What home improvement work did you do today?

When was the last time you changed the air filter?
Do yourself a favor and disconnect power and either pull the side panels for the outdoor coil and spray it down with a water hose; or the preferred method would be pull the top cover including fan, and spray water from the inside of the coil out, to push any dirt or debris the direction it came from.

 

Did that last week, thanks. outside filter was replaced last week, inside was done today. I'm using lower MERV rated filters, making the unit work less to move air.

 

You’ve got two filters? You should really only need one…..
Is the outside filter ever that dirty?

 

we have a jacked up system and I do need two. Cost too much to get all the duct work routed where one filter covered both returns.

 

I’d rather change a blower motor vs pulling the A coil to be cleaned. I use 2” thick filters and change monthly. A big box of them fell off the back of a truck.

 

I use 1" Merv 12 filters, change every 1-3 months depending on dog fur and dirt. 12's are probably too restrictive but yeah, motors are easy to swap out

 

Shit - I've got a 4" filter that I run (fills the space where my electronic filter was forever). Every 6 months on that thing has been fine. But we also don't have the thing running like you guys that live on the surface of the sun.

 

Pro tip; keep your fan set to on, not auto.

 

Mine is set to run ~15 min every hour. But other than this weekend, we don’t get the temps like you guys do

 

Dang, that's a lot of cycling!
An old HVAC buddy said your fan motor will last years longer if you just let it run, plus you're constantly filtering your house.

 

Knocks down humidity too (southern problems). I still have never done it, but starting to think I may need to. On one unit, I just replaced the motor for the 2nd time in 8 years. Other unit still has the original motor

 

It seems to me that it would be $$$$ and would make the rooms hotter because it'd be blowing hot air, at least in this house.

 

Mine’s a soft start VFD - it’s what the installer recommended and that was 19 years ago.

 

Sweet, sounds like you've got a good unit

 

Temp on the front porch hit 103 yesterday afternoon but we both thought the house felt cooler, the AC was able to keep up. I don't have any hard data to prove it but it felt like the mist helped keep things cool. Not going to run it all the time, just when we get triple digits or high humidity.

 

Here in hell, our units are usually rated for a higher max ambient than other units in other climates. A lot of the reefer units I used to work on in Phx were only rated to 110……….. I remember a summer 8-9 years ago when it was 118 for 3-4 days, even with a hose on the condenser units couldn’t keep up

 

Its been 110 here in norcal in the afternoon for the last few days...pretty brutal

Prior to the heat i went out and hosed off the coils and i swear the air coming out of the ac vents is cooler then before.

I've thought about doing the mister "trick"...we dont have hard water (70-80ppm TDS). I thought about hooking up my CR Spotless to a hose with a mister, would be 0ppm tds. That would be safe right? Mineral buildup is the only concern?
Its pretty dang expensive to burn through resign though, i doubt a few misters would take that many GPH.

 

Finished outside trim and caulking/paint
Redneck counters the last month. Had to pick a different counter. Install on the 16th!
Some trim done and working on finish trim for cabinets.
Blinds installed on the two windows.

 

AZ heat is different than SC heat. We have a lot of humidity to deal with.
2400 sq foot. The unit is sized right, house is cool except for the hall way which only gets up to 74 on the worse days, the bigger return is in that hall.

 

Trying to put the finishing touches on the dining area paint...

New flooring completed ,less transitions ,from the Master all the way out to the Kitchen.....

Painting "Popcorn" sucks but taking it down SUCK's more

Walls will need me to add 2nd coat and Con will finish "Fine tuning" trim tomorrow once I'm done..

Sweat equity "times 2"... We are hoping this will be the last one BUT you never know..

 

That hose will definitely help keep the head pressure down and prevent cycling on the compressor from internal overload.

2,400 Sq ft.
4 ton maybe 5 ton pkg unit I would guess,I dunno, I hope that are there plenty of returns in your home, hopefully in each bedroom there should be one in each and multiple in the bigger common areas too.
Returns are just as important as supply,It's all about balance, and like mentioned earlier about the VFD it is a great feature as it ramps up on initial call and end call ect,but my point is when the VFD fires up it's almost silent unlike old school motors that are at 100% start up and you can hear the supply flex do to expansion & return plenium contract or both sometimes do to the air volume.

Actually when your system is running you shouldn't really here it when properly balance for equal air exchange.

Sorry for rambling.

 

That's actually what I was dealing with a couple of weeks ago. System shut off and I had to do a hard reset it came back up. Got the hose pipe out and cleaned out the coils and all that nasty dog hair from my girls gotten sucked up in there. All good now.

 

This is great stuff for your condenser, 5/1 ratio one gallon will get you two seasons.
Like mentioned earlier turn the unit off and pull the 5~ 3/8" screws out,this will allow you to pull and tilt then lay the fan shroud with fan motor on top of the unit. Cool the condenser coil down with just water and make sure you adjust the flow to a semi cone spray with the water because with to much force you can bend the fins and you don't want that.
After that spay the coil down with the mixture, the outside of the coil with a 2.5 gallon spray bottle.
Let it sit for a minute or two and it should foam up and pulling all of the dirt,debris and pollen or what ever you have in your region out,then use your garden hose and spray the coil, start at the top and work your way down keep in mind from the inside,this is why you removed the fan.
Here in the NE. this is done mid June after most of the pollen has subsided.

 

42 wheel barrow's later.....




Better late than never. Muh elbows....

 

Finally had time to paint this “library” room (did all the built ins/molding in June). Moving on to resurfacing the fireplace and then floors.