accu-air

the heating saga continues. this is boring for a lot of people (probably you, too), so apologies. i just want to get this down and out of my brain before i forget it.

larry from accu-air was here this morning. good lord, the man likes to talk. but the things he says are smart and considerate. larry showed me brochures for trane & amana package units (and a couple other brands i can't remember). from 10 SEER up to 14 SEER (SEER is an efficiency rating. i probably have a 10 SEER package unit right now) with a variety of warranties. (that seems to be the biggest difference between all of these brands, quite frankly... the length of the warranty, protecting different parts of the unit.)

anyway, larry spent a lot of time under the house, checking out the ductwork, and while the thinks some of it may be salvageable (he's definitely looking out for my pocketbook like none of the other guys were) he's not crazy about any of it. he says the sizing is wrong on some sections, it's not insulated, and there aren't enough dampers to balance the air flow. (this is mostly stuff i've heard before.) he also said that the ducts take some crazy twists and turns that don't make any sense, and with each turn i lose efficiency. my returns are fine, though, but he'd change the ductwork leading to them.

larry had one big brilliant idea that no one else has had: to not install an outdoor package unit at all, but rather put a furnace in the crawlspace and an A/C unit outdoors. he says with the split-units you can get much higher efficiency on the unit itself, and also cut down on the ductwork needed. the warranties are generally higher on 'indoor' furnaces like that, too, as the unit isn't sitting outside in the weather all the time.

so larry took his pad full of measurements back to the office to do some calculations; we'll talk either this weekend or monday about what he thinks the best course of action is. after he adds everything up a crawlspace furnace may be out of the question, but he won't know until he plugs some numbers into the computer. he didn't leave me with any brochures for the furnace (only package units) so i feel a little in the dark about this whole new product.

but i have a good feeling about larry. i think accu-air is a smallish company (he owns it, i believe) and he offers a variety of brands and is pretty passionate about what he does. he mentioned taking continuing ed courses for heating & a/c, as well as for his electrician's license, and while i'm pretty sure most contractors do stuff like that i thought that from larry the statement was really endearing.

anyway, he's going to call me on my cell phone, probaly monday while we're in florida. i might have to make my decision then and trust him to pick the right unit for my house.

the folks from bolton are coming over in a few minutes... i'll write another update after they give me their assessment.

(if i manage to get to work today it will be a minor miracle.)

Posted by xta at December 19, 2003 10:53 AM | TrackBack