On Friday, April 17, 2015 at 10:19:16 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:10:59 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, April 17, 2015 at 9:58:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
I am not an air conditioner technician, however, I had a big problem with my new AC unit in my newly built 2450 square foot home in hotter-than-hell Texas not being able to keep my home at the 72F set on the thermostat. I had about 4 technicians tell me that the unit was working fine, but when the temperature kept creeping up approaching 80F, I called the manager of the AC company. He came out and just looked at everything, no tools involved. He told me that an AC unit, like a performance car engine, works better if you can improve the way it breathes. He advised me to add an additional air return duct and filter. I did this myself and all my problems were cured. A cheap and easy fix!

I presume this manager was from the same company that installed it?
I guess the only thing better would have been if the company put in
the additional return, which is what seems right. If they put the system
in a brand new house, it's supposed to work.....

A lot of that assumes that the guy installing it was competent. If
this is a place where A/C is an afterthought, they may not know much
about A/C design and just try to use the heat duct design..

He said it was a brand new house in Texas. And even if the guy
installing it was incompetent, the fact that a manager figured out
that the solution is an additional return would, in most cases,
mean that they are responsible for doing the modification.


Here in Florida, it is the other way around. They design for A/C and
the heat is inefficient.. We seldom ever turn it on so that is not a
problem. I think it has been 2 or 3 years since the toaster wire
strips in my A/C have been hot.

And here in NJ which needs both, there are still plenty of screwed
up ineffective systems, usually on the cooling side.
Which is sad, because by now, with all the
computer tools and knowledge base, it should be easy to do it right.
Unfortunately, doing it cheap seems to be one factor. And I think
because so many techs are focused on that world, they don't even
learn how to do it right.