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

You have a gas furnace or a heat pump?

My boss is from Nebraska, her family still lives there, and her dad says their house has central air and electric heat (not a heat pump but electric heat, which makes no sense and I honestly don't think he knows what he's talking about).

 

Here 90% of homes have natural gas for heat and central air. Some have heat pumps (i have no idea how those work) but are moving away from that. Since it's all soil here it's easy for the utility company to run gas lines to each home. No heating oil like they do out east.

I have heard you can get electric furnaces. Though electricity isn't horribly expensive out here, I could see that killing you in the winter as it get's effing cold here sometimes.

Our water heater is natural gas too. But I think it's too small for my house. Plus they used PVC instead of copper which sucks. The PVC doesn't hold heat so it takes forever for the upstairs pipes to get hot water going and stay hot.

 

@commbubba19
@Plain Jane Taco

Some members may or may not know, but my parents' house has Goodman HVAC equipment. This consists of two straight-cool A/C units (seen in picture below) and two natural gas furnaces.




The 1st floor/basement system consists of a 2.5-ton/30,000 BTU A/C with a gas furnace in the basement. The 2nd floor system consists of a 3-ton A/C with a gas furnace in the attic (I don't know why the builder didn't put both furnaces in the basement, but it annoys the shit out of me for reasons too numerous to list in this post). I also forget which unit is which. There is only a 6,000 BTU difference, and as a result the condensers are virtually identical, making the units indistinguishable to the naked eye.

Also, Goodman would never be my first choice for any application, but these units kind of came with the house. They're only 2 years, they work great, and if I had to guess I'd say they've got at least 8 to 10 years left...

 

A heat pump works in a similar fashion to a refrigerator when in HEAT mode.

During the summer, a heat pump works just like a conventional central air-conditioner. In HEAT mode, however, the flow of refrigerant is reversed by way of a device called a reversing valve. Instead of removing heat from the space and cooling it down, it moves heat from the outside to the inside of the house.

It may shock you to know this, but there is ambient heat in the air down to absolute zero (-452F or something like that). However, even top-of-the-line heat pumps tend to struggle when it gets below freezing. For some units, performance starts to suffer at like 40 degrees and below. If you have a heat pump with gas or oil backup, then there's no problem, and a heat pump is actually cheaper to run than gas or oil in some instances. However, a standalone heat pump with electric backup heat will really spin the meter when it's in the 30s or below!

 

Number of reasons but I'm not sure of the specific one. Our house is on a sloped lot for starters...

Also, no matter how level you get the ground, A/C units often have a tendency to sink into the ground, and you will see a noticeable tilt. Being at an angle can cause serious problems, and lead to premature compressor failure.

Even if the unit stays level for the duration of its service life (the one Carrier at our old house, which also had dual units, did; the 1st floor unit was on a metal rack and the 2nd one was on a fiberglass pad on the ground, cleaning dirt and mulch out of the condenser year after year can get old!

 

In your area of Texas, both heat pumps and straight-cool A/C will be mounted on a slab or directly on the ground. In Pennsylvania and most Northern states, heat pumps are typically mounted on four risers to keep them out of the snow. In Pennsylvania, you still see a heat pump mounted directly on the ground from time to time...

 

New house by night...

 

And they laid down the sod today...

 

My heat pumps are on a slab and risers.

 

So is my friend's parents'...

I forget whether your house has a basement, Bill. My friend's house is 2 stories plus a finished basement, is about 2,700-2,900 square feet NOT including the finished basement, and was built in 1987. You said your house is exactly 2,000 square feet, and you said you have a 2.5-ton and a 1.5-ton?

My friend's 2-story, 4-bedroom nearly-3,000-square foot home has just ONE 5-ton heat pump. It does a great job of cooling the place, but the performance still isn't quite up to par with the dual systems in my similar-sized house.

As for heating performance, the 2010 Bryant works better than the 1998 Trane it replaced, but it still doesn't work as good when it's below about 40 degrees. At that point, the 20kw electric backup heat kicks in and that's when things start to get expensive!

 

@Plain Jane Taco

 

No basement, 2 story, 2k sq ft. 2 ton HP services the downstairs. 1 5 ton HP services the upstairs. Both air exchangers are in the attic

 

I don't know what they were thinking when they designed my friend's parents' house. The house was built in 1987 and they bought it from the original owners in 1995.

 

The brick building dates back to 1870, and contains four individually owned town homes. All four have been thoroughly renovated, but only two have been updated with central air...

It's pretty easy to tell in this photo which two have central air and which two do not!

 

What's up with the blank spot on the grill of this Volvo...?

 

1975 York Champion "Tombstone" central A/C unit, still going after 43 years!

@Plain Jane Taco, I've known the owner of this house for almost 6 years, he understands my fascination with HVAC, and he doesn't care if I film/photograph!

 

This yellow FJ Cruiser belongs to someone I know and has been featured on this thread before...

 

$3 million dollar home on Oakland...




Now with a privacy fence!

 

One of two green 1997-1999ish 4-door 5-speed Cherokees typically parked within a block of each other...



Decent 2-doors are virtually impossible to find in any configuration. Pretty soon stick shift 4-doors will be collector's items!

 

I. HATE. POLLEN!