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re: Possible AC issue in house I am trying to purchase
Posted on 7/13/15 at 2:00 pm to ScottieP
Posted on 7/13/15 at 2:00 pm to ScottieP
It's a good idea and a good point. In our house thermostat reading 75 is freezing your tail off whereas our previous house you were sweating at a thermostat reading of 70.
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Posted on 7/13/15 at 2:09 pm to lsufan1971
quote:
It's warm but not unbearable but when your spending over 400K (not a brag thread) I don't want to grin and bear it.
Indeed. Too many other housing opportunities to spend that kinda scratch and then have to remedy someone else's mistake. FWIW, my recently built 2100 sq ft single story is comfortably cool w/a thermostat set of 75; summer elec bill is ~$100, spring/fall/winter bills are closer to $50. Lowest has been $42.
Posted on 7/13/15 at 2:19 pm to Libertariantiger
quote:
3100 sqft should be sufficiently serviced with 6.5 tons. Modern air, insulation, and codes have standard construction very tight and needing less ac than years past. People are often running 600 sqft on a ton when loads come back.
This is correct in my experience as well. If there is a problem cooling the house, it could any of a number of reasons. How are the units divided (one upstairs, one down)? Are both units having trouble cooling? Is the insulation in the attic blown (cellulose, fiberglass, etc)? I've seen insulation contractors fluff the shite out of the attic insulation and telling homeowners that they get R30 when they might have half of that. You may be able to find out where your heat loss is and fix it with more insulation. Another issue could be with the air flow in the attic. I owned a house that didn't have soffit vents. The a/c was oversized and still couldn't keep up in the summer months b/c the attic didn't breath properly and the air handler was too hot in the middle of the day. Adding ventilation in the attic helped resolve it.
My house is just over 2,800 sq ft and I have 7 tons of a/c. My downstairs unit is 5 tons and covers about 2,250. It runs just fine and I probably wouldn't want 4 tons cooling it b/c we keep it below 70. My upstairs unit is 2 tons and I could have gone with a smaller unit like a 1.5 ton. A friend installed the a/c unit upstairs and oversized it b/c of the vaulted parts of my ceiling/walls get direct sunlight with no shade.
This post was edited on 7/13/15 at 2:22 pm
Posted on 7/13/15 at 2:29 pm to ashy larry
The 4 ton unit services the living room area, dining room, 1 bedroom and bonus room(450Sq Ft) upstairs and 2 bathrooms(approx 1900 SQ ft. The 2.5 ton unit services the master suite and other 3 bedrooms and 2 baths (approximately 1150 sq ft). Insulation is blown in fiberglass. The bonus room is going to be oldest daughters bedroom.
I appreciate everyones response
I appreciate everyones response
This post was edited on 7/13/15 at 2:32 pm
Posted on 7/13/15 at 3:57 pm to lsufan1971
quote:
The 4 ton unit services the living room area, dining room, 1 bedroom and bonus room(450Sq Ft) upstairs and 2 bathrooms(approx 1900 SQ ft.
If this was all on the same level, it would probably be fine. It's usually pretty difficult to have a unit properly heat and cool multiple levels. (disclaimer: I am not a a/c guy. I am just speaking from personal experience). I know a/c constractors that do it all the time, but i've lived in duplexes, condos, apartments that had multiple levels and there was always a temperature variation.
I don't think this is a $13k problem. In my opinion, the easy fix would be to add a small unit to handle just the bonus room. You could have that done for under $4k. Doing this would allow the 4 ton unit to push more air in the living, kitchen, and dining area. The only downside to this is 'would the 4 ton unit now be too large for the area it cools?'. If the house has tall ceilings and lots of windows, it would probably be just fine.
Posted on 7/13/15 at 5:20 pm to ashy larry
I agree that the two levels is probably an issue. That is the only thing that has been posted that really causes me concern. Especially if the bonus room is cut out the attic and over a unconditioned space (garage). An ac company can do a zone kit on the 4 ton system. That would give you an upstairs thermostat and a down stairs thermostat that would work independent of each other. The plenum would have to be rebuilt, but you are probably looking in the 1500 range.
Posted on 7/13/15 at 6:10 pm to hungryone
quote:
FWIW, my recently built 2100 sq ft single story is comfortably cool w/a thermostat set of 75; summer elec bill is ~$100, spring/fall/winter bills are closer to $50. Lowest has been $42.
I know in our area you can't even compare this ... Slemco and Entergy have WAY different rates. People with the same size house, family etc as us pay a LOT less to have the company that we don't have. All in where you buy/build and whose lines you're on.
Posted on 7/13/15 at 6:42 pm to lsufan1971
Solution would be to swap out the 2.5 for a 4 or 5
If you leave it like it is it will always struggle and you will be blowing capacitors every summer, not to mention your utility bill will be higher as the units will have to run all the time and never achieve their goal
If you leave it like it is it will always struggle and you will be blowing capacitors every summer, not to mention your utility bill will be higher as the units will have to run all the time and never achieve their goal
Posted on 7/13/15 at 10:55 pm to Libertariantiger
quote:
My opinion is that the seller is an idiot showinf the home with the ac set there. In the heat of the summer it will take that long to cool the house 5 degrees. You should be worried, but I would have someone run a load test for you. They are only a few hundred bucks and that will tell the tale.
I went through something similar with my home, and ended up going up in tonnage. My home is 1896 sq feet and had a 4 ton unit. Under normal circumstances, that should have sufficiently cooled the home. However, I have 9 large windows on the west side of the house, where sunlight beats down in the afternoon. Once I went up in tonnage, I can now easily maintain 73 during the hottest parts of the day. My unit no longer runs constantly, and my bill even went down by something like $50-$60 per month in the summer. With the old unit, I could never get the home below 77 from about noon to 9 or so at night.
Posted on 7/19/15 at 8:30 am to lsufan1971
Any update OP?
Posted on 7/19/15 at 1:06 pm to ScottieP
quote:
Get a temp gun and measure the temp at the retun air and at some of your ducts. If you see a drop of 15-20 degrees the units are running ok.
Temp guns are pretty useless for this because (a) they don't measure air temperature, and (b) they instead measure the temperature of whatever surfaces the IR bounces back from. This tends to include the surrounding ceiling, with the amount of ceiling depending on the measuring distance and "Distance to Spot ratio" for the given IR thermometer
The best way to do it is to use something like a Weber digital cooking thermometer and jam it up into the grille, so the probe part is deep in the airflow. The grille blades will hold it in place as you leave it there a couple of minutes.
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