Keystone State Thread

Not gonna be needing these guys anytime soon, that's for damn sure!

 

My house has two central air-conditioners and two gas furnaces; The furnace the 1st floor is in the basement, and the one for the 2nd floor is up in the attic (unfortunately directly above my bedroom, which leads to it working a bit too well, forcing me to crack the window even in these temperatures). This is the flue pipe for the 1st floor furnace, which has an icicle on it; How utterly symbolic!

 

Nice and warm inside the house, though!

 

It's not that bad outside. No wind it's manageable. Supposed to get up to 35 today.

 

I still want snow!

 

Well cut up a 12lb top round to marinate for jerky. Got another one to do after this batch is done.

 

Come and get some from my yard and driveway. I figure it's still about 9 inches, starting from over 1 /12 weeks ago. It probably won't melt until the middle or end of next week, so you have some time to make your plans.

 

Then you can keep it on your side of the river. I want none of that ish. I can deal with cold I hate snow.

 

Okay, so here's the thing; Almost everyone on TW knows that I have a high-functioning form of autism called Aspergers Syndrome. People with autism tend to have various sensory issues, and it varies greatly, but one of mine is that I like it cold when I am sleeping. I will happily tolerate uncomfortable sleeping situation if there is a great reward for doing so, like when my family went to Hawaii for my cousin's wedding back in July 2009 and rented two houses on Kauai that did not central air. The houses had a couple of window units, but my room did not have A/C. However, it was Hawaii, I was only 20, and I didn't have to pay for a thing; I could not complain!

However, in my house, the thermostats are generally set between 67 and 70 degrees all year; My parents like it cold too, and having raised a kid with autism (that would be me) they are very sympathetic to my various sensory issues.

My parents' house is like 3,000 square feet if I had to guess, built in late 2015-early 2016, and came standard with dual-zone A/C due to its size. The A/C works good, but the second floor has this barely adequate (in my opinion) network of flex ducting in the attic; The HVAC ductwork in my attic is like a SEPTA train in Philly, and my bedroom is the last stop...



I recently discovered this past summer that setting the thermostat to 67 instead of 68 at night is the "sweet spot". My room is comfortable, but it doesn't result in a higher electric bill and/or a lecture from my dad about how electricity doesn't grow on trees; Everybody wins!



FYI, within a day of us moving into the house, I discovered that my bedroom was almost unbearably hot, and found that airflow from the lone vent in the ceiling was virtually nonexistent; This was before the ceiling fan was installed, so so I set up like three fans in my room that night. The house still smelled new and my parents had only owned it for a few days, so my parents complained to the builder who promptly sent out an HVAC tech free of charge to address the issue.

 

It was discovered that a damper wasn't open all the way, and when the tech adjusted it, the difference was almost immediately noticeable. Our previous house was a 2,500 square foot townhouse that also had dual central A/C units and has furnaces. My bedroom was located directly above the garage, and by all accounts should have been miserable in the summer, but spending the extra $6,000 for a separate upstairs system quickly paid for itself!

The townhouse would have come with a single 3.5-ton unit if my parents didn't pay for the dual systems; Our house had dual 2-ton/24,000-BTU units, and that extra 6,000 BTUs basically supercharged the system! My bedroom was consistently like a walk-in freezer on even the hottest summer days, and I fucking loved it! That house spoiled me, and my current house has a 2.5-ton for the 1st floor and a 2-ton for upstairs. I think it needs a second 2.5-ton for upstairs to compensate for the shitty builder-grade ductwork, and if my parents still live in that house when the upstairs unit shits the bed, that's what I am going to make sure they buy!

 

So that bring us to my present climate control setup; My Hunter ceiling fan, which was installed within a week of us moving into the house in March 2016, suddenly and spontaneously shit the bed in September 2021.

Before I could even research a new ceiling fan, I got an offer from a good friend that I simply could not refuse!

 

My friend Pat and his wife owned Coach's Steak and House in Doylestown, and lived in the apartment above it; Both spaces were rented, and he sold the restaurant to new owners. He and his wife moved to Florida; Their apartment in Doylestown did not have central air, but their new place in Florida obviously does. Meet Della; My friends paid like $300 for her brand new in 2019 or 2020 to keep their loft bedroom comfortable and didn't need her anymore, not to mention their Tundra and the Uhaul they were pulling with it were both loaded beyond capacity and there was no room for.

Pat was like "want an air-conditioner, Charlie?" when I was helping them pack up the apartment, and minutes later his wife was helping me cram Della into the front seat of my Tacoma; My dad was initially pissed at me for dragging what he thought was a neglected pile of junk home, but it merely looked worse than it was because it was dusty and hadn't had the filter cleaned in months. I gave Della a bath and sat her up in my bedroom; Once my dad felt how cold this FREE air-conditioner got my room, he changed his timeline the rest is history! Della can get my bedroom down to 57 degrees if I keep the door shut and the lights off!

 

Obviously, I am only using Della as a fan right now, but I use the A/C when it's above 40 degrees because my room can still get pretty warm and Della does better job of cooling my room at that temperature than an open window; Also, Della's compressor is inside, so running the A/C when it's below 50 degrees will likely not damage the compressor...

This is NOT the case with either of my two central A/C units, as those would require a low-ambient kit to regulate compressor temperature and condenser fan speed to keep the the compressor from freezing up and being catastrophically damaged. Both of my central A/C units have scroll compressors, which are far more resilient than reciprocating compressors in extreme cold, but I'm as anal about HVAC maintenance as I am about truck maintenance and I'm not taking any chances; The purpose of a low-ambient kit is to allow operation down to zero degrees Fahrenheit, and the sensor would cause the low-ambient kit to engage probably between 40 and 45 degrees.

If you've ever seen an air-conditioner running in cold weather and the condenser fan is shutting off for a few seconds, every few seconds, and then turning back on this means it has a low-ambient kit installed; The basic function of a low-ambient kit is to compensate for the naturally cold refrigerant and heat the compressor up so the extreme cold doesn't damage it.

Obviously, in a residential home, there's no point in installing a low-ambient kit; However, if you're running a busy restaurant with a busy kitchen and a packed dining room, you are likely going to need A/C even if it's below freezing!

 

Della has a heat function that I am likely never going to use, and she can also be used as a dehumidifier; What I haven't figured out yet is whether Della has rudimentary electric heating strips like you'd find in a space heater or even a toaster, or if she has a reversing valve and is basically a miniature air-source heat pump. I do not feel like removing panels and risking breaking something on my free-to-me almost-new $300 personal comfort system, so after typing this up I am likely going to fire up Della in heat mode to see if I can guess what type of electric heating system she has based purely on sound. If she's a heat pump, I should be able to hear the reversing valve engage and switch directions...

 

That don't look half bad compared to what some of my neighbors have. We have some real clunkers Like the late 80's Ram 2500 diesel one neighbor has for their scrapping business, doesn't have much paint left on it and he has an open trailer hooked up all the time. it's always parked on the side street too. a real eyesore indeed then my neighbors next door had an old BMW that was nice for their daughter, it got totalled, they replaced it with a 2012ish Civic. the poor Civic has a new dent or a new wound of some kind someplace every week and your car looks way better than that car.

 

Pehh they can complain all they want, I wish people worried less about property values and more about living, get some fun in your life lol.

 

I vote for warm again!

 

Same, I hate it when its so cold my breath frosts up the inside of the windshield in the morning.

 

Anxious to use those snowblowers and plow?