Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire AC is Out

...at the folks house. 70 year old Carrier system, which is a 3-phase system with a chill tower outside. Very efficient system and much cheaper to run than a new modern system. Flat coil needs to be replaced and the Condenser Barrel needs to be replaced. Problem is that the coil is not available and Carrier no longer has the schematics. Found several companies that build flat coils, but they are all 8 weeks or more out.

Had several HVAC companies come by to give us a quote on a new system. Prices ranged from $19K on the low end to over $50K - I ran those price gougers off and cussed them out for trying to take advantage of my 80 year old Mother and my 83 year old Dad.

Picked up $800.00 of portable evaporative coolers for the house las' yessirday and they don't work worth a schit. Thinking of getting several window units and somehow running a hose to the shower to drain the condensation. Not sure what else to do.

Repairing the old Carrier will take too long and won't guarantee that something else critical won't break. A new replacement system will be very expensive and won't last more than 10-15 years, b/c new HVAC stuff is pretty much crap.

& right in the middle of a terrible heat wave. The humidity here is fuggin' terrible. We're screwed.

Any and all ideas welcome. Thanks.

Reckon you already know.


Bite the bullet and get a new one.

Window air would have the drain outside.

Window units drain outside.
Look into mini-splits, DIY and reasonable.
Readily available.

Mini splits nowdays, the easiest and effective way to go!

That $19k on the low end isn't all that out of line considering they have to install a new type of system in an already built home.

Mini splits are getting popular around here.

it's a fairly big house - 4,000 sq. ft. Not sure mini splits would work.

The existing 3-phase, Carrier system is 7 1/2 tons.

Thanks.

It’s Texas. You really don’t have a choice. Suck it up and pay it or install a couple of mini splits and keep a few rooms cool while you have the coil made for the old system.

Yessir.

Just 'venting' I guess.

What are you getting for the $19000?

Obviously it would be condenser and evaporator system. Duct work etc. on a 4000 sf house would it be more than one condenser and evaporator? Gonna need something in the 7 ton range which would be 2/3.5 ton units if evenly split. Single story?

$19000 doesn’t seem unreasonable if EVERYTHING needs to be replaced. In fact I think it’s a pretty good price.

7 years ago replaced all duct work, new horizontal evaporate/ air handler( our old system was in a closet), new 5 ton condenser. Moved electrical box for unit to another outside wall. $6400. Of course this was a friend doing the work and I helped some.

American Standard.


Clyde

$19k is a right price.

Get a good quiet window unit for their bedroom, while they wait.

For that size home, I’m surprised they’re not talking about replacing it with 2 (or more) separate units.

Not advocating MrCool, but they are DIY and a couple of these will get you in the same cooling range as what is there currently. They are very efficient and reasonably simple to install. 2 of these will give you about the equiv. of 6 tons of cooling and some redundancy... The efficiency is very good on these units. If MrCool isn't ideal, there are a handful of fully DIY mini-split unit options. Most will require a vacuum pump, but the MrCool units and a couple of others don't require the lines to be pumped.

36000 BTU MrCool

Do they live in the whole house?
Just do the largest mini,and have them camp in the west wing.

If your humidity is high, they aren't worth anything. It's evaporation that makes them work and if it's damp, nothing evaporates. It just gets muggier. The lower the humidity, the better. With window units, keep the windows on the opposite side open so the air blows through. I haven't used a portable in 50 years but I don't recall them working very well. A swamper needs to pull air in from outside and blow it out the other side. Just setting in the room won't do much.

I'm sure I'll catch hell..... sell the 4k square foot house. Lotta house for a couple in their eighties.

Thanks fellers. House won't be sold until Dad passes - won't be too long now.

The windows in the house are not conducive to window units. Split systems might work for a room or two, but for the cost of 2 of them, we're half-way to a new system.

The quote is for 2 American Standard 4 ton twinned gas furnaces w/ 160,000 BTUs (existing system has a boiler), 2 American Standard evaporator coils and one 7.5 ton Amer. Std. condenser. Includes building a platform for the the furnaces, 2 filter bases, a run of 100' 1.5" and 1/2" copper line sets, flu pipe, & 30 lbs of 410A. Has a 10 year parts warranty on furnaces and evaporator coils, 5 year compressor warranty and a 2 yr. labor warranty.

^^^^^^^^^^,its too hot to fo.^^^^^^^^^^^good luck^^^^^^^^^^ haul ass^^^^^^^^^^^^
It's really smokin out there today,till Oct!!!!

Don't rub it in, ya' bastage

Bingo. Swamp coolers only work in places that don't really need AC.