On Sat, 21 Jun 2014 14:54:21 -0700 (PDT),
rangerssuck wrote:

On Thursday, June 19, 2014 1:15:44 PM UTC-4, Vandy Terre wrote:
snip

Insulation is not happening for reasons I've stated. It's simply not practical, except in the attic.

Sorry for making the suggestion. I must of missed
the post explaining why insulation is not
practical.

In my neighborhood, I think about the last thing anyone is worried about is theft of their AC compressor. I can just imagine to look i'd get from the building permit guy if I told him I wanted to mount the unit on my roof. Suffice it to say that it's simply not happening.

Count yourself fortunate. Theft of AC compressor
coils has become a problem in all of Atlanta
Georgia.

Dribbling condensate on the roof will not provide any meaningful cooling. Of course it will do something, but if I thought for a second that it would do anything significant, I'd collect rainwater and pump it back up to the roof.

Historically here in the 'old South' placing old
blankets/ quilts over a roof and keeping them wet
was a form of keeping a dwelling more comfortable.
It is not a great cooling method but it does help
some even in the high humidity levels of this
area.

Same goes for "learn how to best vent the existing window system for the most comfort." At 100°F and 90% humidity, this is not any sort of ventilation problem. It's a refrigeration problem.

Moving air feels cooler than standing air.
Opening window tops on upper floors and opening
basement or lower floor lower windows helps create
air movement. Hey, I am all for AC. Especially
now that our highs are in the 90s with near 100%
humidity. But I once lived much farther North
where knowing how to set the windows could keep a
person comfortable until August.

On Thursday, June 19, 2014 8:29:42 PM UTC-4, rangerssuck wrote:
On Thursday, June 19, 2014 6:30:59 PM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:

On Thursday, June 19, 2014 2:22:15 PM UTC-4, Moe DeLoughan wrote:



On 6/18/2014 11:00 AM, rangerssuck wrote:







My house is about 90 years old, a ~1500 sq foot three bedroom







colonial. I'm in Northern NJ, and it's getting pretty hot outside.







I currently have not enough window units to keep the whole house







cool, and I'm thinking it's time to do something.















I've had three AC people in to make their sales pitch. what they







have offered (and all of the pretty similar in price is:























Did any/all of them run a Manual J calc in order to properly size the







unit to your needs? Without that, all they're doing is guessing - and







guessing can cost you money, since when they guesstimate they tend to







oversize to play it safe.







If none of them ran a Manual J, go out and get some more bids, and







when the salespeople show up, tell them you want to watch them perform







the Manual J calc.



















I live in NJ and I had 5 companies come out to quote on my system.



They ranged from one from HD, a local small company that has been around



for 40 years, to a larger regional company with the fancy new trucks.



Not one of them did the calculation and I can understand why. If it was



your business would you spend the time to do a full Manual J, which



is very involved and will take a lot of time, knowing



that with most customers you don't wind up winning the deal? I'm



not saying that isn't the best way to determine the right solution,



only that I don't see how it could work with todays costs of doing



business. In my case, I didn't care because I had the performance



of the existing eqpt to go by, which IMO is better than a paper calculation.







It seems reasonable to me to quote it with a couple levels of



eqpt and then do the manual J when the customer is actually ready



to do the deal. The cost diff in the eqpt isn't that much anyway.



That's how I would do it and it's kind of how at least some of the



companies did it. They never did bring up a Manual J though.



Agreed, especially since one of the companies has done three houses on my block (similare age and construction), and the other (which suggested almost exactly the same capacities) has been in business almost 50 years about two miles from me and has doubtless done many, many houses similar to mine. This stuff doesn't come in THAT many different sizes, does it?

Typically split systems start at 1.5 tons and go up in .5 ton increments to 3 tones and then in one ton increments from there. Occasionally you might see .5 ton increments further up than 3.