PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Master bedroom with its own bathroom and a walk-in closet, 9-foot+ ceilings, fireplace, and even a 2-car garage!

 

That plan packs a lot of features in a reasonable package.

 

Depending on insulation quality and a number of other factors, this house will require a single 2-ton or 2.5-ton central air-conditioner with a 48K-BTU furnace according to this online HVAC load calculator I use...

HVAC Load Calculator - Estimate the Size of Your Heating / Cooling System (in BTUs) (remodelingcalculator.org)

 

I would possibly use a Trane XL15i 2.5-ton single-speed air-conditioner, and a Trane S9V2 or S9X2 2-stage gas furnace...

15.6 SEER2 Air Conditioner - XL15i Air Conditioner - Trane®
Gas Furnace - S9V2 Gas Furnace - Trane®
Gas Furnace - S9X2 Gas Furnace - Trane®

 

It would also be an excellent plan to add on to, or use as a guest house; I would seriously buy a plot of land in Perkasie and build this! Since it would probably be really cheap to build, I would be able to splurge on upgrades like granite countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms, and a high-efficiency Trane HVAC system!

 

FIFY

 

If I bought an existing house that had oil heat, that would be one thing, but I would never build a new house with oil heat. If I built a house in an area where public natural gas was unavailable for whatever reason, I would go with a heat pump and propane for the fireplace and stove. A 2-stage 3-ton unit would operate at 1.5-ton capacity most of the time, and at full 3-ton capacity on really hot days (and really cold days if it's a heat pump). A variable speed is, well, variable speed...

Heat Pump - XV20i Variable Speed Heat Pump - Trane®

A 3-ton variable speed unit would be perfect for this specific plan, especially if the basement was finished! I would go with a Hyperion air handler if the house didn't have gas heat...

Air Handler - Hyperion™ Communicating Air Handler - Trane®

 

And 2x6 exterior wall framing!

 

I used to think that a dual fuel heat pump/natural gas (called Earthwise by Trane, and Hybrid Heat by Carrier if I remember correctly) was the ultimate system. However, my friend's husband had a Carrier dual-fuel system installed in his townhouse when the original system died, and he regretted spending the extra money because it was almost always the gas furnace the operated. Heat pumps are more efficient and even sometimes cheaper to run than natural gas in some cases (like when it's above 40 degrees), but my friend Jeff told me that there's really no point in having a heat pump when you've got natural gas or propane as a primary heating source.

Also according to Jeff, oil heat is a different animal...

It is not inefficient at heating a house, especially if it's a boiler with radiators or baseboard heaters, but the cost of the heating oil in itself can really eat into a family's budget. My friend and former boss, and her husband, bought a house that was built in 1976 and did not originally have central air. The house has an oil-fired baseboard heating system that works great, but the cost of filling the oil tank is nuts...



Among my family and friends, I am the go-to HVAC expert. My boss and her husband saved and saved so they could pay for the A/C system in cash. There were several options, the most important of which whether or not to go with a heat pump or a straight-cool A/C; I told them that due to the greatly fluctuating and often ridiculously high cost per gallon of home heating oil, a heat pump was the way to go. They headed my advice and spent slightly more money to get a heat pump...

The house is like 2,600-2,700 square feet and two stories. The biggest reason why the job was so expensive is because the house did not originally have central air, and ductwork had to be installed. The cost of installing two separate systems was somewhere in the range of $25K-$30K (this included the materials needed for retrofitting ductwork, and of course, labor)...

Option #1 was two smaller units (probably dual 2-ton/24,000 BTU heat pumps) with the 1st floor air handler in the basement and the 2nd floor air handler in the attic; I do believe that putting both air handlers in the basement was also on the table. Option #2, which they ultimately went with at a cost of $20K, was a single larger heat pump with the air handler in the attic. They got a 4-ton Bryant heat pump in 2021, and it works great; I personally would have gone with two separate systems if it were my house, but the location of the air handler in attic and the vents in the ceiling makes the system far more efficiency than if the air handler was in the attic (since cold air falls).

 

They didn't buy the red T4R? Also, did they pay cash or finance? Even if they have perfect credit, I cannot imagine what the interest rate for a loan on a 21-year old truck with almost 200K miles looks like!

 

Oh yeah, the white one is getting sold...



Did the same people buy both vehicles?

 

Is the red one a project?

 

Yeah, but they were originally going to sell it and @Stitchgirl90 was thinking about buying it when she had the money; I even taught her to drive a stick shift to broaden her choice of vehicles!

 

@6 gearT444E
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@wilcam47

I already told @shakerhood about this a couple weeks ago, via text message. As everybody who follows me knows, I helped my girlfriend @Stitchgirl90 and her friend move. The biggest part of this was borrowing a 16-foot trailer from work and driving up to a storage unit in the Poconos where most of their stuff was stored. The storage unit is paid for by Amanda's ex's mom, a total deadbeat with no job who gets social security. I've told the story of how the ex's mom forgot to pay the rent for February 2023, and we couldn't get in when we went there for the first time in March 2023. Amanda had $165 in cash of the mom's that was intended to pay another bill. The mom gave her the okay to use that so we could get into the storage unit, but they were $11 short; I was not about drive back emptyhanded, but I only had a dollar in my wallet and there wasn't an ATM nearby. I contributed the $1 bill and put the remaining $10 on my credit card; I thought that would be the end of it...

The woman at the storage place accidentally saved my credit card number to the mom's account. In March, the mom had to pay $137.60 in rent for the month of March. The mom has no credit card, and she only had $130 in her account, so her debit card didn't work. The person at the storage unit had no idea that it wasn't her credit card on file; I'm guessing that they tried her debit card and it automatically declined because it was short almost eight dollars. They asked her if she'd like to use the credit card on file, and of course she said yes.

She says it was an accident and I have no way of proving otherwise, but Amanda and her friend/roommate Emily believe that the ex's mom knew exactly what she was doing and did it on purpose!

 

I don’t use my credit card to help other people. I don’t even like to use a credit card on myself.

 

I hope they paid you back or got charges reversed

 

@shakerhood
@Stitchgirl90

The ex's mom paid the rent on like March 30th, and we went up to the storage unit on April 1st; I happened to check my credit card statement via an on my phone after getting back home from getting Amanda's stuff out of the storage unit, and that's when I saw a charge with the name of the storage place on it. I freaked out, telling both my parents and then immediately calling Amanda.

Amanda was even angrier than I was, but I was still pretty damn angry. The ex's uncle passed away years ago, and his ashes were stashed in the storage unit. Out of the kindness of my heart, I brought the uncle's ashes back to the apartment in New Jersey that Amanda and Emily were moving out of, because they were at risk of losing the storage unit due to lack of funds to pay the rent; I was so angry that I said if I'd found out about this unauthorized charge before getting back to Jersey, I would have dumped the uncle out the window of my truck on the highway.

Amanda had me on speaker and both the ex and his mother heard me; I never would have done such a cruel thing even to my worst enemy, but I was absolutely livid. I actually threatened to dump their relative's ashes out the truck window on the highway!

 

I filed a fraud claim with my credit card company and cancelled the card that night. This was less than a week before we left for Hilton Head, and my new credit card arrived in the mail the day before we left. It could take a couple of weeks for the funds to be credited back to me, but I also called the storage place the very next morning and they were very nice to me. If for whatever reason the credit card company doesn't refund my money, the storage unit is willing to write me a check for the amount; Amanda is angrier about the situation than I am.

 

By the way, I’m not saying you shouldn’t help out your girlfriend. I’m just stating what I do. Like I said, I’m single. I’ve kind of chosen my path in life. I’ll be 40 this year. Dating, marriage, kids……..getting a little late in life for all that anymore.