Keystone State Thread

Good morning Pennsylvania and surrounding areas off to work I go.

 

Morning all!

 

Good morning all. Heading out early for a ride so I can beat some of the heat. Heading to the pool after I get home this afternoon.

 

Smoky as all hell in my area. Seems to be a controlled burn that got uncontrolled by the base yesterday. Just sitting in my truck coughing onto of the heat today gonna be some shitty air quality today

 

LOL sure they do ;-)

 

I am not one to jump on the band wagon BUT may your weekend be full of Hawk tuah

 

Sweet tractor Steel

 

Trust me, if they were the same then Penn state would drain the athletics budget. More to protect them than the other way around

 

All glory to Willis Carrier!

 

We spent the morning in Ellwood City, at Ewing park. My grandson had a dog pull competition. The dog took 2nd place, pulling almost 2400 pounds. There were lots of vendors, including one from New Castle selling hot sausage sandwiches (always good at 10 a.m.) and there was a vendor call Fitzgibbon Meadery, out of Ellwood City. I've always wanted to try mead, the drink of Slavs and Vikings. I tried one infused with elderberry very good.
https://fitzgibbonmead.com/index.php/meads-and-wines/2-alawicious

 

In the case of my parents’ house, it’s Harold Goodman; I am not a huge fan of Goodman products, but on a day like today, I don’t give a shit what brand they are and only care that they keep the house cold!

 

We've got a Rheem. The people who put ours in had Trane and Rheem. We couldn't afford the Trane. I get it serviced every year and it's now 8 years old. Hopefully it will last another 8 years.

 

Wow that's a lot of weight ! A year more pics that looks neat.

 

We sell a lot of Goodman. To be honest they have been solid in a warranty/service sense so far. 5-10 years and about 500 installed

 

ah man, I live in New Castle! I would have come cheered y'all on

 

My parents' house was built in 2016 and these units have been trouble-free for eight years (2.5-ton for 1st floor/basement, 2-ton for 2nd floor, both straight-cool units matched with 92% AFUE gas furnaces. @6 gearT444E's house was built in 2007 and has the original Goodman system.

In 2006, my grandma bought a house in Bethlehem, PA that was built in 1994. The original heat pump was replaced with a 10 SEER 3.5-ton Goodman in 2004, so this unit was two years old when my grandma bought the house. I was 17 at that time and just starting to develop an obsession with HVAC, and had never heard of Goodman. There's a veteran HVAC tech in the Phoenix, AZ area who goes by the username "hackfreehvac". A lot of builders in Arizona used Goodman equipment in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and they were installed rather half-assed. My grandma's Goodman was installed properly, which helped. Regardless, I think pre-2006 Goodman equipment is junk. They are cheaply constructed with flimsy metal, and they used noisy reciprocating compressors instead of quiet and far more efficient scroll compressors.

My grandma's 2004 Goodman worked great as an air-conditioner (though it was a 2-story house with only one unit, so it was a bit toasty upstairs sometimes), and largely sucked as a heat pump. The fact that the heating performance sucked was not a Goodman thing, but rather a heat pump thing. Even the highest efficiency heat pumps do not work too good in winter climates north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and this was a standard efficiency builder grade turd. It was noisy as hell, and unfortunately located right outside the master bedroom, which was on the first floor. You could feel the vibrations of the unit through the floor when it was running, because the condenser was located just outside the master bedroom and the air handler was directly below the bedroom in the basement utility room. The compressor shit the bed in the summer of 2015, and my grandma had it replaced with a 4-ton Carrier Comfort Series heat pump, 12,000 BTUs larger because I convinced her to get a 2-stage outdoor unit and a variable-speed air handler; 1.5-ton, 2.5-ton, and 3.5-ton "half-ton" sizes are not available with a 2-stage compressor.

That said, with the exception of the 1990s Goodman/Janitrol units that had an isolated compressor area like the roughly 1986-2003 Lennox units, pre-2006 Goodmans absolutely suck in my opinion. They are noisy and poorly assembled.

2006-present Goodman units (also sold as Amana, Daikin, and a number of other brands) are decent because they have scroll compressors and better construction. They also have decent warranties, as you pointed out. The problem with Goodman compared to every other brand (including Amana), is that an HVAC/EPA license is not required to buy their equipment, or at least not their builder grade equipment. Goodman is fine when installed by a trained tech, but unfortunately, many of them are purchased and installed by do-it-yourselfers. I would buy a higher-end Goodman if it was installed by a technician I trust, but I prefer Carrier and Trane...

 

I think the event happens tomorrow as well. We won't be able to attend, but there were plenty just walking around enjoying the park, including many dog owners whose dogs weren't competing. they had all kind of vendors for dog stuff.

 

The guy we are using now installs Rheem, so when the Goodmans go, that's likely what they're getting replaced with. All but two of the houses in our neighborhood have dual units (separate systems for 1st and 2nd floors). One of them had of the original Goodmans fail and it was replaced with a Rheem. Our neighbor, who has the same floorplan/model as our house, hired a tech who did something wrong that resulted in a small electrical fire. As a result, the 2nd floor A/C unit was damaged behind repair. The contractor paid for half of a new Lennox A/C and indoor coil, while the original Goodman gas furnace remains. The 1st floor Goodman system remains.

Is your Rheem a straight-cool unit or a heat pump? I ask because heat pumps tend to be mounted on the gray risers seen in your picture...