Central air conditioning

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

^ I was anti-AC until kids. Opening the window at 7pm does dick all, and they don't recover as well from the ignorant motorcycles driving by as loudly as possible throughout the summer.

I moved into a new place in February. No AC.

I thought opening windows to catch a draft would work fine. Nope.

Yesterday with all the windows open and a few fans going for most of the day, from 5PM to midnight, it was 28.5C per the thermostat upstairs. At midnight, it was at 28C. 1:30AM, 27.5C.

I piled the family into the family van at 8:30PM and went for a drive to enjoy AC in the van it was that choking hot and so my son could cool off and fall asleep.

I think it's too late to do AC this year, so I'm going to get a really powerful air mover and see if that works to drop the temps before bed by pushing the hot air out. I'm also thinking of doing a high efficiency furnace (1980s original) at the same time as AC to hopefully save a lot on labour.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I moved into a new place in February. No AC.

I thought opening windows to catch a draft would work fine. Nope.

Yesterday with all the windows open and a few fans going for most of the day, from 5PM to midnight, it was 28.5C per the thermostat upstairs. At midnight, it was at 28C. 1:30AM, 27.5C.

I piled the family into the family van at 8:30PM and went for a drive to enjoy AC in the van it was that choking hot and so my son could cool off and fall asleep.

I think it's too late to do AC this year, so I'm going to get a really powerful air mover and see if that works to drop the temps before bed by pushing the hot air out. I'm also thinking of doing a high efficiency furnace (1980s original) at the same time as AC to hopefully save a lot on labour.

Try grabbing a big box fan and mounting it over your (open) attic hatch. Thought someone on CP suggested that once and it seemed like a novel idea since it would throw huge volumes of hot air out of your house, and also do the same for the attic, in case it is staying hot as well.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I moved into a new place in February. No AC.

I thought opening windows to catch a draft would work fine. Nope.

Yesterday with all the windows open and a few fans going for most of the day, from 5PM to midnight, it was 28.5C per the thermostat upstairs. At midnight, it was at 28C. 1:30AM, 27.5C.

I piled the family into the family van at 8:30PM and went for a drive to enjoy AC in the van it was that choking hot and so my son could cool off and fall asleep.

I think it's too late to do AC this year, so I'm going to get a really powerful air mover and see if that works to drop the temps before bed by pushing the hot air out. I'm also thinking of doing a high efficiency furnace (1980s original) at the same time as AC to hopefully save a lot on labour.

Last night was kind of exceptional in that the temperatures didn't drop at the rate they typically do during the evening in Calgary. Opening your windows at 5pm when it's still 31C just lets that hot air in... Heck, my phone said it was still 25C out at 10PM.

[Sliver]

My house felt like walking into a beer cooler last night. I had to go outside to warm up for a bit.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by you&me

Last night was kind of exceptional in that the temperatures didn't drop at the rate they typically do during the evening in Calgary. Opening your windows at 5pm when it's still 31C just lets that hot air in... Heck, my phone said it was still 25C out at 10PM.

Usually the temps can drop to around 25C by midnight ish, but last night I guess there just wasn't a good breeze.

The reason why I opened the windows upstairs was because the main floor thermostat was showing 29.5C (hotter than the 28C posted outside and hotter than the upstairs for some odd reason). Usually for other days, it works reasonably well. Yesterday it didn't work at all. Luckily, my family has the option to flee into a nice cool basement.

[rohara66]

Last night was unbearably hot without A/C.



We usually open all our windows around 8-8:30 when the outside temp gets below out indoor temp but that didn't happen last night at all. Lame. Was so hot inside (25c) and super hot outside (28c) late into the night.



And probably pushes us over the edge to finally get a/c... but probably too late to do it this year as others have said.


Overnight lows this week are not low at all... so the house will never cool down hah. Hoping for some rain to help out.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by rohara66

Last night was unbearably hot without A/C.

We usually open all our windows around 8-8:30 when the outside temp gets below out indoor temp but that didn't happen last night at all. Lame. Was so hot inside (25c) and super hot outside (28c) late into the night.

And probably pushes us over the edge to finally get a/c... but probably too late to do it this year as others have said.

Overnight lows this week are not low at all... so the house will never cool down hah. Hoping for some rain to help out.

If the air mover doesn't work, I might bite the bullet for a portable AC unit for $350-500. Wife is giving birth in a few weeks so I'd rather she have a nicer recovery and I don't think she'll be able to go up and down the stairs to the basement.

The rest of the family can swelter.

My wife kept complaining for years that AC isn't necessary in general and only necessary in our previous townhouse because it was positioned in a way that couldn't catch a breeze. After the last few weeks in our new home, she's retracted that opinion completely and basically been asking non-stop when we can have it installed.

[Flames0910]

I've always been in the "you don't need AC in Calgary" camp, but that's based on being in an office all day and just home for the evenings. With working from home being the new normal, I picked up a portable AC at the start of summer and have been glad to have it.

Being able to move it to the bedroom at night has also been really nice.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

I've always been in the "you don't need AC in Calgary" camp

[Boblobla]

I got it last year and I will never again not have AC.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

I got it last year and I will never again not have AC.

I'm in the same boat. Bit the bullet last year and got AC, and boy am I glad to have it this year, especially with working from home. I just set it to 21 degrees, and I'm pretty much comfortable all the time in my house.

[Hemi-Cuda]

What's the ballpark on central AC pricing for a standard 2-level house with basement?

[Envitro]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

What's the ballpark on central AC pricing for a standard 2-level house with basement?

You're probably looking at somewhere between $4000-5000 installed

[The Yen Man]

I paid $3,300 installed for mine. But then, my house is smaller (1800sqft).

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

What's the ballpark on central AC pricing for a standard 2-level house with basement?

What's the sq ft?

From what I recall when I first installed AC, the guy said to avoid over working your AC, you're looking at around .5 ton per 600 sq ft and you can exclude the basement sq footage in that calc as well. So I got a 2.5 ton unit for a townhouse with 1400 sq ft.

My neighbor had a 1.5 ton in a similar sized townhouse unit a few months before me and while smaller, it was always very loud (overworked perhaps?) and it was leaking some fluid right from the get go. My HVAC guy hopped over and asked if he needed repairs.

A friend I knew's brother in law did this stuff, gave me a good deal and I paid around $3,600 for a 2.5 ton 16 seer Goodman unit including install into a finished basement (lots of extra labour) and a few other minor HVAC things. I'm guessing the numbers are higher right now due to Covid, but I can't imagine it being far worse than $4.5K for the same thing right now? (I could be wrong though)

My new place is twice the space, so basically I'd be looking at dual 2.5 ton units and I'm thinking I might as well do the humidifiers and high efficiency furnaces at the same time. Unfortunately the guy who did my HVAC seems to have left town. Otherwise, I'd hire him for this project. He wasn't cheapest, but very honest and very competitive to the other quotes I got.

[MoneyGuy]

Do none of you have a basement bedroom you can retreat to?

[lazypucker]

When we moved to a house in 2018, it already has an AC unit installed. We turned it on once to test if it was functioning when we first moved in but we haven't use it at all in 2018 or 2019. It was only this past Monday that we turned the AC on for the first time. I supposed it is a combination of hot weather and working from home.

By the way, what kind of energy costs are we talking about with turning on the AC at home?

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Do none of you have a basement bedroom you can retreat to?

I live in an apartment. Basement is just a parkade (and the wifi sucks!).

[Fuzz]

My office and media room are in the basement(ok, they are the same room), so I spend a lot of time down here! It's a comfortable 20 degrees most of the time. Having a bungalow means not needing A/C that badly. Maybe 5 days a year it would be useful.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

When we moved to a house in 2018, it already has an AC unit installed. We turned it on once to test if it was functioning when we first moved in but we haven't use it at all in 2018 or 2019. It was only this past Monday that we turned the AC on for the first time. I supposed it is a combination of hot weather and working from home.

By the way, what kind of energy costs are we talking about with turning on the AC at home?

With a pregnant wife at the time, I specifically remember the end of summer in 2018 was hot and SMOKEY... A/C was a god-send... I can't believe you didn't find it useful that summer, especially with with all the smoke.