But you didn't take issue with is statement that the installed cost would be about the same.
I'm only trying to clarify the issues. I have a choice between adding a (single) mini-split unit and extending one of my air handlers. The air handler is actually in the area I want to add (an attic), but the mini-splits look quite attractive, for many reasons.
For a single room like a closed in porch, or a garage turned into a shop, a mini-split heat pump is the cats meow. but.... if you already have a system of sufficinet capacity, and do a little duct re-design(zone) and balancing, you will have a servicable system. or if you only going to do a "bonus room" in the attic, then do the mini-split. Either way you need to talk to your local, competent, licensed, insured, HVAC professional. I can't *see* it through the computer screen to be able to recommend what will be the most benificial, and cost effective for your application.
A combination. It's a "bonus room" over the garage (FROG) and part of the first floor that I want to make into a shop (later into another bedroom). The upstairs air handler (2.5T) is in that space so there would be minimal ducting. The air handler only serves the two bedrooms upstairs and the house will heat/cool with just the downstairs unit (3.5T). The other advantage of a mini-split is the separation of the air (dust). From what I've seen, they're pretty cheap. But since I know next to nothing about air handling, I plan to go with a pro, if I can get them to work to my schedule. ;-)
The ducting is in place but my unit is somewhat undersized. More / better insulation will help but it can get expensive for existing dwellings. OTOH occupancy sensors and motorized dampers can get expensive, i can do the electronics / variable frequency drives / home automation PLC. But that splits the responsibility and i don't like finger pointing games.
Thats why you hire an HVAC professional to design and install the complete job. Its not going to be cheap, but you will get what you pay for.
You missed the side issue, i don't trust your cohorts anywher near the level you just supported them, more like the rather disparaging level you have shown previously in this thread.
OK, here's what you do... find a good quality brand of equipment (check consumer reports etc.), then go to their website, and there will be a spot on there to find a contractor. Look for a certified top contractor or whatever they want to call it. Look for a small shop that only has a couple of trucks.... better chance of getting somebody that actually knows what they are doing, as opposed to whatever kids are on call for the big companies. When you got that, then sit down with the local building inspector and ask him if he would trust XYZ company to do this work in his familys home. Also ask family, friends, neighbors, inlaws, outlaws, etc. who they use and have they been happy with the work and the results. The BBB isn't worth the powder to blow them to hell, as the contractors/companies are paying the BBB to talk good about them. Ask to *SEE* copies of current professional and business licenses (not just the EPA card), certificates of insurance, bond(s), and state sales tax certificate.
I don't trust them at all. Form the messes they've made a places I've worked, to jobsites where they screwed up everything, and the way the A/C was installed in the house scream, "USELESS LOSERS". The A/C unit and pad are sitting at a bad tilt. They came up through ta closet floor and ran the thermostat cable at a nagle to the wall to save two feet of wire. The 'heat pump' one company sold my dad was just a package A/C unit with heat strips.
Dontcha hate it when you get bent over by the lowest bidder?? Maybe if you had dome some homework *BEFORE* you made that kind of investment in your home, you wouldn't be unhappy now. Seems like you certainly got what you paid for.
Thanks, the thing with the local building inspector rings well. Almost all the rest is part of how i work in serious cases like HVAC rebuilds.
They weren't the lowest bidder. In fact, they had the best reputation in the area and they weren't cheap. I've come to the conclusion that they are all knuckle dragging morons.
OK, so you are the very best in , but you're all knuckle dragging morons. Thats a pretty broad brush your painting with, don't you think??
Have you ever worked in the N. Central Florida area? The ones around here all have your ego, but little skills. They do crude work, and all have a huge chip on their shoulder. They refuse to follow blueprints, until their work fails the first inspection. I was consulting with a local electrical contractor for the fire alarm, security, MATV and computer networking. They installed some of the air handlers 15 feet from where they belonged, and cross connected the zones which was another violation. The complex was a college campus, and required smoke alarms monted on the ductwork. On knuckle dragger told me he's kill me if I cut a hole in the duct, and they weren't going to do it for a few weeks to months, if ever. The state inspector made one call to his boss, and the SOB whined about it for the next week.
I was one of the best in my field, before I was put on disability. I was working with top of the line telemetry equipment for the aerospace industry. A lot of govenment agencies came to us to build what they couldn't get elsewere. I did my own surface mount rework on components with .015" spacing, center to center.
An Orlando TV station I worked at had had problems for over two years on a new install for an equipment closet when i was hired. 'So called' engineers had come from the factory, and they still couldn't figure out what they had done wrong. I took one look and saw the problem but like you, they knew better. The morons had put all the vents in the ceiling, and no cold air was reaching the floor. I finally got them mad enough to try to prove me wrong. They removed the grill from the supply, and dropped some flex duct to a few inches from the floor. Within five minutes, everything in the racks was at a safe temperature. They were still too arrogant to admit they were wrong.
I've also installed large water chillers to cool TV transmitters.
I have never worked in FL, but here localy, I have had to show some of the inspectors in the code books where they were wrong.
I gave up on surface mount stuff cause my eyes just are not that good anymore. I still piddle from time to time with conventional parts and breadboards. Been thinking about getting back into some of the older digital modes on the HAM radio again. Sux that Radio Shack no longer carrys anything to do with radios or electronic parts. I remember building a packet modem for around $5 for my C-64 back in 1984.
Funny thing, that, I will be re-configuring and re-piping some chillers at a Jackson, MS TV station in a couple of weeks, to complete the change-over from the analog to digital transmitters, as well as to build in redundancy in the cooling systems. They still have an empty spot to add a 3rd digital transmitter, and cooling provisions are being made for that also.
I was hand soldering Motorola MC68340, 288 pin CPUs under a stereo microscope. QA couldn't tell my work from that done by the new Heller reflow oven. At first they tried to claim I didn't use enough solder because the rework department used more, till I picked up their IPCC handbook to show them that my work matched the photos, and it was rework who was using too much solder.
The fun thing is flushing them out to maintain water purity. The
1952 RCA used 25 pounds of Citric acid to remove the scaling once year, while the '80s 195 KW UHF Comark uses Tyglos which only works at full operating temperature and can not be used in the Klystrons. I needed some fiberglass duct board to enclose the sides of the chillers to use a salamander to heat the water, but no one wanted to sell it to me. The last place I asked was the local wholesaler. He told me to go to hell, so I told him I would make sure to mention their name on the TV station when we asked our members for help. Suddenly he thought it was a good idea to sell to a Christian TV station, gave me the best price break and loaded it into my truck. :)BTW, I wrote software for a heating & air conditioning company in Ohio the mid '80s to calculate heat loss/loading for both new and upgrade jobs. It calculated each ceiling, door, window, wall and floor and printed a BOM, and estimated cost of operation in less than 15 minutes per job. I had three printers on the system, so you didn't load and unload forms all days.
Not too worried about "water" purity here... the coolant is glycol, and I will be purging with N2 when doing the 1/2 dozen braze joints, the rest of the connections will use soft solder. This stuff is a little bit bigger than I normally work with.... 2" and 2 1/2" copper.
The RCA transmitter had 7 kV across the water. If purity wasn't maintained, it broke the water into hydrogen & oxygen which would over pressure the system.
That is small pipe, compared to the 4" and larger used in a TTU-25B
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