Monthly Archives: February 2012

It sure was a good run.  Who would have thought the ancient mechanical equipment in the Locustpointrowhouse would have lasted so long?  The AC unit fought valiantly through 3 recharges, each one lasting less time.  The final crescendo of its cooling life coming somewhere in early September 2011 when I received a $425 BGE bill.  It fought hard to deliver the 74 degree temperatures I begged it to maintain in its final summer, slowly and unassumingly “dying” in its sleep some time during a cool stretch in September.

A period of unconditioned air followed, with temperatures inside the house bordering on 80 degrees until I was able to get home from work and open some windows.  Thankfully a cooler, breezier fall enabled our survival.  At some point I purchased a window unit for the room my brother had been living in, since his room seemed to get the hottest…likely because it faces the alley where there is less air circulation.

Time rolled on and before I knew it “winter” was upon us and I finally had to turn the heat on.   Old faithful toughed it out and fired up again and again, like the behemoth from Home Alone.

One Friday evening in late January I noticed that the house was down to around 64 degrees and I hadn’t heard the heat come on for some time.  The thermostat was set to 67 but the unit wasn’t kicking on.  I went down to the basement and heard an annoying repeated clicking noise.  Great.  I took the cover off the side of the unit and saw a small arch of electricity sparking on what looked like the igniter.   I called my Dad and with a little internet research we determined that I’d try and “scrape” or sand down the igniter as corrosion build-up may have been keeping the thing from being able to light properly.  Thankfully this worked (I had to do it two other times) but it kept the heat running and made the search for new equipment a little less frantic.

Beth and I talked it all over and we decided to start getting some bids.  Of course I missed the Obama-bailout-HVACcredit-fiesta that was last year or the year before or whatever.  I initially decided to get three quotes from larger companies and three from smaller companies, but after just three bids, we had a verdict.  I contacted three companies, one large, one medium, and one smaller.  The larger and smaller company’s numbers were almost identical.  The middle company, Clean Air (http://www.cleanairhvac.com/) blew the other two away.  Their price was almost $2,000 less.  (If you want to talk exact prices, contact me) Having worked with them during my time in Commercial Real Estate, I really didn’t have any doubts in my mind.  Their scope was the same as the others, they were providing brand name units (Carrier), and they could start work on a Monday I had off.

I can not say enough good things about the guys at Clean Air.  They helped me pass final inspections when I was still in the renovation phase after I got screwed by my original HVAC contractor.  They diagnosed and kept working my  POS AC unit the first summer it broke down.  Their salesman (Jim) was polite, not pushy, and thorough.   I was thrilled they were the low bidder and work started on February 6th and went off without a hitch.  I haven’t had a chance to take final pictures yet, but here are some shots in progress:

Old furnace disconnected:

Sadly there was nothing cool in the pile of filthy left behind.  I found a die from an unknown boardgame or something.  I’ll pretend it was to something cool from 100 yrs ago.

Here’s the new furnace still in the packaging:

And lets not forget outside:

(excuse my sprayfoam job, it was in haste to keep snow/rain from getting in a large gap in the block.  It will get cleaned up when I add the fence on this side.

All gone:

The installers said the damn thing was so heavy that after trying to be gentle with it they ended up just dropping it onto the alley behind my garage and picking up the pieces.   I’ll have some final pics coming soon.

Some fun facts I learned during the bidding process:

1.  The ancient Montgomery Ward furnace I replaced ran on something like 140,000 btu’s – the new unit runs on approximately 66,000.

2. The equally ancient AC unit, labeled Montgomery Ward, was an original Rheem unit which was merely labeled and sold through Montgomery Ward.  It was the equivalent of 6 seers – the new unit is a 13 seer unit.

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Details on the system we had installed:

1. Carrier Gas Furnace – 80% efficiency furnace

2. Carrier Air Conditioner – 2 ton, 13 seer

3. Re-use programmable thermostat

4. Re-use existing ductwork (done during my gut in 2009-2010) and adapt supply/return drops to fit new unit and add filter box.

5. Add condensate pump.

6. New line-set

7.  New electrical disconnect.

8. Keep AC unit on roof of garage, add pad on top of existing platform.

9.  1 1/2 days to complete the job.

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I’ll put some final pictures up soon.

I should have more project info up coming as well.   I think I am going to build the fence on the other side of my patio this weekend as my elderly neighbor seems to no longer be living there.  Don’t need the place going up for sale and getting a new neighbor who would fight me on the fence.