Trane Variable Speed Furnace

[Bubba]

IF the customer is running the fan constantly, Id bet its easily saving that much. Bubba

[Don Ocean]

Overall that type of furnace is a waste of money. A Plaything for those that love gadgets. Overcomplication will bite us in the ass one day..Especially since none of that stuff is made in America.

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[Noon-Air]

I guess Ft Smith, Arkansas is a foreign country??

[Don Ocean]

Which means more electric. Most electric in America is generated by Natural gas turbines is is Government subsidized. The cost of Electric is not cheap when full cost of production and transmission is considered. A decent hybrid Wind generator is in the vicinity of $2 million per copy. Recapture of investment is based on Elwood financial recovery theorum.. About 7 years etc. Price of Copper is creating less windings in motors, thus creating more power/wattage to run them. Has anyone else noted that large number of blower motor replacements that are now fueling our service income? If Sammy in Washington keeps screwing around with wasting our economy.. Well ..lets just say it may be premature to scuttle your Number 10 Coal scoop. Corn burners are very popular here. But they take a lot of electric to run them. Corn has to be clean grade 2 and dried. Pellets will also work..But are expensive to use in the northern climes. Big women have big boilers, and there is a lot of heat in those big boilers. ;-p

[PaPaPeng]

I agree. BTU is BTU and you need a finite amount to feel comfortable. There is more than enough emprical data to properly size a furnace for a particular sized house. If the furnace is undersized it turns on and off too often and the noise is a nuisance. Frequent cycling may wear out the rotating parts earlier. If its oversized the room temp tends to overshoot before it shuts off. All the fine tuning electronics control doesn't really improve anything since the house is a pretty big heat reservoir that doesn't heat up or cool that quickly to make a difference on our sense of comfort. The higher efficiency comes from extracting the most heat from the flame and this is evident from the lukewarm exhaust gas at the PVC vent pipe. Old model furnace exhaust have metal vents that are too hot to touch and that's valuable heat going up the chimney. Turning the fan motor on more sensitive settings or at different speeds is unecessary gadgetry and equipment cost.

I dislike the idea of a PCB in the hot environment of a furnace as this cooks the board. That's a pretty good revenue stream for the furnace manufacturer but is as best marginal to the operating efficiency of the furnace.

I am highly suspicious of Trane as this company has an over aggressive independent sales force of retired persons of authority such as a school principal or a police officer. That induces trust and a reluctance on the "hit" to ask hard questions. The sales force works on commission and are not employees, not the ones I have met so far. They can rattle off claims and figures from their sales brochure like it is the best thing since sliced bread. But when asked about the technical details they admit they know nothing of how the furnace works - that how come the exhaust is so much cooler - and on what basis does it decide to run or not run the furnace at their "efficiency" settings. I can't imagine anyone in any trade not being curious about the inner workings of what they sell especially when they were senior authorities in their previous jobs (aka not dumb). But since their protestations of technical ignorance is so uniform across all their sales reps I believe its Trane's company policy to them to deny knowledge. To answer such questions would open up a can of worms.

Go to a HVAC supplies shop to see how a high efficiency furnace is constructed. Have an idea of how it is different from the older designs. Then buy one that is similarly constructed and buy the cheapest and simplest model of a specified BTU output. There is no such thing as using inferior materials to make a bigger profit. All furnaces must use specific materials for the critical parts like the heat exchangers or face regulatory and financial ruin on many levels should they turn out to be inferior and faulty. There is no new technology in sensors or motors or materials which are sourced from the same outside manufacturers anyway. There are no technical breaktroughs that will differentiate one manufacturer's high efficiency furnace from another. They are all designed to last 20 years if not more without fuss. If you disagree do tell me in which area can a "cheap" manufacturer skim on to make the extra profit? Or where Trane can add value worth several hundred bucks more.

[Bubba]

Well, we could all hop on our bicycle or horse and buggy and head off to work, the grocery store and all those soccer games instead of using our gas guzzling suv's too. We could all turn off all those electric lights to see by and use candles. Maybe unplug that refrigerator? Believe me, Id love to have a windmill or solar panel array that keeps me from paying the utility company every month. Id love to fill my gas tank with water or some magic hydrogen or radioactive pellet and drive forever. Until that day becomes a feasible reality, I guess I'll just be stuck doing it the way all the rest of the world does. By the way, I love my variable speed and when it croaks I'll replace it with another. Im not 18 anymore. I'll take all the creature comforts, whistles, bells and buttons that make my life easier and more comfortable. Besides, buying more "things" is what keeps the economy going. How are you going to earn a living if those variable speeds dont break? :-P Bubba

[Mark]

Putting a conventional multi-speed motor on low speed gives the same savings without the complicated expensive failure prone radio interering electronics.

Mark

[Bubba]

Are you always "high" like this or is this just a first for you? Bubba

[Noon-Air]

Gee.... I don't seem to have a problem with RFI, nor do any customers I have installed new systems for.....several of which are also HAM radio operators.

73 DE N6OJN

[Don Ocean]

I sure hope Sammy in Washington keeps the energy flowing for all these toys. But it would be premature to bet on it. As for me to continue to make a living.. I already made a sufficient sum to last me until I am Ninety. After that I will probably have to Purchase and run a Whorehouse/Bar for sustenance. ;-p

As for the Economy being fueled by purchasing.. Keep in mind the things you are purchasing are made in Mexico, China, Taiwan Bangladesh...etc. The Euro now costs $1.43 USD. Oil is all going to Euro's Even the handouts we give the Jews are being demanded to be in Euro's. American basic economies are being fueled by farm exports.. We just got slammed with large tariffs for subsidizing corn exports and several other things. Which of course even makes the inflated values worse in America. The Average family got a $55/mo increase in groceries over the summer. The illegal Federal Reserve is even faltering. So the "What Me Worry?" slogan just doesn't cut it. And why are we posting to alt.home.repair.. I thought we had a secret handshake in order to view these pearls of wisdom? ;-D

[Don Ocean]

Agreed.. But..But...You have to manually set it. My Gawd.. the horror of such! Manual labor? ;-p

[Don Ocean]

The controls and motor are Mexican made, Steve.

And I have sometimes suspected that Fort Smith and Fayettesvelle were to not totally of this planet even. ;-p When was the last time you bought an American water heater.. Or a Goodman that was made in America that is manufactured by either illegals or green card carriers.

[Zyp]

When you have Manual labor, does that mean you have to pay Manual's taxes too?

[Don Ocean]

Not if you call La Imigre before payday.

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[Old HVAC Dude]

I cal bulshit, so much that this post is dripping with it. You are either ignorant or stupid. Which is it?

[geothermaljones]

Yes... My & a few dozen others, utility bills, & we're all comfortable... A VSD in constant operation is far more efficient than even a conventional blower operating on call, in the heart of the heating or cooling season. The added dehumidification is a huge benefit as well.

See, DC is a much more efficient powersource when use in close proximity of production. Edison & Tesla & Westinghouse all new it, Unfortunately the DC supply to a power grid in an urban area would require huge quantities of copper to transmit. Now if they'd just have used more localized transformers & generation, we'd all be saving energy.

And I'd thought this string was dead...

geothermaljones.

[geothermaljones]

BOX FANS & FIRE PITS!!! BOX FANS & FIRE PITS!!! BOX FANS & FIRE PITS!!! BOX FANS & FIRE PITS!!!

Where are Trane units built anyway?

As for gadgets, I hate having to change from heating to cooling in the Spring & switch back in the fall... I've had to do that for over 8 years now, Isn't it enough that I have to change my filter every time I get a utility bill?

geothermaljones

[Dave Martindale]

DC *at the voltage you happen to need* is more efficient than AC, because there are no transformer losses. But if the voltages don't match, it's much more complicated and expensive to change voltage with DC.

There are probably only a few houses sharing the same pole transformer (and thus the same 120/240 V supply). All other distribution is done at higher voltage. To get the same efficiency (both electric and copper usage) with DC, you'd need a source for every few houses. But generators that small aren't very clean or efficient.

Centralized generation and AC distribution, using several levels of voltage, makes much more sense for supplying homes.

DC is sometimes used to transmit large amount of power long distances.

Dave

[geothermaljones]

Now that is something I did not know...

I do know the AC distribution can eat up 20-30%+ of it's power in order to boost it's voltage & keep up the flow, but I've never heard of long distance DC distribution. Any recommendations on a good read to explain it? I'd like to see how it's done...

geothermaljones

[Tekkie®]

geothermaljones posted for all of us...

Large data centers are actively investigating DC power supplies directly to the systems to save on cooling costs and conversion losses by built in power supplies.