Community Discussions

Remember my AC unit that I got that I was talking about a few days back? Well, I got it installed!
Check out my pics.

I just handed the camera to John through the hole lol.

Thankyou so much Highwind!!! I learned allot from your post, and I like the way you explained it all. You seem to be knowledgeable about many things, good deal

Good job Termy!

As for you Mister Highwind.....  great primer! I finally got an easy to understand explanation on how an A/C works. Thanks!

It's been in the 90's here lately and the A/C has been a blessing.

You are most welcome Termie and MrMom.

Marshall,

How well sealed are those homes? And are they in an area of high humidity? I don't know why those homes would be so humid. Unless they are cooking and using the showers a lot.  The A/C unit may not pull moisture out of the air depending on how much it is cooling the air and how humid the air was to begin with so the air could be of higher relative humidity coming out of the A/C unit into the house.

My house A/C was turned on the other day for the first time as it was quite humid and hot out. My house is quite dry inside. Its always been dry in here no matter how humid it is outside. But I have extra insulation in the walls and attic. Its a little cooler in the winter here than where you live. Granted, not quite as hot in summer, either.

A heat pump is a reversible unit that allows you to pull energy out of the atmosphere to heat the house on cool days and to cool it on hot days. Unfortunately, they are also the least efficient when you need them the most if they use the outside air as an energy source/sink. If I were building a new house, I'd use the ground under the house or well water as a heat sink and source for the heat pump. 

<<edited to add MrMom, I'm too lazy to start another post, LOL>>

I have no idea about how well these folks house is insulated and well fit. I know that my central heat and air system makes it very acceptable inside as far as humidity goes, the heat pump house is always humid, they even fight mold problems. Don't ask me why? Like I said, I have no point other than just making conversation. I just always found it interesting, that's all. Maybe theirs is screwed?

Thanks again Highwind for all that great information on the workings of a AC system. I had a small understanding of it before, now I am a expert! lol

Many bennifit from your information, God Bless you and your family.

I have a York heat pump.  What's your's Marshall?

Marshall,

One possibility is that the unit has lost some of its charge so it isn't cooling as much as it should.  Then it might just bring the air down to close to the dew point rather that dropping moisture out. Does it run continuously?

I check mine by putting one hand on the return air duct and the other on the supply duct to the house (just after the where the A/C coil is in the duct) and you will notice a significant temperature difference. Not scientific I know, but if there is a good differential then its working okay. And I've done it eough that I know mine is working fine despite being at least 20 years old. I don't remember what the expected temp. difference should be but you can feel that the supply duct is definitely much colder. If not might want to call someone in to check the system pressure and recharge it, and find the leak.

Another possibility is that the A/c unit is undersized so it can't keep up with the heat load. I don't think this one would be the case except if the installer were incompetent or the homeowner chose an undersized unit, so I'd ignore it, until they checked to see if the system is cooling properly.

Highwind wrote:
Just had mine worked on tonite........Mine blew cold but wouldn't shut off. It needed to run continuously to try to achieve my set temp. I figured it needed a charge, which it did. The service tech put his thermocouples in the ducts after the charge and my differential ran 13.5 degrees F. (return air vs. output air temp.) He said that was a respectable difference.

You should justy open all your windows and roll your house down a hill.  That'll cool ya off for free.

Wind, I don't know, I've never felt their stuff. I only go over there occasionally, they're not next door. I believe they've had people out quite a few times to try and see what's wrong, not sure what they found, i don't think anything by the way they keep complaining.