How old is your heat pump?

Lankford said:
R-454b has an ignition temp above 900 degrees. I don’t really see that being an issue.
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Understood. See also Data Center Guy, I.E. Computer Geek.
 
justjeepin86 said:
Buy one online and do it yourself. Have a guy hook up the lines and charge it. That's what I'm gonna do. My mil just paid 15k for one,for a 1200sf 1 level, but I think she got hosed.

I'm looking here. A buddy went this route and replaced his for about 5k. He had a 23k quote, which was a little high.


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I came here to say the same thing. A good friend of mine just did his house himself, two units, and after having the "professional" do his part my friend was out of pocket maybe $10k
 
RatLabGuy said:
I can feel that disc on the power meter spinning for hours in my bones. I'm sure my Emporia app (thanks again @kaiser715 ) could tell me exactly what it costs to run all day just to keep the house at 76 but I don't even want to know....
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You jinxed me. Haven't even thought about the Emporia in a while. Then, tonight I get an alert from it. Septic pump again. Usually averages 0.15kw per day. The alarm was for Tuesday 17.5kw, and Wednesday 20.5kw. Hopefully it's not the $2k pump again.



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RatLabGuy said:
This is the battle I keep facing.
I keep a box of spare parts on hand, all the usual suspects listed previously, which cumulatively cost less than $100 to have just sitting and at this point I know exactly how to change everything.

However at this point its the terrible efficiency thats killing me. I can feel that disc on the power meter spinning for hours in my bones. I'm sure my Emporia app (thanks again @kaiser715 ) could tell me exactly what it costs to run all day just to keep the house at 76 but I don't even want to know....


Chances are I will do something like that. Last Fall I met an HVAC guy that works for a company but has his own side gig selling / helping to DIYers and showing them how to do stuff. I could definitely see going through him for getting proper info on sizing, model etc and doing the hookup and charging.
But I suspect I'll need the condenser coil changed too and I don't know if I want to get into all that.
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Did you install the whole system in your panel? Looking in my panel, there isnt much room inside it for anything else.

I feel like I should do something similar to track power usage. I have updated heat pump and water heater in recent years without much change.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
updated heat pump and water heater in recent years without much change
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Not a huge change in energy usage between seer 10 and 14, even less between 13 and 14. And unless you went to a heat pump water heater, it's just a resistance element that's going to use 5000 watts every time it kicks on. Only way to save money there is to turn down the thermostat or use less HW
 
kaiser715 said:
You jinxed me. Haven't even thought about the Emporia in a while. Then, tonight I get an alert from it. Septic pump again. Usually averages 0.15kw per day. The alarm was for Tuesday 17.5kw, and Wednesday 20.5kw. Hopefully it's not the $2k pump again.



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Ten cent zip tie. Float switches were tied to a chunk of PVC. After we replaced the pump, I was going to go in and fix it right rather than the half ass way it was originally setup. Of course, it was never done. Zip tie holding the coiled-up excess wire broke, and tilted the whole thing over. We didn't take care of it right when we did the pump because it was 33 degrees and raining.
 
kaiser715 said:
Ten cent zip tie. Float switches were tied to a chunk of PVC. After we replaced the pump, I was going to go in and fix it right rather than the half ass way it was originally setup. Of course, it was never done. Zip tie holding the coiled-up excess wire broke, and tilted the whole thing over. We didn't take care of it right when we did the pump because it was 33 degrees and raining.
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At least it was a cheap and easy fix!
 
shawn said:
And unless you went to a heat pump water heater, it's just a resistance element that's going to use 5000 watts every time it kicks on. Only way to save money there is to turn down the thermostat or use less HW
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Or maybe insulate it to decrease the thermal loss so it runs less but that's not going to be massive either and depends on the location etc
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
Did you install the whole system in your panel? Looking in my panel, there isnt much room inside it for anything else.

I feel like I should do something similar to track power usage. I have updated heat pump and water heater in recent years without much change.
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75% of it.
My problem wasn't room for the box (its a little bigger than and maybe 2x the thickness of a cell phone?) as much as the clamps. Some of the circuit wires were run with almost no extra slack and really close together and it got really hard to find space to squeeze the clamps in.
Overall its a very worthwhile investment. I haven't looked recently but Emporia used to be the cheapest one.
 
jeepinmatt said:
They've only had their septic tank pumped once in 40 years also.
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We had ours pumped when we bought the house (or rather, the PO did). The guy mentioned that it needed to be done every five years. I was curious, so I asked what happened if you didn't. He says, "oh, you end up with this dense layer of solids at the bottom of the tank and it's a real pain to clean out." I was like, cool story, bro. See you in 20 years!
 
shawn said:
We had ours pumped when we bought the house (or rather, the PO did). The guy mentioned that it needed to be done every five years. I was curious, so I asked what happened if you didn't. He says, "oh, you end up with this dense layer of solids at the bottom of the tank and it's a real pain to clean out." I was like, cool story, bro. See you in 20 years!
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That guy is a moron. This is what happens when a tank isn't pumped for routine maintenance. Solids build up to the point they start flowing into the drainfield and clogging it up. $400 every 5 years or $10k plus for a repair after 20 years of no maintenance, seems like an easy choice.
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YotaOnRocks said:
That guy is a moron. This is what happens when a tank isn't pumped for routine maintenance. Solids build up to the point they start flowing into the drainfield and clogging it up. $400 every 5 years or $10k plus for a repair after 20 years of no maintenance, seems like an easy choice.
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"Yeah but that's only my problem if I plan to be here in 20 years!"
 
RatLabGuy said:
"Yeah but that's only my problem if I plan to be here in 20 years!"
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You're not wrong, and with a lot of people struggling to afford groceries, there has been a significant drop in maintenance pumping in our area.

I don't pump, I only do septic installs and repairs, so my company benefits from people neglecting their systems.
 
jeepinmatt said:
They've only had their septic tank pumped once in 40 years also. And their well water tastes great and doesn't need filtration. Sometimes you just win. 🤷‍♂️
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My parents tank has never been pumped and they've lived on their property like 45 years lol.

Duane
 
 
I have a full emporia kit I took out. Took muscle to get all the clamps in. But really got frustrated working around it. Been doing a lot of breaker changes and new circuits lately.

It’ll probably sit in a box under the bench for 5yrs and I’ll one day be doing a deep clean and go “wtf is this, what ahole put this here”
 
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