Case in point.  I’m out working on the lawn yesterday and one of my neighbors was out and we started chatting.  Being the air conditioner guy for the neighborhood, the conversations always tend to turn in that direction, so we were discussing our electricity bills and his was more than DOUBLE what mine was for about the same square footage.  Now, you just can not attribute all of your energy consumption issues to air conditioning, but I was interested in learning why he was experiencing such a disparity with his bill and if this is something that occured year round.

We compared our elecricity bills and his only showed the spike that was causing concern in the summer months even though he was running higher that me for the rest of the year also.  We then looked around his place and there were some very obvious problems with very cheap fixes.

• Insulation around the doors and windows were worn out.  You could feel the cool air flowing freely from around the closed doors and windows from the outside.  This can be remedied for less than $5 per door and window.
• The AC filter in the return duct looked like a giant dust ball.  He claims that he replaces the filter quarterly, but I doubt it.  Even if he did, quarterly is not enough in my opinion.  I replace mine monthly to insure that the air is flowing freely.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is experiencing some freezing in his line because the AC unit is having to work overtime to compensate for the lack of air flow.  A simple $2 per month will save on a costly air conditioner service call if the line freezes over.
• Looking at the compressor on the side of the house, I see grass growing up into the coils on the bottom, hedge limbs poking into the coils on the side, and pine needles covering the casing on top.  He (and apparently a lot of home owners) don’t understand that the function of these coils is to channel the heat out of the home.  The fan blow air over the coils to cool them down and dispurse the heat.  That’s why when the unit is running and you put you hand over the top you feel hot air.  When the coils are obstructed, the air can not pass over them to get cool which means you are not efficiently pumping the heat out of your home.  Keep the coils clear and unobstructed.  In addition when you air conditioner is NOT RUNNING, take your garden hose and with low water pressure rinse off the coils of accumulated dirts and debris.  This wont cost you anything and will make a world of difference with your electricty bill.

10am – Now we’re on to the final piece of equipment, the Carrier 24ABB evaporator coil unit.  The same process takes place, clean off the flooring, place a new drip pan under the equipment, place and level the equipment for in-line installation, metal screws to attach to the heater then some silver tape to seal and the placement is complete.  We just need to connect the PVC drain pipe wiht a fitting and some glue, and also the plastic tubing for the overflow drain from the drip pan and we’re good to go.

10:30am – Now that everything is in place, it’s time to connect all of the wiring and tubing.  The wiring is pretty straight forward.  We strip the ends off of the old power and control wires, splice in with the new units and cap off and place it back in the enclosures.  As with any installation that is not new construction, you don’t get to see everything that is needed until you tear out the old equipment.  In our case, the physical dimensions of the old heater was much longer than the new equipment, and then factor in the absence of a transition piece between each component, and it was easy to see that the old gas line was not long enough to extend to the new heater.  Now we need to make a parts run to extend the gas line and some extra silver tape will always come in handy.

12pm – The heat of the day is catching up with us and we’re close to firing up the system.  The gas line extension is fitted in after the emergency cut-off valve.  We turn the gas on and bubble test the connections for leaks and there are none so we’re in business with a heater.  Now it’s time to run the copper tubing for the air conditioner, sweat solder it in place with the torch (and it’s a good thing there were no gas leaks!).  Now the installer goes outside to the blower unit to charge the system with Puron while the helper bubble tests all of the solder joints for leaks.  No leaks!  So we have a full charged Puron home ar conditioners system ready to test.

1:00pm – We power up the system and ther is frosty cold air blowing into the attic.  Without the ductwork connected, all of the cool air is blowing into the work area, so now the fans are no longer needed.  Now since we don’t have to worry about cooking ourselves in the attic we can take a lunch break while the system runs.  This is important not only for cooling off the work areas for our comfort, but to make sure everything is working properly, and especially that the drain is draining.  The worst thing that could happen is that the condensation flow is obstructed or improperly routed and you end up with water damage…not good.  The guys head out to get a bite to eat while I keep an eye on the condesnsation flow, and it’s a good thing because the placement of the unit was on a slight tilt that backed up the condensation flow back into the unit instead of out through the drain pipe.  So now I need to turn off the air conditioner until the guys get back so they can re-level the system and re-test.

Time for another Kolache break.  I promise that I’ll finish the story in Part 3.

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About a month ago as the temperatures were sustaining in the 100+ range here in Texas, we noticed that our 20-year old Trane system was running for about 5 minutes, cutting off for about 2 minutes, thn kicking in again.  The temperature was getting down to the 81 degree setting on the thermostat (…you see Mr. Obama, not everyone sets their air conditioning to 78), but the humidity was never getting below 50% because the unit didn’t run long enough to effectively bring down the humidity.  Basically it was short-cycling.  Now, we’ve never had this problem in the past so we ran a full perventative maintenance on the system and found that the freon level was down about 20%, but mostly that the clutch on the blower motor was starting to fail.  It was drawing some serious amps in order to kick in.  I could only imagine what the electricty bill was going to look like for this month!

Even though the Trane unit was still working, we decided it was time to get serious about replacing this old unit before we experienced an outage and at the same time, reduce our electricty bill.  Another thing that factored into our decision was that the adjoining central heating system was one of the old pilot light jobs that have been phased out some years ago due to safety concerns.  We contacted a couple of home air conditioners installers who quoted us on a new central air conditioning and heating systems and we finally settle on a Carrier 24ABB4 (14 SEER Rating) split system with Puron refrigerant, and a Carrier 58STA/STX heater.  There were more energy efficient systems available with a better SEER rating that would quality for the new tax rebate, but we could not justify the increased cost vs savings.  The system we chose will give us the best bang for the buck.

Now that we’ve signed on the bottom line and scheduled the installation date, all that is left is the perparation.  In the next post, we’ll tell you all about the installation process and the decisions we needed to make along the way.

The new de facto standard is call PURON.  Chemically, Puron refrigerant is an environmentally sound 50/50 blend of two separate refrigerants, R-32 and R-125 and has been given the designation of R-410A which is marketed under various names by differnt manufactueres. Consumer products featuring Puron refrigerant were first marketed in 1996.

Some of the reasons that home air conditioners manufacturers prefer Puron are:

• Higher energy efficiency
• Costs less over the life of the unit than continuing to use Freon
• Safer for the environment
• Considered Non-Toxic
• Non-Flammable

Some of the negative points associated with using Puron are:

• It is a relatively new product that can most likely be improved upon
• Careful installation is required to keep out moisture
• Requires a much higher operating pressure than Freon, so it can not be used in equipment designed for Freon

The bottom line is that we welcome the change, and with the proper planning a home owner can save substantially by chaning over to the new Puron-based systems.  Don’t get caught with your pants down by trying to stretch the life out of a Freon-based system after 2010.  Your maintenance costs will go up and your unit efficiency will go down.  Make the change, even if you have a few more good years left in your Freon unit.