Ahhhhh!

[BobL43]

Wow,

Yesterday I had my 23 year old Rheem SEER 10 replaced with a new Trane XR15 4ton Condenser unit and matching GAM....... air handler (matched certified system SEER of 16.25) The old Rheem just was not able to keep up on the hot days, and my Summer electric bills were over $800 per 2 month billing period. I certainly did not do the replacement to save money, as I doubt the new system will last as long as the old Rheem, but, man, does this thing cool the house down, and dehumidify it well. They also installed an Aprilaire MERV13 air cleaner.

The manual J they did showed another 1/2 ton was appropriate for my house than the 3 1/2 ton unit I had before.
And the install qualifies for a power company rebate of 700 bucks.

Anyway, I imagine my electric bills will be reduced by one third in the Summer; we'll see.

The attic temps yesterday were 145 degrees on the sheathing and the air temp up there was about 130 degrees. Brutal on the installing crew untill they had the system running and provided themselves with some cool air up there while they connected up the rooms.

I was up there every so often for maybe 10 minutes or less at a time, and I don't know how they do it, I really don't. I gave them a nice tip for their hard work.

Oh yeah, AHHHHHHHHHH again!

[Runs with bison]

Wow! What are your electric rates? My bill includes water and sewer and the electric is now pushing $0.15/kwh but I barely broke $500 for a two month rate for the total a few years back, even with my old SEER 10 system in a hotter climate. The new unit I have now is looking good though because it is knocking electrical down by a 1/3 and is more comfortable as well. Global warming will make it pay out rapidly since the old unit was finished anyway, and the upgrade was only negligibly more than the cheapest option (hmmm, it is probably already paid for as of last month.)

Hit 105 today (and I ran my 5K route in it...at a recent personal best time). Tomorrow the prediction is up to 110 F--time to do some swimming instead. Local weatherman who usually nails the trends and long range forecasts suspects we will break the local all time record of 113 F in the next week.

[BobL43]

Wow! What are your electric rates? My bill includes water and sewer and the electric is now pushing $0.15/kwh but I barely broke $500 for a two month rate for the total a few years back, even with my old SEER 10 system in a hotter climate. The new unit I have now is looking good though because it is knocking electrical down by a 1/3 and is more comfortable as well. Global warming will make it pay out rapidly since the old unit was finished anyway, and the upgrade was only negligibly more than the cheapest option (hmmm, it is probably already paid for as of last month.)

Hit 105 today (and I ran my 5K route in it...at a recent personal best time). Tomorrow the prediction is up to 110 F--time to do some swimming instead. Local weatherman who usually nails the trends and long range forecasts suspects we will break the local all time record of 113 F in the next week.

I've been meaning to do this for a long time, so I will scan in a copy of my electric bill and you can see the rates, but it will not be the summer bill. I need to give myself a time slot to do this, but I will as soon as I can. New unit still running SWEET after 2 days. It was only 93 here yesterday, but the new system....... no problem at all.

[BobL43]

I've been meaning to do this for a long time, so I will scan in a copy of my electric bill and you can see the rates, but it will not be the summer bill. I need to give myself a time slot to do this, but I will as soon as I can. New unit still running SWEET after 2 days. It was only 93 here yesterday, but the new system....... no problem at all.

Finally got a chance to do this. This is April and May bill for this year. Including the taxes and other BS charges, I pay over 19 cents a KWH for 1897 KWH. total bill was $358.75


I scanned the file as a pdf but it is too big at 480K to upload here. I'll see if I can somehow resize it

[BobL43]

Finally got a chance to do this. This is April and May bill for this year. Including the taxes and other BS charges, I pay 19 cents a KWH for 1897 KWH. total bill was $358.75

Even if this unit uses only half the power of my old one, it'll take me a real long time to get my return on investment on this one, if ever, before the 10 year parts and labor warranty are over.
Insane total prices of installed equipment here on Long Island, NY by a reputable dealer. It cost me 3X as much as I paid for my brand new GTO in 1966, but comfort is king.

Rescanned as a low resolution jpg

[Runs with bison]

Those rates are higher than mine! Even just using the per KWH rates and sales tax yours are $16.6/kwh minimum.

I don't know about your unit, but my old one was shot (compressor was pulling too many amps on start which was one of the reasons I knew I had to replace it...seized up on the installers when it was cycled to clear unit during replacement....and the old furnace had cut out a few times in previous days so it needed some parts replacement as well.) I got every last day out of the old compressor, so it isn't like I paid any extra to replace it. The only ROI consideration is what it would have cost for the cheapest possible unit...and with rebates for the high end gear the difference was only hundreds rather than thousands.

Like you say, comfort is king, and that is why I chose dual stage units. The provide more even temp control at low cooling/fire rates most of the time.

[BobL43]

Those rates are higher than mine! Even just using the per KWH rates and sales tax yours are $16.6/kwh minimum.

I don't know about your unit, but my old one was shot (compressor was pulling too many amps on start which was one of the reasons I knew I had to replace it...seized up on the installers when it was cycled to clear unit during replacement....and the old furnace had cut out a few times in previous days so it needed some parts replacement as well.) I got every last day out of the old compressor, so it isn't like I paid any extra to replace it. The only ROI consideration is what it would have cost for the cheapest possible unit...and with rebates for the high end gear the difference was only hundreds rather than thousands.

Like you say, comfort is king, and that is why I chose dual stage units. The provide more even temp control at low cooling/fire rates most of the time.

Yeah, the power company has been a "government authority" for quite a few years now. before that, it was a private company. I'm not sure who the bigger crooks are, but either way, its very, very expensive here. Possibly the highest or second highest in the country..
That bill was for the months of April and May, before the cooling season even started. The next bill should come in a week or so for the months of June and July, which were quite hot here, and my new AC was installed mid July, so the coming bill will probably be a killer. My old system was still running, but it seemed like it was low on Freon (F22) and I did not want to spend any more money on it.

About 5 or so years ago, the voltage (208 here) was way down, I forget the number, but the 115 volts on one leg was down to 96 volts and the compressor had a great deal of trouble starting up more than occasionaly. I had a sevice company install a hard start kit, which did the job, but I don't think the compressor windings appreciated the stall currents it experienced prior to the hard start kit.

The metering device (a piston type) in the air handler in the attic, had its strainer plugged up from some crap in the system, that "may" have been burnt insulation from the windings, or other junk, maybe brazing oxidation from the original install in 1989.

I had a friend pull the system down and clean the meteing device, and installed a filter/dryer and get the system back in operation
about 3 years ago, but its never been a good system from the beginning.

I guess my August/Sept electric bill will be the first to show me some lower bills, I hope.
http://www.electricchoice.com/electr...s-by-state.php

[BobL43]

Got my new electric bill today for the months of June and July, which includes the first part of the cooling season. YIKES. Only the last 2 weeks of usage in this bill is with the new AC system, so I'll have to wait 2 more months to see any real improvement. I'm not disciplined enough maybe to keep records of my self made meter readings. I should do that, though to try to see my daily or at least weekly usage. Maybe I'll do that starting today

I went outside and wrote down the meter reading, which shows I have used 400 KWH already since 7/27/12, which means I've used $78.40 in electric in less than one week. NY is an expensive place to live, in many ways. Family ties is the only thing keeping me here. Wit all this hot weather this Summer, I have been using a portable AC unit in my sunroom to keep it cooler. Without that AC in there, it gets very very hot.

[jadnashua]

The window a/c may be a significant component of that electrical bill! A typical sun room by its nature has lots of windows, and may not have much insulation. And, most window a/c units are nowhere near as efficient as the newer central air units.

[BobL43]

The window a/c may be a significant component of that electrical bill! A typical sun room by its nature has lots of windows, and may not have much insulation. And, most window a/c units are nowhere near as efficient as the newer central air units.

Hi Jim,

So far, I have my wife not turning on the portable AC unit (even less efficient than a window unit).

Our sunroom is one of those 4 Seasons brand rooms. It is made up only of 2 outside walls (2 1/2 inches of plastic skinned Styrofoam and an aluminum skinned 4 inch styrofoam roof panels. the aluminum framing has heat break construction. The other two walls of the sunroom are what were the inside corner of 2 exterior house walls. the sunroom walls have windows in them that are supposed to be low E glass, and the West windows have shades inside and have "Coolaroo" shades outside as well. The other wall has a 6 foot sliding glass door and another window that both face North. Most of the heat, I have discovered with my Fluke IR thermometer seems to be coming from the house attic (the soffit) where the high end of the sunroom roof is attached to the fascia board. Prior to adding the Sunroom 12 years ago, I don't think there were any soffit vents there, and don't beleive there are any right now, but the house roof's soffit is about 15 or 20 degrees hotter than any part of the Sunroom's own roof. I will have to remove the soffit panels and see if I can prevent the attic heat from radiating into the sunroom. I know this sounds strange! I have a brand new roof mounted Attic fan high on the roof, which brought the attic temps way, way down. You would think that any negative pressure in the attic would (possibly) pull air from the into the attic. I think I have sufficient air inlets for the attic to take fresh air in at other soffit venting and gable vents. The soffits in the sunroom feel like radiator panels. I hope my wife left that portable AC off today too, so I can take my 4pm meter reading, which will represent consumption for the past 3 days. Its been quite miserable here, with high temps and very high humidity. Room temp in the sunroom, even with the door and North window open is about 95 or so.

The new AC though, is performing extremely well