04-04-12, 01:59 PM | #21 |
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410a was just coming online
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04-04-12, 02:34 PM | #22 |
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OK, that explains a lot.
There has been quite a lot of progress in the state of the art since then. The new Mini-splits from Asia are quite advanced now. You might want to look into a couple of them, Mitsubishi's Mr Slim is one and the Fujitsu Halcyon is another. Both pretty good. Xringer has a Sanyo that is a couple of years old, mine (also Sanyo) is maybe a year older than his, they've both been by-passed by new developments. The developments have been in greater efficiency (COP) and also their ability to efficiently extract heat from colder air. Most of the regular folks on this blog are pretty up to speed with the latest technology. For your information, the current crop of ASHP is just about as efficient as prior technology GSHP. For some reason, there has been quite a delay in applying the new technology to GSHPs, which will surely push them well out in front, efficiency-wise. It is an efficiency race that we can all benefit from. American designed equipment is just not keeping up with developments from Asia. They have a huge advantage with good engineering talent, steadily developing better equipment. We're simply falling behind. The energy situation is also changing pretty fast. The link I posted before is reliable. -AC
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04-04-12, 02:44 PM | #23 |
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pretty amazing what they are doing with the inverter run dc compressors.. can slow them down and let them chug along as super slow speed .. but they are small units.. hard pressed to find ones over 3 tons. Most being 1 -2 ton units.. some having multiple evap cores.
Think part of the reason that we have not seen applications coming from domestic producers.. is that they have not been pushed .. mini splits are still not common here.. to many ding bat installers afraid to mess with them.. What part of simple and easier to install ??? I have not really figured that one out.. Yes I see lots of ashp with seer around 17 and cop right up there between 2 and 3. My bottom line is conservation is still a much better solution than running the watt meter on the side of the house. |
04-04-12, 04:35 PM | #24 | |||
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Quote:
Also we graduate 70,000 engineers per year and half of them are working on war-related projects. So, 35,000 are available for problems affecting the civilian sector. India graduates 350,000 engineers per year and China graduates 600,000 per year. We are out-gunned 27 to 1 Do you still think our problem is ding bat installers? Quote:
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-AC
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04-04-12, 05:28 PM | #25 | |||
Less usage=Cheaper bills
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Quote:
For mini-splits, I always get a 'why would I want something on my wall', or 'wait it costs over a grand for just the unit and so I'd have to get a bunch?' It's not necessarily cheaper or easier to install when a house has ductwork and they connect it to one point in a furnace. In my house, I'm lucky by design, the occupied bedroom and space used for office type stuff is upstairs and the warm air seems to share well with the level below so I could heat my bedroom and the heat stays upstairs and circulates well and its a little cooler down a level but convection does magic while I can leave the downstairs cooler. In the summer, the heat rises so I can cool the upstairs and the whole house gets the benefit. House design makes a difference. Quote:
"My bottom line is conservation is still a much better solution than running the watt meter on the side of the house." Not sure what you are trying to say here because to me conservation has three parts. Using less, including using a temperature that demands less, energy efficient equipment, and energy efficient design. I've got some old equipment in my house that is far from energy star apart from my computer equipment. I've got a refrigerator that chews power and minimum efficiency nat. gas furnace and air conditioner. Yearly natural gas is under $300 and electricity under $400, 36% of that are fixed fees like connection fees and city fees to have the service, the rest is usage. By August my trailing energy usage subtracting the fixed fees will be under $400 for electricity and natural gas combined. My $100 energy audit and using this website already paid itself off in sealing up the place. Quote:
The problem with this is that its not designed for ductwork so you would need to have somewhere to put that BTU output and would either need to run your furnace blower or a bunch of fans in your house and blow your COP or have a very open floor plan. |
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04-04-12, 07:18 PM | #26 | |
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Quote:
I've seen a few installations (and a bunch on youtube) that didn't really take much labor at all. I've heard from a few people that were turned off mini-splits because they researched them on the web and saw the prices and the amount of labor needed for a standard install. Once they got their estimate, and saw the labor cost, they lost interest real fast. 'How could labor cost more than the hardware'? Maybe if the tripled the cost of the units?? Then the labor cost wouldn't seem so bad.?.
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