Message-ID: <0Z8EgCu00j850fbSI5@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 89 14:01:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert.Sansom@CS.CMU.EDU
To: Harry.Bovik@CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Whole House Air Conditioning
Sender:  rds@N.SP.CS.CMU.EDU

Harry,
  here's some advice I've gathered about whole house air conditioning
(WHAC).

>From other people:

> 15-Jun-89 Re: Air Conditioning Mary.Jo.Dowling@IUS2.CS. (180)
>
> Avoid Economy Heating and Air Conditioning in Milvale. To make a long
> story short. We are about to file a law suite against them. They are
> pond scum.

> 14-Jun-89 Re: Air Conditioning Angela.Hickman@ML.RI.CMU (261)
>
> We just had Chuck Willis put in central air in our house.  The bid was
> much lower than Admiral.  The crew they sent out seemed very good.  I
> can't say much about dependability seeing as how we've just had it for
> a day and a half.
>
> We got a Bryant which is the same as our furnace.  We got a 2.5 ton
> unit and a 3 ton coil.  Bryant is owned by the same people as Carrier
> which is a leading brand.  The system seems totally quiet to me.  We
> put the unit itself outside; I don't know if that makes a difference.

> 13-Jun-89 Re: Air Conditioning "M. Satyanarayanan"@andr (640)
>
> You are braver than I am, Robert.  My house has hot-water heating too,
>and I could not bear the thought of having it fully ripped up for the
> duct work needed for w-h-a-c.  I ended up getting two room units and
> having them mounted in the wall -- did involve some ripping up of the
> wall, but it is much more aesthetic and less inefficient (in terms
> of heat loss) than window mounting.
> 
> I just got this done (yesterday!) and it seems to work well in terms of
> cooling.  Can't say if the peak heat will overwhelm it.
>
> p.s Cost me $325 to install both of them.  The units were $450 (10K
BTU)
>   and $380 (7K BTU).

My own experiences:
  My house has hot-water heating so to put in WHAC  requires putting in
a lot of duct-work as well as the cooling unit.  I got quotes from
several firms.  The quotes varied a lot in price and also in the size of
unit that was specified.  I thought better of the people who went around
my house measuring room and window sizes and then plugged the numbers
into some little PC to come up with the unit size.
  I went with a firm called 'Bowman Heating & Air Conditioning' because
Mr Bowman seemed to have the best ideas about how to install a system in
our house.  However I wasn't too happy their standard of work.  The
system works OK but they made a big mess in our house.  Then Bowman sent
a plasterer to patch up some holes in our ceiling and the plasterer did
a lousy job and stole some of my tools at the same time.
  One thing I should mention is that when someone puts in a system you
should make sure that the system is quiet INSIDE the house.  In
particular, we have some vents coming directly off the main supply duct
and the noise of air rushing through these vents is quiet loud because
they are relatively close to the blower itself.  I think that no vents
should come directly off the main duct; only off secondary ducts.
  One firm that has been consistently recommended is L.J. Comer.  I
would have used them except that the size of unit that they specified
was significantly larger (and therefore more expensive) than the untils
specified by the other contractors.

		- Robert Sansom