Finally! - Rain!

[red-beard]

Rain! Yeah!

[shadowjack1]

How long has it been since you guys got any rain. I know its been a while. Hope you get as mch as you need.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I'd gladly send you some of ours! It's been very rainy as of late (but thankfully still warm, so I'm fine with it). I do prefer hot, sunny and dry weather though given a choice. I'm one of those oddballs who wouldn't mind Phoenix or Tuscon in the summer all that much.

[masraum]

Actually, we've begun to get it every once in a while for the last monthish. I got an inch at about 3am a couple of weeks back.

At my house, I've gotten .15" in the last hour or so.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

I'm one of those oddballs who wouldn't mind Phoenix or Tuscon in the summer all that much.

That's what I thought until I visited. Based on my couple of days in Phoenix, and a lifetime of hot, humid locations, I feel qualified in saying that 95 and humid sucks, but so does 120 and dry.

[Aurel]

Originally Posted by masraum

That's what I thought until I visited. Based on my couple of days in Phoenix, and a lifetime of hot, humid locations, I feel qualified in saying that 95 and humid sucks, but so does 120 and dry.

Best is 95 and dry. New Mexico baby!

[mattdavis11]

You think it's been bad there, it's worse in Austin, but I won't *****. I spent some time out in Odessa earlier in July, it's really bad. The radar showed scattered showers out west today, but the locals said they'd had no appreciable rain in over a year.

There is no public water supply for the city of Goldthwaite, Texas. Well or nothing. That's damn near the geographical center of the state, and the Colorado river is bone dry. 20 miles away, plenty of water, the springs in and around San Saba fill the river up. There is no transfer at the moment.

[masraum]

I think we're about up to 9" at my house. I've done very little watering this year. I water when stuff looks just about dead. I suspect I've got some plants that won't come back, but we could be in a lot worse situation.

What I'm most excited about at the moment is the nice cool weekend that we're supposd to have with lows in the 60s and highs in the mid to low 80s.

[mattdavis11]

The worst drought since records began in 1895 is what I hear. I went to lake Travis (Colorado River) the other day, I couldn't believe it. I knew all ramps were closed, but oh my. I'll guess it's 60 feet lower than full. For those that don't know, Lake Travis is a 60'ish mile long portion of the river with enormous depths, some areas have 100ft right now, but this drought definitely leaves a huge scar.

One local I talked with the other day, said he knew of six cars being found nearby.

I'll take whatever climate change we can get, so long as it stays below 100.

[red-beard]

The storms in the afternoon dropped about 1/2". In general, we're about 20+ inches short this year. We've had maybe 2" since February. And the dry has made the temps higher.

I replaced my A/C condensors and so did some research to see the effect of the change. Part of my research was to calculate before and after effect on electric usage. I did a regression analysis of degree days per day vs. electric usage per day, before and after.

Something obvious thing showed up in the data. In August 2011 required 43% more cooling than 2010!

FWIW, changing the first A/C unit back in June reduced my cooling energy usage by 36%. I haven't had a full month with the second unit yet, I'm expecting that, combined, the reduction in cooling energy usage will be 50-70%. Before the change, cooling was about 50% of my energy usage over the entire year. I'm expecting it to drop to between 23%-33% of my usage. Even at $0.08/kwh, the payback should be aboout 2 years.

The aluminum fins on the condensors had started oxidizing and were turning to dust.

[porsche4life]

Rain? Wtf is that?

[mattdavis11]

Just curious, James, did you replace with new OE parts, or move to a condenser that has more surface area to cool down the refrigerant? I'm not even sure they make them for home a/c, but most automobiles have gone to a micro-tube design for more surface area. Tube and fin condensers struggled this summer, unless there were supplemental cooling fans.

[mattdavis11]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Rain? Wtf is that?

No doubt. Kind of funny when mentioned about snow in our region, not so much when there's no rain.

Cattle are moving to the slaughter house left and right. They can't be fed open range. I bought 9 boneless ribeye roasts @ $8.00 per lb, USDA prime, back the first of Sept. Average was around 12 lbs per.

The climate forced an overloaded supply, pushing a sale. They were going to die either way.

[red-beard]

My system is R22 based. I stuck with R22 to reduce installation costs. The cost vs. reward on just replacing the condensors was quite good. Going to a moderaely more efficient (15-16 SEER), requiring changing the coolant, the condensor and the evaporator would have been about double. Going to a high efficiency (18+ SEER) would have been 4 times the cost. The very small extra savings would have taken a very long time to payoff.

These are standard copper coil with aluminum fin condensors. I did buy the best model, RHEEM, in the class. They have both more cooling surface area and better protection for the coils/fins.

[stomachmonkey]

Just had some nasty stuff move thru here. Was at a night soccer game with the boy and they called it right after half time. Good for our team as it goes in a s a tie and we were down 5-0.

Driving home saw at least a dozen lightning strikes hit ground.

Lost power for a bit.

Like typical TX weather it was biblical.

[masraum]

I ended up getting .18", and I'm very happy about it.

[Tobra]

About time

[mattdavis11]

Originally Posted by red-beard

My system is R22 based. I stuck with R22 to reduce installation costs. The cost vs. reward on just replacing the condensors was quite good. Going to a moderaely more efficient (15-16 SEER), requiring changing the coolant, the condensor and the evaporator would have been about double. Going to a high efficiency (18+ SEER) would have been 4 times the cost. The very small extra savings would have taken a very long time to payoff.

These are standard copper coil with aluminum fin condensors. I did buy the best model, RHEEM, in the class. They have both more cooling surface area and better protection for the coils/fins.

The unit was replaced, you had me thinking delta T by replacing the condenser coils, leaving the compressor alone. The dual compressor units do cost a lot more, but they will pay off eventually.

Hopefully more rain comes soon.

[slow&rusty]

Got a solid 0.25-in (if not more) in Jersey Village. Roads were a nightmare until 7pm on the Beltway going home..people forget how to drive in the stuff...sheesh.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

The unit was replaced, you had me thinking delta T by replacing the condenser coils, leaving the compressor alone. The dual compressor units do cost a lot more, but they will pay off eventually.

My new units are 13 SEER unit. The dual compressor units are 16-21 SEER. They will use 19-39% less energy. But the installed cost for 2 units will be around $15-20K. You have to replace not only the condensor, evaporator and entire air-handler, but also install new controls which work with the 2 stage compressors. The savings on a 21 SEER unit would be about $328 per year over the 13 SEER unit.

The best I could do without replacing the air handler and evaporator was 15 SEER. This could have saved 13%, but would have cost about $1000 more per unit. The savings? About $115 per year.

Even if you just look at the delta, $12K-17K, the extra savings per year of 21 SEER over 13 will take 25+ years, or longer than the life of the unit. If I lived someplace where electricty was $0.30/kWh, it would be a different story: 7 year pay back.

I amlooking to install a separate unit for our master bedroom. I found a 15 SEER 1.5 ton RHEEM R410A for under $1900. I should be able to get it installed for around $1K. This will allow us to run the bedroom as a separate zone from the rest of the house. I like it cold in the bedroom at night! But I also like the idea of having a small unit which my generator can handle, in case we have a lengthy power outage. The savings will not pay for the unit.