Is your ac installed.

[maddmaxx ★]

It was better to get it in today than tomorrow when it's 90.

Those of you with central air can just smile and chuckle.

[Kirby]

Only 126 days to autumn!

[bikeman564™]

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

It was better to get it in today than tomorrow when it's 90.

Those of you with central air can just smile and chuckle.

[Tizeye]

I grew up in Central Florida without air conditioning. Left for college and parents air conditioned the home and bought a riding lawn mower. 

[Wilbur ★]

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

It was better to get it in today than tomorrow when it's 90.

Those of you with central air can just smile and chuckle.

Tuesday, I get to spend $18,000 on new furnaces and AC units.  Not so many smiles.   It will be very nice for the next 15 years though.   

[JerrySTL ★]

I turned on the central air about three weeks ago on a day that it got up to 82°F to make sure that it worked. I didn't want to find out that it didn't the first day that it got into the 90s and be on a waiting list behind many others. I also check the heater way before it gets cold.

When I lived in New Mexico, I had swamp coolers in a few places. They work great when the air is dry but horrible on those rare hot and humid days.

[MoseySusan]

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

Those of you with central air can just smile and chuckle.

We’ve been smiling since last year when we converted to central air. Just touched a button to switch from heat to cool. We set the temperature at 73. 
 

But we’re not chuckling. Our ductwork is inefficient and the space between ceiling and roof gets super hot from near constant sunshine. We have a vent, but it doesn’t clear out the hot air very well. The rooms nearby the unit are cold and the rooms on the other side of the house don’t cool. mr. is looking into a different central air system, maybe with a heat exchanger. 

[Zephyr]

I live near the ocean, I open my windows

[Kzoo]

Is your refrigerator running?

[maddmaxx ★]

13 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Is your refrigerator running?

It's chained down so I won't have to catch it.

[jdc2000]

42 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

We have a vent, but it doesn’t clear out the hot air very well.

Maybe a vent with an exhaust fan?

 

[MoseySusan]

2 minutes ago, jdc2000 said:

Maybe a vent with an exhaust fan?

 

The one we have is solar powered. One of the selling points was that it’s quiet. I don’t think it’s working at all, but haven’t gone up into the crawl space to look. 

[jdc2000]

Actually, you probably need 2 vents, one with an exhaust fan and the other to let in replacement air that is, with any luck, cooler.

Some extra insulation might not be a bad idea either.

[Tizeye]

49 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

We’ve been smiling since last year when we converted to central air. Just touched a button to switch from heat to cool. We set the temperature at 73. 
 

But we’re not chuckling. Our ductwork is inefficient and the space between ceiling and roof gets super hot from near constant sunshine. We have a vent, but it doesn’t clear out the hot air very well. The rooms nearby the unit are cold and the rooms on the other side of the house don’t cool. mr. is looking into a different central air system, maybe with a heat exchanger. 

I assume the ductwork is insulated. Also, partially close the vents of the nearby rooms that are cold to force more of the cold air to the outer vents.

[Square Wheels]

52 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

We’ve been smiling since last year when we converted to central air. Just touched a button to switch from heat to cool. We set the temperature at 73. 
 

But we’re not chuckling. Our ductwork is inefficient and the space between ceiling and roof gets super hot from near constant sunshine. We have a vent, but it doesn’t clear out the hot air very well. The rooms nearby the unit are cold and the rooms on the other side of the house don’t cool. mr. is looking into a different central air system, maybe with a heat exchanger. 

Very similar problem here.  Our upstairs is essentially the attic.  There is attic space that is tiny and inaccessible.  The prior owners did work upstairs and ran high efficiency ducts.  About 4 or 5 years ago we had AC installed upstairs.  Sadly I still need a window AC in our bedroom as it will not keep up.  Like you, I suspect the ducts are lying on top of the insulation.  Not much we can do.  The other option is to get the individual wall units, but that would be another 15k.  We don't have the money at this point.

[Gump]

We only rarely get warm enough to warrant AC. We just open and v FB lose windows as needed and with the help of one box fan we stay plenty cool.

[Bikeguy]

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Those of you with central air can just smile and chuckle.

 

[Zealot]

Installed central air about five years ago. 

[BR46]

About 10 years ago we installed a new furnace and this new fancy 2 stage high effect air-conditioner.....the air-conditioner only gets used 2 weeks out of the year. 

[Airehead]

Tested and ready

[bikeman564™]

2 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Tuesday, I get to spend $18,000 on new furnaces and AC units.  Not so many smiles.   It will be very nice for the next 15 years though.   

what brand?

[Wilbur ★]

2 minutes ago, bikeman564™ said:

what brand?

Availability was a factor but we ended up buying American Standard Platinum. 

[bikeman564™]

4 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Availability was a factor but we ended up buying American Standard Platinum. 

We don't sell valves to them, unless they use a Copeland compressor.

[Wilbur ★]

1 minute ago, bikeman564™ said:

We don't sell valves to them, unless they use a Copeland compressor.

[bikeman564™]

10 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Copeland Compressor is a large compressor company, based in Sydney, OH (now part of Emerson Climate Technologies). We sell 4 million valves to them. Carrier & Trane both use their compressors. Not sure who else. Bristol is another compressor company we sell to. American Standard may have their own, I'm not sure.

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, bikeman564™ said:

Copeland Compressor is a large compressor company, based in Sydney, OH (now part of Emerson Climate Technologies). We sell 4 million valves to them. Carrier & Trane both use their compressors. Not sure who else. Bristol is another compressor company we sell to. American Standard may have their own, I'm not sure.

I try not to do business with Carrier but that's personal not product related.  We developed a laser based system for them (actually one of the vice presidents) that could detect refrigerant leaks down to silly lab only levels.  That system took up the first 6 months of my consultant contract with the last company I worked for.  It was for large industrial units used on shipping containers.  Previously they would bag a unit at the end of the assembly line and then let it sit for days before stabbing it with the wand of a mass spectrometer to see if any refrigerant was inside the plastic bag.  Our system could be used to trace out all the piping and find the exact spot of the leak right at the end of the line without any time in a bag.  It was one of those impossible things that actually turned out to work.  They took the prototype to their factory and dropped it off the truck, screwing it up.  The VP was promoted to another department and the project died with no production contract.  We spent a lot of money on the prototype with no follow up.  They paid for most of the prototype but there are always associated research costs.  The only silver lining was that the job got my company to offer me a full time position in the prototype side of the business.  Next project was environmental testing of a space based laser for JPL.

[sheep_herder ★]

Nope! Haven't even turned on the whole house fan. They are forecasting 32F for tonight.

[maddmaxx ★]

2 minutes ago, sheep_herder said:

Nope! Haven't even turned on the whole house fan. They are forecasting 32F for tonight.

I could not live there.  The warm season is far too short.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

For our window AC's I made a frame - like a picture frame - that surrounds the unit.  The frame stays permanently attached to the AC unit, and provides a slight pitch to let condensation drain out the back of the unit.

When spring comes, I open the window and slide the AC-and-frame into the window opening.  On the AC cord is the sandwich baggie that contains all the brackets and screws I need to fasten the frame to the window sill and trim, that I taped to the cord when I pulled the unit out last fall. 

By using the frame the screw holes in the window sill, trim, and the frame brackets line up year after year, and putting the AC in the window takes about 10 or 15 minutes.

[MickinMD ★]

On 5/20/2022 at 5:18 PM, maddmaxx said:

It was better to get it in today than tomorrow when it's 90.

Those of you with central air can just smile and chuckle.

I ran my central air today for the first time this year.  The original idea was to do it just to make sure it's working, even though it's only 11 months old.  But it was around 84° in the house around 7 am with the doors and windows open all night and was in the upper 80's by the time I finished working outside, dripping from the humidity, when I turned it on around 1 pm.  I'm SOOO comfortable now with the humidity knocked down that I felt chilly if I cooled it below 80°.  I'll probably leave it one through tomorrow's high of 92°.

[2Far ★]

Smiling. 2 units. 
 

FWIW, with NEST thermostats, I don’t even have to get out of the recliner to change the temperature. 

[maddmaxx ★]

I don't have central air and my living room is large (about 500 sq ft) and spans the full width of the house.  That room has no windows available for window units as those sliding windows are only 19" wide.  Yesterday my new Whynter 14000 btu twin tube portable arrived and today in the first really hot day performed very well.  Not only did it cool the living room but it did about 3/4 of the rest of the house as well and the two small window units took care of that.