humidity in the house?

[CBhVAC:)]

If I had any, I would have never gotten into HVAC..LOL..or left Palm Springs.....

You could, but you would want them in the ceiling in EVERY room you want cooled, and, you will need enough to keep the air flowing and not build a static pressure in the home...

MasterCool2

ok...your at about 4,000CFM then, IF they are 6 inch, and what you gonna do wtih the other 2500 from a MC64?

Large home...gonna be like that. We just finished a log cabin thats about

5600SF...proably got a mile of duct in the place.

Plenum

Then it sounds like it had a complete manual D and J on it when the home was built.

No..the big issue would be using the same ducts as the AC unit. you can not completely seal the unit, even with a jack for the unit that would be automatic when the coolers on.. Altho....you COULD have a White Rodgers low voltage control added to the swamp, and it would be able to control with a little relay and creative thinking, a bypass for the AC, so that if you were running the swamp, the ac would never come on, and then you could have dampers added that would automatically close it off...humm...gotta think on this one for a sec...or three...

Yes...no...depends. Its basically a method that tells you how many BTUS your getting for your dollar spent.

Nor would anyone with a bit of sense, but its talked into people daily. I have never told anyone that a unit will pay for itself, unless after running the numbers, like an old Arkel Servel unit that will cost about 500 a month in NG to run the AC, since they dont really. Its like buying a new car that gets better gas mileage...you STILL have to buy the new car...

Nope..I think I see it ok, and you would STILL be creating a negative zone, and even with a power vent, you have to remember, air is fluid and seeks own.

Nor does anyone else...go to sleep...........and....thats...it...

issues....its

Again...a bit of relay work, and you never have to worry about it.

Umm...first thought...

Oh f*ck....you got to be in Sierra Vista..but you said northern...so that kills that...LOL

Good...you really need to.

Everything in your home that is used in contruction has an R value that can be determined, U values, T values..etc...with the right guy using manual J. Manual J isnt that hard..its complicated.

Then NEVER let that company back in your home...ever...period.

Actually, that for your area, sounds almost perfect. it will run on the hottest days, all the time....normal.

Idea to consider, and its common in the upper class strict neighborhoods in Palm Springs...and surrounding areas... The cooler, a side draft, is mounted outside, on the side of the home, with a support made for it. IT will have to be custom fabricated, and will need of course to be secured to the home via the studs, with long bolts. The unit will be secured to the stand after its mounted, and will need to be able to get the doors off to service it. The duct run can be pulled throughout the attic, and as long as you can access the entire house from there, you have it made. Thats what I was thinking...

[Chris J...]

There are a few rooms that would be lack flow, such as bathrooms and one large room, but mostly there would bee good airflow just using the attic hatch locations. The large room I mentioned couldn't have upducts of any sort in it due to it being right under living space, and having no exterior walls. It's not an issue though, as it stays fairly cool as is, due to being half underground. .

Except for a few four inch and a few more large wall vents directly in the main ducts, they are.

The ones I'd seen so far were side-draft, around 3000 CFM... For most of the warm months I need only a little cooling, and I have the AC for times when the evap can't handle it. If I need 5000 CFM, I think I can handle that by routing some of it through the AC return ducts, but any more and I'm probably sunk.

One brand I've found so far is Champion, but I'm by no means done looking yet.

Thanks...

Could be, but I have no idea. The company that did it went out of business, and the guy I bought the house from (who designed it and had it built) is in a mental hospital. (I'm not kidding).

One way I was thinking of handling the situation was by powering the cooler from the line to the AC, but switched so it would be to one or the other, but not both.

I'm pretty good with electronics, so putting in relays, even building control circuits, would be a snap if I need to do it. It would be very simple to use a live circuit in the cooler as a trigger for a relay that would kill power to the AC.

Given that I'm willing to attempt this project, that wouldn't apply to me.. :-)

My favorite reply to any salesman who uses the "it will pay for itself" line on me; "Great! Nice to know I'll never have to make any payments!!!"

OK, how would running the utility vent the way I propose be any different from putting in an entirely new vent that avoids the crawlspace entirely (and sealing off the present one into the crawlspace)? This is also an option...

I keep CO2 alarms for that reason... A friend of mine almost died of CO2 from a furnace a few years ago.

I'll definitely do that. it would preclude accidentally turning them both on at the same time.

ROFL!!! I've been to Sierra Vista a few times, and I know what you mean, and my area isn't too different. The city I live near is Prescott, and just about all businesses here have a "couldn't give a damn" attitude. I'm actually several miles outside (and about 1700 feet higher than) Prescott.

The problem is determining what, exactly was used. Without opening walls and ceilings, you just can't in some areas, due to oddball construction.

They actually have the best reputation in the area, and probably with good reason. But I did get the impression that they don't know what they are talking about in some cases. For example, they saw no problem, until I explained it, with my humidifier (attached to the heater) installation (done when the house was built, and not by me.) It's got an overflow drain that is a piece of clear tubing. To get that connected to the sewer, they had tapped into the AC drain line

*downstream * of the trap, did not add a trap, then ran the PCV diagonally across the front of the Trane unit (making getting the front panels on and off a nightmare) and then hung the open end by a string (!!!!) from the humidifier. They had stuck the clear drain line in there, and "sealed" it in by stuffing a paper towel in around it. Amongst other things, this arrangement was putting sewer gas directly into my air ductwork! And this company I am talking about "didn't see a problem with it" when i asked them to look at it. I fixed the problem myself.

This was in an apartment down in Phoenix, which has a much warmer climate...

I've got my AC on today, with a high of 91 (hot but not record-breaking for this area, and the AC is handling the afternoon load (the worst, due to Western exposure) by running 22 minutes out of the last hour. Sound ok?

The heater runs about 45 minutes an hour when it's 15 below zero and windy, which is the coldest I've seen here.

That would be great, but unfortunately it won't work. Due to the layout of the house, the attics are above different stories, and don't connect. There is no possibility that I can see of running ducting. The only way I can see would be to have three of the setups you describe, and given the cost and complexity of that and the new ducting, I think I'm much better off even with my existing AC.

Thanks again!

[Reason]

OK, OK commercial air-conditioners do this to a small degree. The temperature of the air going over the evaporator fins can be a bit colder than the mixture that comes out the vents, so you could say that the output air is a bit above the dewpoint, therefore not at 100% humidity.