So, the house / heater is 45 years old... AC was 38 and we started getting "nervous" and didn't want to get "stuck" with a broken unit at a bad time, and thought, why not, somebody needs work around the Xmas holidays!!!
Went to Homeadvisor.com and asked for a list of contractors, got a wide variety of bids, and of various makes... After my time with IBM, I wanted to get a high volume product with good reliability ratings. If you make a bunch of'm, you learn quick and my way of thinking was I had a chance for a better quality product... Learn and fix during manufacturing... Carrier fit the bill!
Went with Bell Brothers and it turned out to be a good choice, friendly folks that knew what they were doing, and the price looked to be good, and they promised no upside surprises!!!
The AC unit, old Sears and only problem I ever had was the main contactor. Early on, the parts folks gave me an upgrade after the 3rd call, and went many years before I had to clean it up.
The old Rheem heater that came with the house, it still had a pilot light, always bothered me that it was burning all the time!!! GBG Kept waiting for it to burn out!!!
And the thermostat that came with the 38 year old AC. I discovered a bug in it, tighten the face plate mounting screws and the heater would run away!!! NOT good... so the entire system was junk!!!
The installers for Bell brothers. The entire company was being combined under Bell Bros. All in flux and they didn't even have business cards yet!!
Caught them sliding the AC unit in place on the plastic mounting base, I think it was to help lower noise levels..
The old heater ready to come out....
New digital thermostat, that took some learning!! Dang thing was running before my Wake Up time... typed to tech support and they said it had a setting to get the house up to temp before the wake up time, well I found that damn thing and shut it off!!! Trying to tweak the low/over nite setting to minimize running during the evening... I may use it later when I get things "schmoo'd" out!!
Looks like I have some cleanup/touchup to do...
To the rear, where my light was, just below the frame, is where "asbestos???!!!" was discovered!! Not that it means anything, but that stuff was outlawed 3 years before this house was built!!!! _$%^$%}($%_ Cost me a week with no heat middle of winter!!!!! They couldn't find a HAZMAT crew working... They brought me 3 space heaters that saved the day!!!
Out with the old....
They scraped a small piece of tape off, cleaned the duct and painted over it.. $900 bucks!!!!!!!!!! If I had to pay for it, methinks there would've been a visit to small claims court!!!! Geez.... And it was behind and below the heater!!!!
In with the new.....
... lift and insert!!!
There was another piece on top, the AC cooling unit...
Lookin' good!!!
That long copper pipe needed to be attached... cooling unit installed...
Torch to the ready!!!
Those heaters saved the day!!! Used the gas burners and oven in the AM to get the temps up, but they held it just fine!!
Time to charge the AC!
Button up the heater and done!!! It runs quiet and moves the air!!! It runs a lot, but using small amounts of fuel to maintain the house.... VERY comfortable now!!! The digital thermostat will let you control many things... temp swings and how far, etc...
Just think of all the savings!!! AND it only cost $11,000.... sigh...
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