No A/C

[patrick66]

My home A/C unit crapped the bed yesterday afternoon. It got up to 90 degrees inside the house! My older son lent his unused window air unit to my younger son, so his room is nice and cool. Meanwhile, my HVAC guy won't be able to fix the problem until Thursday, so my wife and I are gonna use a hotel until then. Gotta do what'cha gotta do, right? A couple of evenings spent by a pool with a drink in hand sounds good. Make it into a little stay-cation!

I'll say it again - I despise Summer! I guess the older I get, the more oppressive it feels. Used to go to Saudi a LOT when I was active duty, and even at 125*F, it was tolerable, due to the 5% humidity. I'd much rather be in Colorado or Montana. The heat in both places is far more tolerable...plus there are mountains. Lakes. Rivers. Trout!

 

[Mr C]

Hang in there!

 

[commando1]

My home A/C unit crapped the bed yesterday afternoon. It got up to 90 degrees inside the house! My older son lent his unused window air unit to my younger son, so his room is nice and cool. Meanwhile, my HVAC guy won't be able to fix the problem until Thursday, so my wife and I are gonna use a hotel until then. Gotta do what'cha gotta do, right? A couple of evenings spent by a pool with a drink in hand sounds good. Make it into a little stay-cation!

I'll say it again - I despise Summer! I guess the older I get, the more oppressive it feels. Used to go to Saudi a LOT when I was active duty, and even at 125*F, it was tolerable, due to the 5% humidity. I'd much rather be in Colorado or Montana. The heat in both places is far more tolerable...plus there are mountains. Lakes. Rivers. Trout!

With interest rates at 6%, you're going nowhere, my friend. Enjoy your Eggos Continental breakfast.

 

[patrick66]

This morning's "Continental breakfast" = Coffee.

 

[Just Carbs]

The program here is to go from the house ac, to the car ac, to the ac store....
This heat and humidity are depressing. Thinking about putting lights on the mower.

 

[patrick66]

The program here is to go from the house ac, to the car ac, to the ac store....
This heat and humidity are depressing. Thinking about putting lights on the mower.

I have bright headlights on my new ZTR, but this weekend, I'm adding taillights to it - those little LED trailer lights that are all the thing. I have to mow along the road, and like all the visibility I can get.

I'm so draggin' *** this morning, even after a decent sleep on a rock-hard hotel mattress.

 

[Just Carbs]

A few years ago, a tenant gifted me a running/working Kia Sportage, not to be confused with prossesed roughage, at one of my rent houses. He left for a job change and didn't want to drive it 1000 miles to the new job location. Good decision.
Anyway, the little SUV was a stick shift with low range gear box, p/s and A/C. I gave some though to putting a floating hydro driven mower deck under it.
In hindsight I wish I had.

 

[live4theking]

Thanks for your service.

 

[patrick66]

The A/C is back on! Actually, it got fixed on Friday afternoon, just in time for me to spend the weekend in bed. It'll need replaced soon, though.

 

[patrick66]

I'm getting a window A/C unit for my bedroom until I can afford to get the whole damned thing replaced. The main unit **** the bed again. It IS 20 years old, so I can't gripe much. A new unit will probably last ten years, if that.

 

[Just Carbs]

I put a 14k btu 110-volt window unit in the southside sunroom that is adjacent to the family room and kitchen. My thinking was it would cool the common areas during the day when the bedrooms are not used.
Well, that produced a totally unexcepted and welcome result with the little window unit running non-stop 24/7 full time.
With an outside temp of 100 and "very" high humidity during the day the common areas reach no more than 75 and the bedrooms reach no more than 78. Inside humidity is very low.
Very quiet and comfortable house now. I don't miss the on/off noise and breeze of the central one bit. A window unit in the bedroom might be a bit annoying.
Big reduction in power bill.
2800 sq ft split bedroom floor plan ranch.

 

[patrick66]

I'm looking at window units currently, as a stop-gap measure. As long as that'll get me through the Summer, I'll be a happy camper. Your home and mine appear to be of similar size.

 

[Just Carbs]

Now the big old central dinosaur has been dethroned by the little old dinosaur in the window.
You might want to consider a window unit in a more central location in the house.
I never would have thought it would cool the bedrooms for sleeping at night if I hadn't seen it myself.
Now I'm thinking about a larger mini-split and kick the little dinosaur to the curb.
Cause the big old dinosaur is a 1972 vintage job that came with the house.

 

[Justin Plant]

My home AC took a dump about 7 years ago. Right at the end of August. After a series of "WTF's" our savings was gone. My wife and I did manage to buy 3 window units for our home the next spring, it's a small home so that's all we needed. Our electric bill was less than the year before with the 25yr old central air. I mean like 1/2 price. We did eventually install a new heat pump. We did all the work and a friend hooked up the line set. I saved about 5 grand doing the work. Find someone in the field, if you don't already know one. Buy direct from a supply house. Try to match up the old unit with the new. You'll be thousands ahead.

 

[patrick66]

My A/C guy is a Mopar guy and was active in our local club. He's pretty straight-up, and has provided very good quotes, as I've done some comparison shopping. Three "repair" guys wanted to go straight to replacing all of it, to the tune of over $16K...crazy! A fourth offered to fix a part of the machine that was not broken. And my friend took the time to diagnose correctly, taking pics of two parts that were obviously in need of replacement, just by visually confirming this. Fortunately, we have a couple of options; the cheapest being replacing the two parts in the attic blower/heater unit. Next, simply replacing the attic unit and refilling the refrigerant. Most expensive of course, is replacing both the attic-mounted heater and the exterior condenser.

EDIT: Yesterday, I bought a roll-around 8000 BTU GE unit that seems to do the trick for the bedroom cooling. With that and two fans, the room was downright cold by midnight. It'll do, for now.

 

[patrick66]

On Friday, his crew came out and FIXED the A/C unit!!! The evaporator coil and a couple of small bits were replaced, and the system evacuated and recharged. I can damn near hang meat in the house, should I desire! Plus, it didn't cost an arm and a leg to get done. There are really good, honest tradesmen out there.

 

[shooter65]

I'm very lucky, my brother-in-law is in the trade, actually now the Maintenance Manager so he helps me with the HVAC stuff whenever I need it. He's a phone call away and always glad to help.

Glad you got it resolved. PA is the same way, 90 deg but with 80%+ humidity it feels like 110. You get brief respites when it finally rains but when the rain stops, the humidity goes right back up. UGH....

I went to Salt Lake City, Utah a few years back on business in the summer and was shocked that when you walked into the shade, it was actually very comfortable. The humidity is a killer. I don't know how we survived growing up with just one small window unit in the living room. LOL.

 

[LocuMob]

My A/C guy is a Mopar guy and was active in our local club. He's pretty straight-up

My neighbor across the street is a semi retired HVAC guy who can do it all. He installed a furnace in his brother in law's garage (my next door neighbor), and would do so for me if I can swing it. It's nice having friends that know what they're doing, and aren't out for a big score.

I've only had my window A/C units on for three days. They needed cleaning and I decided to just leave the windows open. Other than two days were it was near 100 with high humidity, it hasn't been that bad. Both my dogs and I have become used to the heat. I have two fans blowing air through the house, and the dogs have plenty of water and cold floors to lay on. Plus I'm saving $150/month or more on my electric bill, a bonus I wasn't even concerned with.

I work in a hot environment and I'm used to that, so I just transitioned my home life to living in the low to mid 70's. I really thought it would be worse, but after two weeks I was used to it, and now, I don't even notice it. In fact, it's down into the mid 60's and I almost feel cold. Of course, come winter time I'll have the thermostat set for 65 or lower.

 

[Big_John]

I worked for years in a 68 degree metrology lab. Year round, 68 +/- 1 degree. I started doing that when I went to work at General Electric.

Back then, at quitting time, I would walk out of the lab, and with a quick 20 foot or so walk through shipping/receiving, I'd walk out into the sun and a very hot blacktop parking lot. There were days in the summer when it was like walking into a wall. The heat just hit you hard, right in the face.

When we started our business, I did all the HVAC work, using the manual as a guide. Then we got the building maintenance guy to charge it. When we moved, we had a HVAC company do our new, larger place and they moved the HVAC system I installed for use in a smaller room where we measured gauge blocks to the millionth of an inch. The HVAC guy asked "who installed thus system?" and I told them I did... I expected to hear what I did wrong and I was surprised to hear "You did a better job than most pros do". I decided that HVAC work wasn't rocket surgery if I could figure it out. That was before YouTube and other online help too.

Mrs. Big John doesn't like the heat.. The window shakers in two of the bedrooms with a couple strategically positioned fans will cool the house enough for me, but I'm thinking of installing a split system that would take care of everything. The heat didn't used to bother her this much, but the summers have gotten hotter. She lived in Muskogee, OK for a few years and hated the heat there. It doesn't bother me until it gets over 90 and then it's the humidity that I don't like. I just remind myself about how cold it can get in the winter and I'm usually good.