Just got two new window A/C's (Haier and Sharp) units installed and they make a lot of slapping and clicking noises. At first I thought packing material was caught inside the unit. But looking more closely at the design it seems that the condensate is now piped into the outer fan hub to be splashed away.
Is this some sort of EER boosting "gimmick" designed to squeeze every last BTU away and is there a way to turn it off? How many extra BTUs of cooling can such a technique provide? It's already making my wife crazy because it sounds like someone trying to break in and jiggling the unit around. The Haier is exceptionally loud at if you're in the right location, the fan shroud seems to concentrate the sound output.
Checking on the outside the Haier A/C is wet and covered with water droplets on the exhaust path of the outer fan. I assume I am trading away an ugly outside drip (who cares?) with the noise (and I assume efficiency) increase that comes from the water hitting the external fan blades.
These are the first window AC's I've purchased since 1986 and in that era, the AC's just dripped from the lowest point on the case. The 12K BTU Fedders I bought that year finally froze up and died (haven't done an autopsy yet - may not as 25 years might just be too old to bother with). It worked hard every one of those 25 years so I can't complain. Certainly got my money's worth. New units are 8 and 5K and are allegedly much higher efficiency. The power bills for the summer should tell that story.
You got it in one. By spraying the condensate on the condenser coil, the heat required to evaporate the water is removed from the condenser, improving efficiency. IIRC, it saves you around 10% but is dependent on outside temp and humidity. Some models have a way to defeat it by removing a rubber plug or something similar to let the water drain out externally before it accumulates enough for the fan to slap it; check your manual.
By throwing the condensate against the cooling fins, the device can squeeze out upwards of 10% additional efficiency. Turn the fan to HI and you probably won't hear the splashing.
It's designed that way to improve efficiency by saving electricity. Sort of like a CFL bulb.
All we've been able to do with the controls is to change the profile of the splashing noise. High outside humidity really makes it clatter. The Haier may have to go back - it's noisy enough to hear two rooms away. Fascinating design, though. The internals are made of styrofoam (insulation qualities, I guess) and only the frame part that holds the compressor is metal - everything else is plastic. Still, aside from the clattering, it was a great deal for under $100. I saw two knockouts on the bottom when I installed it but they were not at the end - they were near the compressor and might have been test or charging points. The manual does not say and now that it's installed and sealed in, I am not anxious to look.
What I don't like about the Haier unit is that the external vents are on the top of the case and this unit sits in the shadow of a mulberry tree. This year the tree seems not to have fruited for some odd reason (cutting down another nearby mulberry tree might have done the trick). Mulberries attract ants and could easily fall into the unit from the top and ferment into nasty mush. I have been considering adding one of those vent deflectors they sell for inside heating vents to at least prevent berries from entering the case by gravity. I will run it for a while, first, to get a sense of its cooling power and kWh consumption before I shroud the top opening. By then I will also have dissected its predecessor to see just how many mulberries enter through the top (the older unit had top vents, too - the Sharp, however, does not.
As I wrote this I think I also discovered why the ant problem in the house has been so bad this year: no mulberries. They must be looking for an alternative food source. The removal of two trees in the front yard (one mulberry, one red maple) have had some very pronounced effects on my very tiny ecosystem. Everything I've done to control the little black "citronella" ants (the smell they emit when you crush them) has failed, from Combat ant traps to the boric acid recommended here. They walk through the traps and around the boric acid.
It would be nice to have had a "quiet piss or clatter" switch on the unit. I suppose I could open it and create my own - but that would be for next season. One profound difference between the IR remote controlled Sharp and the mechanically controlled Haier is that the Sharp shuts itself down if the power blinks. The Haier simply starts back up. Very nasty surprise to come home and find the Sharp (the bigger capacity unit) sitting there dead. I'm going to have to program my HomeVision controller to track the On/Off status of the unit and reset it to ON if the power blinks when it's over X degrees out and the unit was ON before the power blinked. Not a big nuisance, but not anything I want to be doing. Unfortunately I only realized the limitations of the IR unit *after* the exchange period was over. Didn't make the same mistake with AC #2. IR control is nice if you're in the same room with the AC but sucks if you're not.
I just heard Boehner say the same thing about why he won't raise the debt limit. It's "for the children." Are you ghost-writing his speeches? (-:
Nothing in either manual and I double checked because there are two knockouts on the Haier case but they are not at the low end of the unit but just outboard of the part of the AC that rests on the window sill. If I decide to keep it, I may do exploratory surgery to see if I can't convert it to an old, drip-style unit. The Haier sounds like someone tapping on the window pane. We're calling it the "Raven" in honor of Edgar Allan Poe. (-: I may call Haier tomorrow and see what they have to say. It's SO loud I can't imagine they haven't gotten lots of calls already. It really does sound like something's caught in the fan blades.
No, I don't write his speeches. I do forward ideas, though.
What you heard was not what he said. Boehner did not use the phrase "It's for the children" in his speech. He did not, moreover, even use the word 'children' (he did, however, use the word 'family' once). In fairness, Obama used neither of these either.
In the main, Boehner's speech was not about placing blame on inherited problems ("It's the fault of the previous administration") nor was it about the future past the horizon ("It's for the children"). It centered more on last week and next week.
Aside: I really can't understand what's so complicated about this affair. Simply cut EVERY department's budget by 3%, 5%, 15% or whatever to reach the required spending goal. No real need - however preferable - to get down in the weeds.
"HeyBub" wrote in news:RoudnYo8ZsW6KbPTnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
Yes. Cut everything, but not across the board. Cut 5% off the big items first, especially the salary budget item and the highest 15% of people it is paid too. Make sure outside earnings are included in the calculation of total income (maybe include spouses or Sign Other's incomes too).
Why? Too many high earners are doing so because of the work of underlings that they depend on.
"As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won't be there for them and their kids unless significant action is taken now" and "it's about what's standing between the American people and the future we seek for ourselves and our families."
That's the equivalent of "it's for the children" - like it or not. We didn't hear those claims when the House and Senate were approving two expensive wars and the creation of sprawling new Federal bureaucracies like Homeland Security and the TSA. It's *sooo* easy to try to lay the blame for that spending binge on Obama but it was George Bush and the Republicans that fed us the Iraq War WMD lies which we swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Those are the costs that we're being asked to pay now, although Boehner will fervently deny it. He wants us to think every penny of the currently large deficit has been personally spent by Obama. Actually, it's just the reverse. The bills coming due now are the wars Bush led us to and that we elected to fight and the bureaucracies we elected to build long before anyone had even heard the word Obama.
It was the Republicans looking for Clinton's s**en that diverted precious investigative resources away from the activities of the 9/11 planners, who were in country and training to fly jets while the cum/witchhunt was on. There are costs associated with witchhunting. Just as there are costs associated with wars of choice that have no real "payback" other than another trillion dollars to care for the wounded from that war.
< In the main, Boehner's speech was not about placing blame on inherited
Why would he? If he did that he would have to acknowledge that Bush and Co. used false claims of WMD's to involve us in the longest, most expensive wars in US history? Wars that have cost us so much blood and treasure and yielded almost nothing in return. No, Boehner wouldn't want to place blame on "inherited problems" because so many of those costs stem from our hysterical reaction to a terrorist attack. We might have been able to stop that attack before it happened if the Republicans weren't as determined to bring Clinton down as they are Obama. This is NOT responsible governance, it's political axe-fighting and it will always have serious negative costs associated with it.
It centered on the same old BS. It was OK to raise the debt ceiling when Bush was spending taxpayer money on useless wars and a near useless TSA. Now it's not. Why? Because the Republicans, as evidenced by some of the comments we've read here are determined that Obama fail in anything he attempts. It's not about governing anymore, it's not about reaching compromise solutions. It's all about throwing stink on the party in power no matter what it does to the country.
When Boehner spouts garbage like "And right now, we have a government so big and so expensive it's sapping the drive of our people and keeping our economy from running at full capacity" you know it's political BS because HE was happily voting for all the wars and programs that have been getting us into this outrageous debt. He also conveniently forgets how the deregulated CDO "industry" is at the heart of the problem. When the economy was savaged by the investment banks, it caused government tax receipts to take a hit as well and that's the main reason the deficit is currently so large. He's put the cart before the horse and is claiming the reverse happened. What I've called "HeyBubbing" in past posts.
If you need any further proof of the Bizarro world Boehner lives in, it's this comment: "Obviously, I expect that bill can and will pass the Senate, and be sent to the President for his signature. If the President signs it, the 'crisis' atmosphere he has created will simply disappear."
WHO has created the crisis atmosphere? WHO keeps threatening to shut the US government down and force citizens to endure the severe consequences of default? Hint: It's not Obama. It has NOT been Obama. This is a Republican stunt, one well-honed at the hands of Newt Gingrich when he first tried it. I can only hope it will be as successful a tactic now as it was NOT then.
It's an idiotic way to manage. The Republicans are busy trying to starve the SEC and other regulatory commissions to make way for their Wall Street buddies to start looting the nation's pension funds and home equity again. That will get the fat campaign contributions rolling again.
Boehner & Co. can't unspend the trillions they spent on stupid, senseless wars and non-functional bureaucracies like the TSA so they're trying to put the blame elsewhere. Medicare seems like a good place for the Republicans to find the money for the fruitless quest to find Saddam's mystery WMD's. Old people can't fight back as well as others. IIRC, Cantor wants to "voucherize" Medicare. I can't wait to see if he and his buddies can't resist the urge to touch the biggest third rail in American politics just before the election and at a time when more people are retiring and getting their first time coverage. I love watching Cantor - he acts as if he was voted POTUS in some secret redo of the 2008 election and that he's got all the answers to all the world's problems.
My belief is that they won't be able to keep their hands off Medicare and will go down in flames almost as quickly as the lame attempt Bush made to privatize Social Security. If that had succeeded, the damage to our senior citizens from the Great Recession would have been even MORE profound than it was.
Maybe, just maybe by election time people will understand that CEO's pulling down $20 million salaries and not paying their fair share of taxes is part of where the problem really lies, not NPR or Planned Parenthood.
Yep. Sniff. Under Bush we had a 12,000 Dow, low inflation, unemployment in the 4-5% range, and more. This in spite of, as you said, two wars, Katrina, and 9-11. It was a swell six years. Then the Democrats took over Congress and things went to hell.
As for Homeland Security, it is, in the main, a consolidation of many agencies and departments. I suspect this merging results in greater efficiency and a diminishing of duplication of efforts. I'll bet the activities of the current Homeland Security department actually costs less than the entities it merged.
No, every penny of the current debt has been personally spent by Obama. From the "stimulus," to the "bailouts," to "cash for clunkers," and so on. In eight years, the Bush administration piled up $800 billion in deficit spending. The Obama administration topped that in its very first MONTH.
Your dates are WAY off. Clinton was impeached in December 1998. The 9-11 terrorists arrived in the U.S. in June of 2000.
Could be. My view is the 40+% of wage earners in this country who pay NO taxes are the ones not paying their "fair share."
About AC drips or Congressional constipation? For the latter I'd recommend an end to the super majority requirement, an end to earmarks of any kind and an end to secret single senator holds on nominations. I'd limit campaign contributions, make Congress work hours that look more like most workers, give Congress the same health care choices that everyone else has and most importantly figure out some way to reintroduce compromise solutions instead of the current "my way or the highway" slash and burn tactics we've seen for the last twenty years at least.
A responsible Congress would admit the deficit is at a record high because we now have to pay off two nearly 10 year-long wars, expenses like creating Homeland Security and compensate for a falling off of tax receipts from a super hot economy that nearly shut down. This is an unusual condition but it doesn't merit slash and burn panic. A responsible Congress would not turn the record deficit into some idiotic piece of political theater that's just making the US's role as the "leader of the free economy" seem a little shaky. If they're stupid enough to put us in default, it will injure us badly in the short term and even worse in the long run. Does the budget need trimming? Sure it does. Is there a budget anywhere that doesn't?
But across the board cuts are double-edged swords. Reduce the number of agents investigating Medicare fraud and it could have a negative net effect. The better approach would be to remember this "crisis" as a teaching moment - wars don't come for free and eventually the bills come due. I had hoped we learned that lesson in Vietnam, but apparently not. AfRaq makes Vietnam look like a righteous war even though the Domino Theory was completely disproved. Once the economy recovers, and the war bills are paid, tax revenues will increase and the deficit will shrink as it has many times in the past. That's when this mostly manufactured crisis will fade into memory.
People need to start thinking of the cost of wars *before* they approve fighting them. Most people don't realize that the Federal Income tax was started to offset the cost of the Civil War and has been funding wars ever since.
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"Early in our nation's history, the income tax was used only in times of war or national crisis to generate needed revenue."
Ask people what they would rather have tomorrow. The bill for ten years of fighting in AfRaq or an income tax refund of from $2K to $50K dollars (the various estimates of what the war will cost each taxpayer)? What about no income tax at all? We might pull it off if we learn to keep our military out of wars of choice.
Your problem is buying the bottom of the line crap. Who makes Sharp these days? Maybe that's Haier too. If you'd have gone to either of the big box stores you could have acquired an LG (Lucky Goldstar -- Korean -- not as cheap jack as it sounds) (HD) or a Frigidaire (Lowes), the latter probably also made by someone else.
My son swears by the LG but for some reason HD never have the size I want at the beginning of the season so I buy Frigidaire, this year a
10,000 btu unit for the kitchen (biggest I could fit in the window replacing an Emerson portable). I was frankly amazed at the cooling ability. Unit is slightly undersized just based on their calcs and runs all the time, nearly silently. It has the trough of water inside and presumably sprays it over the condener but no slapping noise -- as I say it's near silent.
I would probably buy another for the living room to replace my 80's Freidrich (similar to your Fedders) which does nowhere near as good a cooling job however the temperature is going to drop to about 50 degrees next week and stay there for the rest of the year. How do I know this? You mean apart from my personal emails from East Anglia? Actually it's because both HD and Lowes are out of all A/C stock (except 5000BTU) and won't be getting any more in until next season. He who snoozes loses! I guess I need to start stocking up on pullovers before they go off the shelves.
Snow shovels and salt in August! That's what we need. Do I have the smarts to become marketing director of HD?
An example of how people just don't understand this issue. There are 2 mil federal employees. The highest 15% would be
300,000. Let's say they are making $125,000. Cutting 5% would amount to $1.8bil a year. A significant amount? Yes. But the deficit this year is $1.6 TRILLION.
The big items that are killing us are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense.
A new socialist idea. So, because a husband earns a good salary, the wife who works for the FBI should get paid less than her counterparts for the same work? Maybe we should take an inventory of all the household assets too. If you've behaved responsibly all your life, have a nice 401K, savings, house, you should get paid half of what someone else who just declared bankruptcy while you both do the same job. Great system.
Another clueless socialist idea is what I call it.
" snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@e35g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
I'm not worried about the ones earning 125K. It's the ones that earn 4 times as much and more that bother me. And not just federal employees, but also those paid off of federal grants and contracts. I retired from medical academia. DAMHIKT about professors.
Fraud should be ferreted out. SS, Medicare/aid should go to the real needy. Anyone getting above 100K should have SS etc taxed. Defense gets too much indeed.
Honest wages for honest work, yes. I agree it's nonsense to deprive people from honest wages, but a congresscritter with a husband who feeds off Medicare/Aid should be scrutinized.
Yes, if properly applied and checked.
I do want to pay honest wages for honest work, but my eyes told me some are having real good wages for not enough honest work. Probably goes as much for higher paid workers as for (example) policemen fattening their overpay in the last years of employment before retirement.
Maths is hard. 2,000,000 x $125,000 x 0.05 = $12 billion, not $1.8.
As of 2008, there are over 22,000,000 federal and state full-time employees in the country. With the current administration's increase in government, I suspect the current number to be north of 50 million.
[Likewise 22,000,000 x $125,000 x 0.05 = $137 billion]
But evidently, I'm having a great difficulty in getting folks to understand what I mean. I didn't say cut everybody's SALARY, I said cut every department's BUDGET (amount to be determined).
Social Security (to name one) is NOT the problem in the current debate. The SS administration is sitting on almost $2 trillion in government bonds. If the government does run out of borrowing power, SS simply cashes in sufficient bonds to pay out what they owe. In so doing, the debt of the U.S. will be reduced so the government can borrow even more.
"HeyBub" wrote in news:keKdndlH2v3QFq3TnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
He said 300,000 employees x $125K x 0.05 = 1.875 billion. But I think there are far more people paid with federal monies than just the direct employees and their salary is likely on average higher. Just a gut feeling, no data, and to lazy to look it up.
I agree. Ss should be out of the equation, as should Medicare/Aid, since they save money according to the latest info. Of course, weed out fraud, cut costs, including some of last year of life expensive procedures that don't prolong life. Sounds harsh, and I hope I'll have the courage to take a pill.
Here's another way to look at it. Some states (New Jersey, Ohio, Wisconsin, and others) have experienced recent monetary shortfalls. What did they do?
In the main, THEY LAID OFF EMPLOYEES, cut programs, and did other things to SHRINK the size of government.
Here's the way it worked in my state. In Texas, the state government estimates the amount of revenue coming in and adjusts spending to match (at the federal level, it's the reverse). This year, we estimated a $24 billion reduction in revenues. So... in the main, programs were cut to make things match.
Shrinking government is good. It might even happen at the federal level.
"HeyBub" wrote in news:V5-dne9df4NRO63TnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
Just heard that Perry increased employment a lot (teachers etc). Now they are going to get laid off, because of the "need" for smaller government. Should do wonders for the unemployment insurance company, not to speak for whomever depends on the teachers' spending, such as car dealers, banks, grocery stores, etc.
You get my tongue-in-cheek? Shrinking surplus government is good if you can insure employment elsewhere. Why is it impossible to reduce defense spending? Because it cuts employment in the congresscritters' districts.
I am getting very cynical, because I don't know what really should be done, other than that regulations should be eased. I retired because I didn't want to fill out the f'ing forms and do the recertifications etc any more. I know it is important to do medical research ethically etc, but if I (or they) wanted to cheat on the ethics, it can still be done, and you might not be found out. Now not enough time for research becuse of the forms (but I repeat myself). Luckily I could retire ...
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