Pellet heads!! What's up today?

We just got the Mitsubishi mini splits, heat and ac. We own a ranch style house, so two heads take care of the whole area. The pellet stove is downstairs heat, and warms the floors upstairs. So far so good, quiet, easy to control, efficient. Just waiting now to get an electric hot water heater, then I can say goodbye to the oil man.

 

Mine is the Fujitsu. He did all the paperwork. I only had to sign for the purchase and hand him his check.

 

My mistake on thinking you got the other brand.

 

37F this morning at 6am. Another gusty day, winds out of the NW. Weird seeing wind chill reports this late in the year. Tonite supposed to be the last mid-30's windy night. Forecast looks like 60's for the next 7-8 days. Maybe now I can shut the P43 down for the season.

sam

 

That's OK, To be honest with you, I have to look at the paperwork in my desk to recall just what brand I do have. Worst part is by next week, I'll have to look it up again if the subject comes up. Could be I told you the wrong brand when we first discussed it. As I recall, I was looking at different brands when I was in the shopping phase.
Thanks goodness for the computer. I make files and scan everything in. When I want something, I can do a search and up it comes. I back everything up to the cloud.
Getting back to the mini split. Many of my friends and acquaintances now have them. Maine's rebate program is a huge incentive to buying them. Not one of my friends have voiced regrets getting them. In fact, some have put in second units. Even with the huge jump in the cost of electricity, they still are the second best best for heat, with wood coming in first. For cooling, they are first.
Have you decided on a replacement storage/garage? I know the prices of everything continues to skyrocket. My son is putting up a huge garage. He is a contractor, and his mills his own lumber right off his property. Those portable saw mills are slick.

 

Garage has been placed on the back burner. Since I'm WFH permanently, I just can't justify the stupid prices to keep from having to to clear snow/ice/frost one or twice a week during winter. Especially now that I'm down to one vehicle and can store more than a ton of pellets in my under-house garage. Not saying never, just not pursuing it at the moment. I did get my property surveyed so if I ever get back to that, I've got everything I need for the town to apply for a variance.

Right now I'm pursuing putting in solar. Just had the third company come out yesterday and waiting for their quote. It all really depends on the attic inspection - if the roof is in good enough shape, I will do it. My house isn't ideally situated and will require a few more panels than a perfect situation, but having a pretty flat roof does help. NH has a really good net-metering plan that is in effect until 2040. With the federal tax credits in effect, now is the time to do it.

 

I am going on my 5th year with a Fujitsu hyper system at my place in Maine. I have a 1200sf Chalet with loft. There is an 18k btu unit downstairs and a 9k unit upstairs. The heat is very good although I’m not here much in the winter. The AC is exceptional. The front of my place is all glass and when the afternoon sun gets going it has no trouble keeping me cool. I’d post some pics of my view of the lake but then you’d all be jealous…..

 

Aw, post some pics, we can take it. .. (Been many years since I've seen the lakes of Maine.)

 

Yesterday was the first short sleeve weather day. The top temp was 62* with a strong sun, few clouds and the wind wasn't blowing 40 mph (still had a stiff breeze, but not as bad as it has been the last couple of weeks). Today the breeze is supposed to be mild, with slightly warmer temps

 

Enjoy the day B!

 

Stoves shut down this afternoon.....Was 75F in here a bit ago.

More crappy weather tomorrow though.

Buttttttttttttttttttttt....The warm weather is coming.

Reading about the folks here that have the mini splits got me to thinking about our AC system.

It is 28 years old now and I am starting to get nervous ....

The weather the other day was so so.....I decided to flip on the AC for a first of the season test run.

It fired right up, Condenser fan and compressor went right to work....

Within a few minutes the air out the vents was getting cold.

A bit too cold outside to really be running it.

The past few seasons have seen the air temperature at the vents climbing up a bit.

Used to run 52 F at the vents.....That was several years ago....Now it is at 56-58 F

Likely it needs a little bit of Refrigerant added.....This system has the quick connects and they have O RING seals.....They can leak a bit.

The low pressure line at the A coil shows a tiny bit of oil weeping....Yup...little leak.

I will get the local fella that has the AC tools to stop by and top it up.

I installed this system myself back in May of 1994.....Now ya need all the EPA certifications to buy any of the refrigerant or parts....

Much less hassle to let the local HVAC dude give the system a squirt....

I want to get one more season out of this old girl and then replace the Outdoor unit (Condenser) with a new R410A 4 ton unit.....I have a fresh A coil that fits this old air handler (Took an act of gawd to find the right one)

The air handler was rated for a 2-1/2 to 3 ton max

My mentor in the AC field helped me do the install ALL THEM YEARS AGO and showed me a few secrets to make the 4 ton coil work.
Normally they say the air from the vents should be 14-20 F below inlet air temp...
This old girl gave us 56F out the vents last summer when it was 109 F outdoors for a week and when it was only 85-90 F the vent temps could drop to 52/55 F

28 years....must have been OK

The only real issue is the condensate drain pan is badly rotted (Metal pan)
New ones are plastic.
I have patched that thing for the last 10 years with Goop.....Time to call it enough.....

The new coil has a plastic pan.

I do not want to install the new coil in the old R22 system.....Be better to save it and install the new R410A Unit next season....
Bet me the new stuff won't last 28 years......

Ah yess....the good old days...

 

When I was looking at mini-splits, I asked for consults on updating the old A/C that was installed in this house when it was built in 1960. I had never run it as it was locked out at the electrical junction when I bought the house and figured it would cost a ton of money even if it did work - and until the old willow tree on the south side of the house had to come down, I really didn't need it (didn't hurt that I was away from home 12-15 hours a day)

Companies told me it would cost as much, if not more to update the existing system as to put in the mini split. Some companies wouldn't even touch it. Mini split would be more efficient to run anyway, so there was no indecision on my part.

 

An AC system that old would certainly be a parts orphan, and having it locked out probably meant it had issues...

 

I've started looking into ducted airsource heat pumps. Effectively a mini split but without the split. Takes the space of my furnace and AC coil since I have forced air, and I use my existing duct work in the same as I would now for heat or AC when not using the pellet stove. My oil furnace is over 20 years old and my AC is 16 this year.

 

1st company is quoting the setup I anticipated. 30-36K single unit outside. 3 air handlers-1 16-18K BTU for the 1st floor and 2 6K upstairs bedrooms.

No formal quote yet but est about $12K for Mitsubishi (not the high end unit that heats down to -10 deg). Says no significant rebates. WTH

2nd company coming in next Monday

 

Unfortunately the state legislature did not automatically fund the program this year (okay, the funding is partially thru electric costs to customers, so they may have chosen not to add even more to the large increase over the last 6 months or so). They supposedly did a partial funding not too long ago - but you gotta wait in line behind those that have already applied. Once the money runs out, then they may add a little more, but once again you are in line. Fed rebates are 10% to a max of $300 (if I remember correctly - and varies by year) - and that depends on other factors such as if you have used energy efficiency credits previously (my fed credit on 6k came out to $230).

Technically I should qualify for around $1,000 state rebate for a solar system, but was told not to count on it, so it isn't even in my cost calculation. So far, the feds treat solar different from energy efficiency, so the cap on previous credits doesn't apply.

Get quotes from smaller local companies (if you haven't already). Also, ask for quotes for other brands (each installer gave me two quotes). I know prices have gone up, so that may be reasonable for all I know - but maybe not. I can tell you that last year, the quote for a 2 zone Mitsubishi, 20k non-hyper heat (5*), with 12k and 6k heads came out to $6500. For Fujitsu, a 24k hyperion (down to 5*) system with a 15k head and 12k head came out to the same price.

 

Yesterdays visit was a small local comoany that is Mitsubishi Diamond certified which gets better warranty.

Spoke to my brother who had a 2 zone (18K and 6K) 30K btu Mitsubishi Hyper Heat installed 2 years ago and his was almost 10K back then-but that included extra electrical work than just the mini split system so figure about 9K. He id not go with the lowest quote but the comoany was top notch. His company doesn't cover my area.

I did reach out to another company last night that is both Mitsubishi and Fujitsu. Not sure if they service my area from Bedford though.

Al Terry Co is coming in this Monday.

 

No dice on LeBlanc in Bedford.

Tried another small local company (Mitsubishi Diamond) but they are into mid June for walk thru and quote would be 2 weeks after that....nope

May be just the two quotes