our (1921) foursquare

The AC contractor was able to spend a half day here today. And he will be back for a short time tomorrow as well.

I got a call at work saying that Brian would be over to start work on the line set in about twenty minutes. I decided to take an early lunch and headed home. By the time I arrived he had let himself in (Melissa and Andrew sleeping on the couch and Matthew napping) and was up stairs scoping out how to get the lineset up. I explained a bit of what I had done with the drain and where I would like things. I fixed lunch and let him do what he needed to do.

I got a call about 1530 from Melissa saying that there was cold air blowing in the house. :-)
This was great news! Now I just have to get that return duct in place with a filter so we can use the system. Im hoping to get the box contracted next week.

My Guinness is looking closer and closer :-)
Building the wall and moving the outlet will not be that difficult, i'm hoping.

Posted by kpf at 9:46 PM | Permalink

So its officially summer around North America. This was usually a day of big fun in AK .. hiking Flattop mountain, staying awake and watching the sun go down .. oh yea it didn't. Well not here in PA we are having our own fun.

Yesterday was actually the first day that the air-handler was turned on. Yep thats right! When I got home from work Matthew and I went around and pulled all 26 of the little plugs out of the tube terminations. This was great fun for Matthew being lifted up to the cieling to grab the little plugs.

So then we went ahead and switched the breaker to on downstairs. No sparks - good
Next we went to the attic and switched the disconnect switch I installed. No sparks - good
Then I had Melissa move the fan switch on the thermostat to the on position. Nothing!
We waited a bit then _AIR_ the fan started blowing and air was coming out of the tubes! :-)

I had actually forgotten about the 90 second delay on the fan being turned on and off. That was the reason for the wait before we felt air. The system was actually alot more quite than both Melissa and I expected. There was some noise in a few of the tubes but, overall we were impressed with the noise level. The actually unit is not that loud either. It will be quieted some once the return duct is installed.

Now we will wait for the lines to be run and the unit to be charged.

Posted by kpf at 7:02 PM | Permalink

• 26 runs
• attic wired w/switch
• outside wired w/disconnect
• thermostat wired
• drain almost in

I'm going to shower and bed its 12:14am I'm tired!

Posted by kpf at 12:10 AM | Permalink

Working like mad during the evenings this past week has had some nice results with the AC project. I am not finished by any means however, I am much much further along. I will tally up the run total again in this post as well as recap what is done :-)

The weather is getting hotter around here and you can really feel it when you are on the third floor in a knee-wall space. So here is a weekend update from the never ending project :-) Over this past weekend I was able to complete all the supply runs to the 2nd floor. I realized a few days back that I was actually going to come up about 6 feet short on supply duct. This leaves me with 25 out of the 26 required runs. Good enough for the charging of the system but probably not the best for a quiet, balanced system.

Current tally:
1. 1st floor - 11 (goal 11)
2. 2nd floor - 9 (goal 9)
3. 3rd floor - 5 (goal 6)
4. TOTAL 25 (goal 26)

I also made progress in other areas as well Thursday I pulled the wire for the condensing unit and installed the disconnect on the outside of the house. In that same day I also finished the remaining two supply runs to the 1st floor. Friday night I installed one supply into the 3rd floor and pulled the thermostat wire from the basement to the handler.

Saturday I got to work right away and installed three supply runs into the master bedroom. I also installed one more supply into the 3rd floor. During Matthews nap, I worked outside on leveling and placing the gravel and cement pad for the condensing unit. I can say I was pretty much drenched in sweat and attic yuck - all day. I was also able to finish routing the wires to the air handler and place the switch box. That left me with one final 3rd floor run to complete on Sunday. I started work Sunday at 0530 (got to beat the heat) and finished the 25th run in roughly 1.5 hours. I also had time to connect the wires into the air handler, all before coffee - (that is pretty scarry in itself).
In the afternoon on Sunday I opened the breaker box and installed two double pole breakers for the AC equipment and then closed things back up.

Things left to do:
1. drain line
2. complete wiring
3. place condenser
4. return air box?

Of course I am not finished but the Guinness is looking closer and closer. :-)

Posted by kpf at 8:39 PM | Permalink

So I've been working in the evenings lately. The plumber will be arriving early next week to do the line set. That means I have to have everything finished (save my return air stuff which I will just put a few filters over untill I get the actual unit in.

Last night I completed a 3rd floor run in my alotted roughly 2 hours. I did learn a valuable lesson in connecting the take off to the plenum. Alwase know where your joint is and how much it overlaps. I hit a joint piece of the plenum this is not a bad thing however it is a nightmare to get the clips for the take off to fit properly to achieve the tight seal. I I would have moved my drill over 1.5 inches I would have missed the joint. Oh well I dont think I'll be doing any more AC projects anyway.

Tonight I started to get into finishing off the last two runs to the 1st floor. I quickly realized this would take longer than my 2 hrs so I went back up to the 3rd floor to look for something to do. I settled on placing the last piece of plenum. This took up my 2 hours easily between the taping and sheet metal screws etc. However the plenum is now complete and ready for me to make the last few runs off.

Posted by kpf at 11:09 PM | Permalink

Ok for those of you who keep bugging me about the progress of the ever so slow AC install. This post will tally up floor by floor what is currently installed. I will only count runs that are capped off at both ends meaning connected to the plenum and finished on the delivery end.

Today I was able to...

Today I was able to get quite a bit done (I think). I made four new connections to the plenum and did some clean up work on some of the unfinished ducts.

In my latest delivery of AC equipment I got the "flex" return duct. This duct is not quite a flexable as expected. I think it will work - I guess we will see. Along with that I have been designing what I want the return air system to look like. I am going to have to get a special adapter made to use a standard grill / filter combination. I am in the process of sketching this up.

Ok so here is the long awaited official tally:
1. 1st Floor - 9 (goal 11)
2. 2nd Floor - 6 (goal 9,10)
3. 3rd Floor - 1 (goal 6)
4. TOTAL 16 (goal 26)

Looks like more work to me ... no Guinness yet

Posted by kpf at 10:57 PM | Permalink

I haven't entered an update lately on the huge project of outfitting this old house with AC. Too overwhelming I think.. Any way here is a quick update.

Memorial day weekend (saturday) was the last work day for my father-in-law. It was great having a helper along the start of this project. If for nothing else to stair at amazement of what to do next :-)

Ok.. So that weekend we pulled the last multi-person run down a closet tube to the first floor. All the 1st floor runs that needed a person on top and person on bottom are complete. The rest of that weekend I got two more runs down through the destroyed bathroom. That brings us up to this past weekend. I spent all day Saturday getting what I believe were the hardest runs in place. One went to the library the other went to the bay-window bathroom (cant wait till thats gone). Like I said that took all day to get the duct in place so I had to leave them just hanging there. I finished off the delivery end of those two last night.

Tonight I will get the moon room set up to re-drill the proper 4in holes. I originally made 3.5in before reading the correct section of the install docs.

Posted by kpf at 6:03 PM | Permalink