HVAC Frustration. Need Advice
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BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
The way they did this in my house was replace the laundry room door with a special door that had an attachment for a hose that went into a truck, which did indeed pressurize the home. I 'think' they then measured to see how long pressure held, but not sure. I do have a nice 8.5" x 11" document though suitable for framing stating I have an energy rated house! 
apostolakisl
Senior Member
I have not had a blower test done, but the way I have seen them done is that they open a door, mask it off with an airtight fabric that has a blower built into it. Then they turn on the blower and measure the static pressure inside relative to what it is outside (or what it was inside before the blower turned on). The more porous the house, the lower the static pressure. A perfectly sealed house would pressurize up to the max that the blower is capable of.
Lou Apo said:
Maybe I'm out of date (again). I don't this this can be done based on pressure alone. I have a "tight" house in the north. I have to bring in makeup air to maintain air quality and control humidity in the winter. Nonetheless, my home would fail a pressure test miserably (and I want it to). I have two 4" vents that do nothing but supply fresh air for ventilation. They have dampers and are oriented to prevent "wind" intrusion, but they would activate with a negative pressue.
Prior to installing the makeup air vents, my attic vent fan was capable of sucking septic gas past the drain traps (I'll never make that mistake again). Picture 5 people gagging in unison...
Other vented equipment (furnace, water heater, clothes dryer) is capable of backflowing and would make a "pressure test" very subjective. This equipment would not normally contribute to heat/cooling load except under reverse pressure conditions.
I have not had this style testing performed. When I've seen it described (around here) it involved a very cold day (0 degrees) and using the negative pressure in conjunction with thermal imaging to look for infiltration. In my home I would hope they would plug the vented equipment.
I am very curious how they accomplish this in the Southwest. You don't have that much of a temeprature differential to work with this time of year.
One last note - I was harping on "correctly sized equipment" and "efficiency". In the past, systems in the Southeast were intentionally oversized to deal with humidity. You need a cold Aframe to effectively condense the moisture. These systems would cycle far more and sacrifice efficiency for comfort. Ano, living in Arizona, should not have this concern.
I see you're talking to Trane guys. I have a Trane furnace, and it's great stuff. But the Trane people I've talked to are all scam artists. When I moved in, the outside AC unit had not been installed. The lines and the coil were there. One quote was over $8k to install the outdoor unit. They wouldn't break it down into parts and labor for me. The other guy said, without even looking at it, that I needed a zoning system if I wanted to install AC, and it was about $12k for the zoning system. The third guy told me something equally ridiculous.
I ended up getting the outdoor unit installed for $1400 including parts, labor, and charging.
The guy I used to use only does commercial now, and everyone I've had out since him has been a complete idiot. Most of these guys don't even have tools to measure static pressure or flow. I've never seen any of them do any calculation at all. The one guy I found that was knowledgeable I hired to clean out my heat exchanger, AC coil, and balance the system. I was out of town when he did it, and he did a super half-assed job balancing the system.
My buddy just got a new furnace and AC installed. One of his quotes was $18k for a 2400 sq ft house, and the guy didn't even do a Manual J for sizing or any other calcs. He ended up going with Sears because the guy that came out did a full Manual J and whatever the one for ducts is (Manual D I think?). He wasn't there when they installed it, and the subcontractor they hired put the furnace in crooked and used lots of foil tape to seal up the resulting gaps in the ductwork.
I have a special hatred for the HVAC industry. I cannot find anyone that is willing to actually do the calculations and knows what they are doing. In many states, these calcs are required to be on file in order to get a permit for the work. But not here in MN, so everyone is damn lazy and they don't do it.
One route you might want to go is to find someone in your area certified by the National Comfort Institute. It's one of the only HVAC certification programs that is worth a crap, and they will revoke certifications from people that do stuff half-assed. It's not perfect, as the guy that did my balancing was certified through them. But I think you have a better chance of finding someone decent by going to their site and searching for people in your area that are certified.
Eventually I'm going to have do a bunch of HVAC work when I finish my basement, and I don't know what I'm gonna do when it comes time to find someone that is actually worth paying to do work. I've had horrible luck here finding anyone.
I ended up getting the outdoor unit installed for $1400 including parts, labor, and charging.
The guy I used to use only does commercial now, and everyone I've had out since him has been a complete idiot. Most of these guys don't even have tools to measure static pressure or flow. I've never seen any of them do any calculation at all. The one guy I found that was knowledgeable I hired to clean out my heat exchanger, AC coil, and balance the system. I was out of town when he did it, and he did a super half-assed job balancing the system.
My buddy just got a new furnace and AC installed. One of his quotes was $18k for a 2400 sq ft house, and the guy didn't even do a Manual J for sizing or any other calcs. He ended up going with Sears because the guy that came out did a full Manual J and whatever the one for ducts is (Manual D I think?). He wasn't there when they installed it, and the subcontractor they hired put the furnace in crooked and used lots of foil tape to seal up the resulting gaps in the ductwork.
I have a special hatred for the HVAC industry. I cannot find anyone that is willing to actually do the calculations and knows what they are doing. In many states, these calcs are required to be on file in order to get a permit for the work. But not here in MN, so everyone is damn lazy and they don't do it.
One route you might want to go is to find someone in your area certified by the National Comfort Institute. It's one of the only HVAC certification programs that is worth a crap, and they will revoke certifications from people that do stuff half-assed. It's not perfect, as the guy that did my balancing was certified through them. But I think you have a better chance of finding someone decent by going to their site and searching for people in your area that are certified.
Eventually I'm going to have do a bunch of HVAC work when I finish my basement, and I don't know what I'm gonna do when it comes time to find someone that is actually worth paying to do work. I've had horrible luck here finding anyone.
apostolakisl
Senior Member
signal15 said:
I wouldn't single out Trane. I don't think there is a brand that scams per se, I think it is one guy/dealer at a time. I got bids on an hvac for my new office that were over 120K. I actually ended up paying $16k. Of course that price required me buying the stuff wholesale using my friends license (sold his hvac co years ago but has kept his license active) and then I hired an hvac guy I know at church to "moonlight" the install.
And just an FYI, the $1400 you paid to install is I think reasonable. But if he told you he did the charge, he was probably stretching the truth. New units almost always come pre-charged. You just have to weld the line sets, test for leaks, pump it down, and open the valve. They are pre-charged for line sets up to 50 feet.
There is no magic way to get the best deal, and AC salespeople are no different than any other type of salespeople. They are trying to make the most money they can. But I think if you get several quotes from different companies, you start to get a better idea of who supplies what for what.
For my system I have the requirement that all the workers of the comapny I hire are employees and that no contractors are used. This reqirement definitly increases the price, but it also means that all these companies have a A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, Angies List, etc. The prices for most were pretty close together. I think all these companies make a fair profit, and certainly none are loosing money on the deal, but i also think they know its competitive out there and a high bid isn't likely to earn them business either. I could also go to Home Depot to get a quote, but from experience, you DON'T EVER want to do that. From experience I can tell you that they shop out their installs to contractors that bid low to get these deals. Why do these contractors bid low? Because they DON'T have that A+ rating from the BBB so they are struggling to get business.
I read good and bad things about Trane. Good quality, but also harder to repair and more expensive replacement parts. No matter the brand, it seems there are always great reviews and terrible reviews. I think at least a good part of the this is the installation.
For my system I have the requirement that all the workers of the comapny I hire are employees and that no contractors are used. This reqirement definitly increases the price, but it also means that all these companies have a A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, Angies List, etc. The prices for most were pretty close together. I think all these companies make a fair profit, and certainly none are loosing money on the deal, but i also think they know its competitive out there and a high bid isn't likely to earn them business either. I could also go to Home Depot to get a quote, but from experience, you DON'T EVER want to do that. From experience I can tell you that they shop out their installs to contractors that bid low to get these deals. Why do these contractors bid low? Because they DON'T have that A+ rating from the BBB so they are struggling to get business.
I read good and bad things about Trane. Good quality, but also harder to repair and more expensive replacement parts. No matter the brand, it seems there are always great reviews and terrible reviews. I think at least a good part of the this is the installation.
He did have to charge it. My line is 80 feet. I was there when he had his freon canister on his scale filling the system. The AC unit was $1100 and it was $300 in labor/freon/parts.
apostolakisl
Senior Member
signal15 said:
You did get a good deal. I thought you already had the unit sitting there, just not hooked up. $300 to connect, test, pump down, and add a bit more freon is cheap. Really cheap. I doubt he needed to add much as 30 feet of tube doesn't hold much freon, realizing of course that only one of the two lines contains liquid freon and it is the smaller one.
I've used zone controllers from Jackson Systems with HAI OmniStats in the past. The Jackson Systems zone controller works with most HVAC manufacturers.
Here you go, check out the Z series zone controllers:
http://jacksonsystems.com/
Here you go, check out the Z series zone controllers:
http://jacksonsystems.com/
Thanks. That could be a good solution. I have another company coming out today. Smaller family owned business that has been in business for 40 years. The feeling I get for the "big guys" is that they don't really seem to care about exploring solutions that will work for me; i.e. zoning that HAI can control. The systems like Trane use their own proprietary standards that can't be controlled, and nobody seems to like Honeywell because of the bypass required although that would have worked with HAI.jay01 said:
One other part of Trane I really don't like is that while YES they do have an iPhone app to control it remotely, I have to register with them and use their Home Automation website to get to my thermostat. It used to be something like $8 a month just to access my own thermostat, at least now its free.
The second bad part of Trane is even if the thermostat had HOME and AWAY temp settings, I would have to push some button on the thermostat whenever I left the house or returned. That would be a pain, and that is why I have automation.
Of course HAI thermostats are outrageously expensive and if I use the Zigbee ones, that's like a $1500 investment for just three thermostats.
apostolakisl
Senior Member
ano said:
The bypass thing is being made way to big of a deal. The bypass has a waited lever on it. If the static pressure exceeds the set level, the air will be able to push the lever open and relieve the pressure back to the intake side.
The bypass will never open if the pressure isn't in excess of the set value. If you have a 2 speed system and you have 3 zones where each zone has enough outflow to accommodate the unit on low speed without exceeding the upper static pressure limit, then the bypass will not open. It won't do anything, and theoretically it isn't even needed.
I myself don't have anything for or against bypass valves, but not of the contractor I had over said they would install them. They say they don't work well, but certainly the "real" reason might be that the profit margin on those systems is not great enough, or just that they have never installed them before, and they don't feel like starting now. Note I also live in Phoenix, which is a very demanding AC environment, so maybe that is part of it.Lou Apo said:
Just a quick note on having energy audits done. I strongly recommend you use an auditor that is either BPI (www.bpi.org) or RESNET (www.resnet.us) certified. There are MANY scam artists in that field, and many well-meaning but uninformed "auditors" or "inspectors". We had our home inspected after purchase over 2 years ago and received 17 pages of reports and recommendations. The inspector even talked me OUT of doing some things I had considered, such as window replacement, and instead advised us to make other changes based on the inspection. Our energy bill is significantly lower after following most of the recommendations, and was well worth the ~$550 we paid for the inspection. We've had some friends utilize the "free" inspections they received after signing up at home shows, and those inspections were nothing compared to what we paid to have properly completed. Maybe some of those are good, but I haven't personally heard of one that compares favorably.
Finally, I think some people mentioned the thermal imaging cameras. They can make for a very dramatic picture, but are of much less value than the blower door test. You need a large temperature differential to get decent data (think warm house on cold winter day), which restricts the usability of those devices. They are also much less effective at finding air leaks, which is a big problem even in many newer homes.
Finally, I think some people mentioned the thermal imaging cameras. They can make for a very dramatic picture, but are of much less value than the blower door test. You need a large temperature differential to get decent data (think warm house on cold winter day), which restricts the usability of those devices. They are also much less effective at finding air leaks, which is a big problem even in many newer homes.
In AZ we don't have a great say on who does the energy audit. Since the electric utility subsidizes these, they pick the list of who I can use, and from what I see, all follow the same procedures. There is even a second group that performs an audit on the auditors, so any company doing the audits get audited itself.
In any case I had it done on Monday, and it was very helpful. I don't have the full results yet, because that takes about a week, but I have the initial results. The inspector used both infrared camera and blower. With the blower, they measure the pressure of all the rooms and they can find window leakage on each window. I had two windows which were reporting leaky. My insulation was good, R-30, but they will recommend I get up to Energy Star standards of R49. The utility gives me $250 to help with this. My air-ducts are also in good shape.
The bad/good part that I am a bit confused about is that my home is sealed up much more than it should be. In other words, all those door seals and window seals are working too good.
This brings up another project that I have wanted to do. In AZ the temps can change fast, so it is not unusual for my heat to be running because my house is cold but yet its 80 degrees out. Or vise versa, my AC is running because my house is warm, but outside temps have dropped below 60. Why not just outside air in during those times, but the question is, how do you go about doing that in an automated fashion?
In any case I had it done on Monday, and it was very helpful. I don't have the full results yet, because that takes about a week, but I have the initial results. The inspector used both infrared camera and blower. With the blower, they measure the pressure of all the rooms and they can find window leakage on each window. I had two windows which were reporting leaky. My insulation was good, R-30, but they will recommend I get up to Energy Star standards of R49. The utility gives me $250 to help with this. My air-ducts are also in good shape.
The bad/good part that I am a bit confused about is that my home is sealed up much more than it should be. In other words, all those door seals and window seals are working too good.
This brings up another project that I have wanted to do. In AZ the temps can change fast, so it is not unusual for my heat to be running because my house is cold but yet its 80 degrees out. Or vise versa, my AC is running because my house is warm, but outside temps have dropped below 60. Why not just outside air in during those times, but the question is, how do you go about doing that in an automated fashion?
