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I set it on 80 at 730 this morning and when I got home at 5:15 put it on 73. It ran for 5 straight hours and cycled off since it's 73 degrees.
Okay sorry I mis-understood the question.
Okay let's get:
Location?
Return grille/s size? And size of HVAC system in tonnage or a model number?
Setup of home? and size? 2 story...3 story...ranch...
How much total mass would you say you have (furniture, TV...ect...)?
What's your normally routine when you get home? Do you start cooking...turn on the TV....hop in the shower...? (sorry not a perve )
What type of filter are you using?
Are you keeping all your doors open and all the supplies open?
Do a lot of people come home when you get home or shortly after? (the family or friends)
Va Beach, Va. return grill is 14x24. setup of home? well, its 1296 sq feet ranch style home with 3 br. I don't have much mass as I just moved here. I have original wooden floors. My routine is to find something for dinner. Yeah, tv and microwave, maybe the stove if i feel like cooking. I have a pleated filter (which btw I thought I read somewhere are bad ?) I just closed off the third BR vent to see if the house will cool quicker. It's just me living here.
Va Beach, Va. return grill is 14x24. setup of home? well, its 1296 sq feet ranch style home with 3 br. I don't have much mass as I just moved here. I have original wooden floors. My routine is to find something for dinner. Yeah, tv and microwave, maybe the stove if i feel like cooking. I have a pleated filter (which btw I thought I read somewhere are bad ?) I just closed off the third BR vent to see if the house will cool quicker. It's just me living here.
Did you go back through the rest of this thread?
Yes pleated filters are bad unless your return grille is sized correctly to compensate for the amount of airflow loss they cause.
Try this tomorrow when you get home before you set the t-stat down or on one of those days where it runs all day....try taking the filter of and leaving the grill off for a brief period of time.
Unless you have a 1 1/2 ton system your return is already to small with a regular fiberglass low MERV filter. I suggest removing the pleated as it's only making it worse....and if it's a straight A/C system then you could also possibly be doing some severe damage to your system.
For the HVAC system to cool it needs to move massive amount of air. the less air it moves the less heat is transfered into the refrigerant. The refrigerant MUST return back to the compressor as a gas and with a very low amount of airflow it most likely isn't.....Liquid doesn't compressor and will destroy the compressor.
Closing off vents and using pleated filter with to small of a return already (unless you have a 1 1/2 ton system).....You need to do something now...it only takes a matter of a few minutes to kill a compressor. Need a model number or the size of the HVAC system?
A/C works by running a liquid refrigerant with a boiling point well below the ambient temps through a coil to absorb the heat. As it travels through the coil it gains heat. In gaining heat it get's closer and closer to the boiling point....at this point the liquid has only absorbed a tiny amount of heat compared to the next step.....the next step is the refrigerant begins to change state from liquid to gas in this state of change this is the point where the most heat is absorbed from the air. If the refrigerant never boils off in the evaporator coil you have a huge capacity loss. It must boil off before leaving the evap to work correctly.
Things that contribute to it not boiling off correctly:
Dirty evaporator.
To slow of a fan speed or bad fan motor.
To restrictive of a filter.
To small of a return grille.
We know you are meeting at least 1 of these and possibly 2....maybe 3.
I live in a tiny (1300 sq ft) 2 story home. Upstairs is always warm. I placed tints on the windows, weatherstripping on the doors leading to a walk in attic.
Now I am thinking of an attic fan, do these truly help the AC cool the upstairs better? What other things I can do that is under $200 to make upstairs cooler?
Forgot to add that I also added a digital programmable thermostat to help. I keep it on 74-75 during the day and 70 at night. I live in North carolina.
Just read about the pleated filter, what do you recommend instead? The return is upstairs....
Now I am thinking of an attic fan, do these truly help the AC cool the upstairs better? What other things I can do that is under $200 to make upstairs cooler?
The greater the temp. difference between the attic and the home the faster the heat will travel. The thing stopping this is insulation. If you can get a fan and have the make up air for it to work then it's not such a bad idea. Bigger isn't always better. If you have leaks in the tops of your walls (typically the top of the interior walls are most common leaky spots) a fan sucking massive amounts of air leaves the attic in a lower pressure than the home and the outdoor pressure. Air takes the path of least resistance. It also travels from higher pressure areas to lower pressure areas in a constant battle to equalize. A few small leaks here and there don't seem bad when you think of the sum of all those leaks it can be pretty bad.
So basically if you get a attic fan you must have a hole going to the outside of the home to easily makeup for the air being pulled out of the attic. Sofits and ridge vents use natural convection. Some of the builders or more well versed folks in here may correct me on this but the sofit area should have twice the surface area that the ridge vent provides for adequate makeup air. If you have can lights seal them...those are like little fans when they leak pulling conditioned air right up into the attic via stack effect like a chimney.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newcharlottan
Forgot to add that I also added a digital programmable thermostat to help. I keep it on 74-75 during the day and 70 at night. I live in North carolina.
Nothing wrong with that. if it use backup batteries or batteries as the main source of power then make sure you have a routine schedule of changing them. Maybe once a year will work maybe less....maybe more....whatever works best for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newcharlottan
Just read about the pleated filter, what do you recommend instead? The return is upstairs....
Woven fiberglass. The filter manufacturers have had quiet an effective campaign at selling these filters. However they don't own the equipment, responsibility for it destroying the equipment or have to work on the equipment. Pleated filters can work. For example (not accurate) with a fiber glass filter using a 14 x 24 return vent....for you to be able to use a pleated filter you might have to increase the filter area by double to move the same amount of air that the HVAC system requires.
The main problem with pleated filters is how thin they are. When you think about the total surface area of the pleated filter as opposed to one that is 5 inches thick you will see why the smaller pleated filters are called furnace killers.
Furnaces have a maximum temp rise allowed for them to be reliable for a long period of time. The lower the volume of air passing over the heat exchanger the higher the temp rise. When you think about the air restricted from those small pleated filters the furnace killer will make sense. That's assuming everything else would normally work perfectly....which if you go back through this entire thread you will see that's far from the actual case.
Last edited by BigJon3475; 07-24-2008 at 12:16 PM..
Wow, thanks for the very informative post. In my attic when you look around at the outer edges, you can look down through the soffits to the outside. Think that would be enough air?
I will be going out today to find those woven fiberglass filter.
Wow, thanks for the very informative post. In my attic when you look around at the outer edges, you can look down through the soffits to the outside. Think that would be enough air?
I will be going out today to find those woven fiberglass filter.
Again, thanks!
If they are fairly new sofits then you probably meet requirements. Maybe others would have more info on that as I'm not really a builder.
I would just mark the side of the filter with an install date and change them monthly.
2 weeks ago, the air conditioner on the 1st floor of our house stopped working. Our new house were still within the 1-year warranty from the builder, so we called their warranty manager. They contacted an AC company which sent a technician to our house. The technician told us it was due to lightning. He replaced the Heat and Cool circuit board in our attic. When he turned on the heat to test, another fuse was blown so he had to replace the valve for heat (why?). Then he also replace the thermostat (the device we use to control the room temperature) on the wall on the first floor.
The warranty manager told us that they would cover it. The technician left us an itemized bill:
1. Diagnosis $90
2. Heat & Cool Circuit Board $400
3. Thermostat $360
4. 24V Gas Valve Natural $400
Several days later, the warranty manager told us that they could not cover it, because it was caused by lightning. He told us that he had talked to the AC company and they would work out something for the bill with us. The manager of the AC company called and lower the bill to $1000. We check with Lowe's, the same model thermostat costs about only $36!
Our questions:
1. How to know if the damage is from lightning? I think builder has to make the case, not us.
2. Does builder's warranty normally not over damage from lightning? How should we fight with the builder? On the original bill, the technician put "Need to bill BUILDER X", and we also put something similar beside our signature.
3. I guess builder's warranty will pay with a deep discount, so the AC company prefers/insists us pay it ourselves?
4. Do their repair and pricing make sense? I think they charged us with a huge margin. The price of thermostat is outrageous, which makes me suspect other items as well.
2 weeks ago, the air conditioner on the 1st floor of our house stopped working. Our new house were still within the 1-year warranty from the builder, so we called their warranty manager. They contacted an AC company which sent a technician to our house. The technician told us it was due to lightning. He replaced the Heat and Cool circuit board in our attic. When he turned on the heat to test, another fuse was blown so he had to replace the valve for heat (why?). Then he also replace the thermostat (the device we use to control the room temperature) on the wall on the first floor.
The warranty manager told us that they would cover it. The technician left us an itemized bill:
1. Diagnosis $90
2. Heat & Cool Circuit Board $400
3. Programmable thermostat $360
4. 24V Gas Valve Natural $400
Not sure shorts especially from surges can damage things you wouldn't normally think of so it's possible for all or none of it to be damaged by a surge. Electricity is strange in that manner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbbi98
Several days later, the warranty manager told us that they could not cover it, because it was caused by lightning. He told us that he had talked to the AC company and they would work out something for the bill with us. The manager of the AC company called and lower the bill to $1000. We check with Lowe's, the same model thermostat costs about only $36!
I really can't comment on a pricing structure a company feels they need to stay in business. That sounds sort of like a technicality if anything....have you gone 100% through your contracts? Does it have a lightning clause or similar?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbbi98
Our questions:
1. How to know if the damage is from lightning? I think builder has to make the case, not us.
Really no 100% sure way (that I know of) unless your a/c was working and then lightning struck really really close to your home and right after you had no a/c. Maybe an electrician would have more insight to this. If it's a lightning strike as far as an HVAC co. they fix it and send the bill to the HO and let them resolve it with insurance or home warranty.
By the way as far as I know I never seen it happen but I have heard that it can...so it probably is very rare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbbi98
2. Does builder's warranty normally not cover damage from lightning? How should we fight with the builder? On the original bill, the technician put "Need to bill BUILDER X", and we also put something similar beside our signature.
You need to go through your paper work. If you feel your being jipped a lawyer may help more than I can. I wouldn't feel right giving legal advice over the internet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbbi98
3. I guess builder's warranty will pay with a deep discount, so the AC company prefers/insists us pay it ourselves?
I have no idea. It (I assume) would be in your contracts. The HVAC co. just wants their money no matter who it comes from it sounds like your fight is with the builder or the warranty company.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbbi98
4. Do their repair and pricing make sense? I think they charged us with a huge margin. The price of thermostat is outrageous, which makes me suspect other items as well.
Sounds like flat rate pricing to me. If they went marginally on mark up the board would have also been 10 times the amount for the actual item. However I can't comment on how much a or why a company has chosen a pricing structure.
Probably not real helpful those are rather tough questions and something that really needs to be figured out locally. Sorry..
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Need you opinion... thank you!
