New England B.S. Thread

I was tempted to get a pellet stove, I have a brand new exhaust vent setup in the basement for a wood stove (assuming pellets stove should use the same venting pipes?). But there is no easy way to get the hot air from the basement up to the rest of the house....

Mine is awesome, my oscillating fan is louder than the Midea.

 

Yup, that dot is Katahdin for sure. I'm in the Northwest corner of MA.

 

Im sitting in my converted garage studio/office right now in a conference....with my non working Mr Cool DIY Mini Split . Three years old. Worked fine for two years, if not a little under powered compared to stated BTU rating. And then this summer, nada. But just my anecdotal experience. Bright side, it was easy to install and saved me 1500$ so if it can be fixed by a simple service call then

 

Hopefully mine lasts longer. A friend has had his for two years so hopefully his hold up too.

 

This seemed fitting...

 

I cool my entire house with two very inexpensive window units. And the downstairs one doesn't get used that much. The majority of you home owners would be very jealous of my electric bill. I'm all kinds of pissed when it goes over $80 for the month.

 

average is 130 for my house....

 

Not bad. Most of my buddies are in the $300-400 range.

 

Newer window units are way more efficient than they used to be and what we think they might be.

 

Damn. 1200 sq ft ranch. National grid levels through the year with the expected number were at about 90 year round average.

 

I noticed a huge difference from when I first had older window units in earlier this summer to the ones I have now. Went from 160/170 to 120/130 average. When I first bought the house I ran an older dehumidifier straight for 2 weeks to get the humidity out of the basement, I wasn't even living in the house and the bill was $75... Average off peak hot/cold season is $100-110/month.

Currently maintaining 65F in the winter and 74F in the summer when I'm not on travel.

 

Today is one the days I regret our central air being busted. We got a quote earlier in the year to get it fixed, but ridiculous corona virus pricing was in effect. At the time I was also considering those Mr Cool DIY systems, but there's not a great place to put them since all our windows are almost floor to ceiling.

 

We average around $175 and it's just the two of us in a 1500 sq ft ranch. I think most of it is the electric water heater and dryer. I noticed a pretty significant increase when the girlfriend moved in and more laundry and more showers are the biggest changes. She pays that bill though.

I have an ~8 year old 6000 BTU Haier in our bedroom and it works well but it's loud. Those U-shaped units look interesting. If this mini split works well, I could do a smaller one in the bedroom but the smaller ones aren't much cheaper and dropping that kind of money is tough to justify for one room.

In the main living area I really only have one place I can put a mini split. I think it'll work out perfectly in that spot since it is in the living room but faces the dining room and kitchen. Every other exterior wall I have has big windows or cabinets.

 

What's wrong with it? They're surprisingly simple systems.

 

There's a leak somewhere in the system, so when it's running the air handler in the attic condenses and fills the drip tray tripping the float switch and tuning off the system. The condenser is toast too, it was a contractor special back in 2004 when the house was built. Ducting is fine, but it needs new lines/ condenser/ air handler.

 

My 3 “window rattler” AC units do a good job cooling my house. I also use 2 floor fans to help circulate the air. My electric bill goes up about $90 a month when I run the AC.

 

We've got a window unit in our bedroom, and another in the our sons room cause he's got bunk beds so both kids can sleep in there when its hot. But it would be nice to central air back if pricing wasn't ridiculous.

 

My parents looked into it when they replaced their furnace and it wasn't cheap. Central air would be tougher for me since I have a boiler and would need to install ductwork everywhere.

 

Ours isn't tied to our furnace, just stand alone condenser/ air handler. We've got all the high speed ducts already, but pricing is just bananas.

 

Is that a spacepak unit? They are crazy expensive, people love them though.