PennSilverTaco's HVAC BS MegaThread!

My parents' old house in Montgomeryville was built in 1990 and had a Comfortmaker-branded Snyder General unit matched with a gas furnace. The 10 SEER mandatory minimum was not enacted until 1992, and the most efficient units prior to that time were 12 SEER at the most (the one exception would be the RARE Trane XV1500 heat pump with a variable-speed inverter compressor that was sold from the late 1980s through about 1992), so I'm guessing the unit at my parents' house was an 8 SEER!

Our house in Northern Virginia was built in 1989, and had the original Trane XE 900 (9 SEER) from when the house was built. That thing absolutely cranked, but that was a huge house with only one unit, so parts of the 2nd floor (especially my parents' bedroom, which was above the garage) got toasty when it was really hot.

 

The ones that you say suck to work on; I think they are good units in terms of durability and longevity, as the newest houses in our old neighborhood were built in 1994 and it is now 2024, but I see where you're coming from with regards to them being a pain in the ass to service...

 

Wanna hear something really funny Charlie?

So R-22 went away and was replaced by AZ-20, or R-410a, because it was bad for the environment, right? Well, nowadays they use a term called "Global Warming Potential" to determine the hazard a refrigerant poses to the earth.


Wanna guess which refrigerant is worse for the environment?





As far as I am concerned, the last 25+ years of R-410a have been pointless.

 

Yeah you gotta keep in mind I look at things from a service and reliability standpoint. I love stuff that just runs, but that same unit can be a bitch to service. Those round units are a good example.

I have been a service guy for almost 30 years and even when I started my own business, I still only sell things I think will run the best, not pushing equipment with higher margins and frequent service calls. Lowers my profits for sure, but I sleep well at night and I have virtually zero warranty issues.

 

Where do they rank R-12? The last vehicle my dad owned with a fully functional, leak-free R-12 A/C system was a 1990 Mazda B2600i pickup that he bought from the original owner in September or October of 1998 and owned until May 2000. We were living in Virginia Beach and he was stationed at a Navy base in nearby Norfolk, and he bought that truck for one reason...

He had a mortgage, and a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder that was not yet paid off. He didn't want more payments, so he bought a beater to commute to work in. This Mazda had over 90K miles on it, and it was originally from Illinois so it had rust, but it had a clean title and it ran and drove great. The owner also had literally every service record since the truck was new. My dad test drove the truck and bought it for five grand in cash if I'm remembering correctly. It had rust and it had an oil leak, but it ran like a dream, and the A/C never had to be serviced during the nearly two years my dad owned it! The summer of 1999 was brutal in Virginia Beach, with temperatures reaching triple digits, but the A/C in that shitty old Mazda never failed us!

 

I'm gonna channel my inner Boomer, but nothing worked like R-12. It was getting thin in residential stuff by the time I started, but the stuff that was left cooled great lol.

Commercially it held on longer.

I can remember doing a bunch of work for the City and they needed like 8 lbs of R-12. They had to pay for the whole jug (30# if I recall correctly) to the tune of $3500 in the late 90's.

 

I saw my first R-32 unit and refrigerant in the wild last week as well. Times are a changing.

R-32 and R-454B evap coils will be equipped with an RDS setup. Refrigeration Detection System is to sense leaking coils since the new refrigerants are flammable.

I haven't priced one yet as I am going to ride this season out with R-410a and see how it shakes out next year.

 

Here’s a pic of me next to that truck in early 2000…

 

Those were good trucks.

 

@Lt. Dangle

Pics of me sitting in the truck in the spring of 2000…

 

The dates are wrong. This was in 2000; I was 10 in the winter picture, and 11 in the other three…

 

@Lt. Dangle

Our house in Virginia Beach, which was built in 1996 and purchased by my parents in 1998 for like $160K. They broke even on the house when they sold it in 2000, and it now worth like $500K!



That house had a Carrier straight-cool A/C matched with a gas furnace…

 

@TnShooter

I keep forgetting to mention that I only got $15 for everything, which meant I would have gotten less if it was just the furnace; I was given the furnace for free, and I don’t believe I’ve taken apart an 80% AFUE gas furnace before. It was a learning experience; I have never scrapped a 90% gas furnace by itself, but I’ve scrapped a few oil furnaces, and those tend to bring in about $30 apiece.

If another person just gives me a furnace for free, I will most certainly take it, but the lesson learned here is that air-conditioners bring in the most money.

 

I wouldn't know.
All I know is that the landfill charges $75 a ton.
Been there 3 times in the last 2 weeks.

 

I’d rather cut up an air-conditioner, take it to the scrapyard, and get up to $200…

 

I don't bother breaking down furnaces. I could strip the motor and wiring I guess, but it is too time consuming and there is almost no reward. I just send them onto scrap metal heaven whole.

 

The only reason I bothered is because I’d never taken apart an 80% efficiency gas furnace before, and this one was FREE! I will never turn down free HVAC equipment that I can take apart. The last two times I’ve scrapped gas furnaces, they came with a central air-conditioner. Oil forced air furnaces are more profitable than gas forced air furnaces based purely on weight; I do not believe that I have ever scrapped a boiler, at least not an intact one.

 

@Steves104x4

I scored a 3-ton Goodman air-conditioner today! It came with an air handler of a brand I’ve never heard of…

 

I am not as good at deciphering Goodman data sheets as I am Carrier/Bryant/ICP/Payne data sheets…

 

This one is either a 2009 or a 2011…