had a better idea about what to quiz this guy on. At one point, he said 'and that price takes care of everything, the entire install'. Ok, that is great, but I have no idea what the install is. Mind you, this is over the phone. I did not ask him to come over and do a more formal inspection of the house or anything, nor did he offer. So I can understand not being as detailed as Alex, since Alex had the ability to draw diagrams and write down everything that an 'install' encompasses. This guy never mentioned duct work. No, mind you Alex had the opportunity to see the state of the attic and comment on how they need to be replaced. This guy didn't, but he didn't bring it up as a question. I had to, being 'Does the install include duct work?' Nope 'duct work is always a separate quote'. I asked for a ballpark, because Alex was able to give me a price. This guy said $125 a duct run, give or take. But that another guy would have to quote that and that the other guy would do that while they were installing the unit. Presuming that I would buy a unit from him. A little too pushy there, to make that presumption. So while part of me says that I should go and get another quote. I really don't think that I will get any significantly better price. And right about now, I like Alex, he went to MSU. He is originally from Southfield. And aside from some quirky speech mannerisms, he is a good sales person. Not too pushy, not too vague about what he is delivering, I would definitely qualify him as a professional. I think this says a lot for his company. He is a good representative, I hope it isn't a bait and switch deal. But I don't get that feel at all, I mean the guy came out to the house at 6:30 at night and we kept him outside for a bit, so he was sweating buckets. I did offer him some water or a Pepsi. He choose the Pepsi for the road. Oh yeah. The pricing, the other company offered us $5,050 (give or take a few dollars) for basically the exact same unit. Originally it was less, but he had mistaken the fact that we have a natural gas furnace for an electric heat pump. This is about $240 less than what Alex was offering. However, Alex is also offering a discount of $400. This means that the unit from Alex is actually $4,893, or $157 less than this other fellow. Now, I hardly expect the other company to really come in with the duct work at $125 a run, or $875. That means, $5,050 + $875 = $5,925. Which means overall, that Alex is $87 less. Alex told me that I would find the quote to be competitive. Did I mention that I apparently get a new digital thermometer. Which I am not sure I will use, since I have a nice touch screen one now. I will probably keep it and take my touch screen with me, swapping them out when it comes time to leave. Another couple of things. I checked and my electric company is offering a $250 credit for installing a new 14 SEER or higher HVAC system this year. So one more thing to push the fact that it seems that this year I will drop some serious money on the house in the form of the HVAC system, but that I will be getting some good incentives other than just nice crisp cool air and reduced energy bills (in the winter too). All for now, I need to get Jeremy some food before he dies from starvation or tries to eat one of the dogs. Laterz Friday, June 8. 2007Work, Work, Work
It has been a busy week at work. Since this is only the second time Jeremy has been here I am not sure if it is just that it seems like I am working more because he is here or if it just also happens to be that we have been really busy lately.
I heard through the grapevine that some folks have been wondering where my posts were. Honestly, for the most part nothing really exciting has been happening here. It has been pretty hot here. The heat index has been up over 100 the last couple of days. I guess that is noteworthy. I am thinking that we are probably going to need to see about replacing the central air conditioning unit at the house here this year. So far the performance of the AC unit has not been really what I would be hoping for. I need to find out the exact pricing of of it all, but from what I have been able to gather on the Internet, it is probably going to cost about $4500. While, this is a BIG number. It is an investment in the house. For several reasons. #1. Energy Efficiency Last year's electric bill for cooling the house during the REALLY bad months was over $300. Given that the AC unit is about 20 years old, I would definitely wager that we would seem an unbelievable amount of energy efficiency improvement out of a new unit. #2. Good money after bad. The cost of servicing this unit would probably just be a waste of money. In part because that money could go towards a new AC unit. Not to mention the fact that since the current unit is so old, it would no doubt experience a breakdown while under continuous load this summer. #3. Tax Credits The government is giving up to a $500 tax credit for the purchase and installation of an energy efficient AC system. #4. Resale value The house will eventually be sold and that price will be higher with a newer AC unit notably because of #1 & #2 in the list. No homeowner (in Texas especially) wants to have the AC go out on them during a heat wave. I can tell you is that the AC unit has been running since we got home at about 1:30 today and has not brought the temperature down at all in the house. The temperature has not gone up any, but it has not gone down. I don't want to know what it will be like when the temperature is about 15 degrees higher. I will keep you posted on what I find. Ben
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