Stormfly

Nocturnal thunder boomers! Yay!

Everything is going GaN HEMT. But you're right from a practical sense particularly with efficiency. Our solar inverters are close to 99% efficient at the onset of clipping and even a 12kW unit is passively cooled! It's funny how the folks that make the cycle stop valves are harsh critics of the VFD controller. Not for me, I'd rather not restrict the output of the pump to 1gpm to keep it from cycling and there's always the risk of overheating them too. City water is OK as long as you have a GAC filter to remove the chlorine. In any case I always have 18+ meg water available for cooking and aquaculture needs. Zone control is just that, a thermostat for each zone which can be a room or part of the house. Window shakers are rudimentary form of zoned cooling if you think about it.

I was out a few min ago and noticed some nice towers. Towers make showers. Quite a showing to our north. Feels like summer for sure now. No doubt about it!

Zone control aside, the minisplits have the advantage of near silent running! And efficiency with heatpumps is crazy high. No need to worry about balance points as the top units have 90% of their capacity at -20F! Those old fashioned Franklin Electric biac controller pumps do have quite the grunt on starting. As much as 30% higher than hermetic LRA of equal hp! That will definitely make a two pole genny sputter and lights flicker! We're on a well here too. I'd like to put in a VFD pump with a real continuous variable speed cycloconverter. No surges on startup, and no cycling as pump maintains target pressure on demand, trickling down to 1gpm then stopping when tank pressure is satisfied. We do have two wells here, using one of them and it's good for over 20gpm continuous. Very soft, clear, slightly acidic water. I'll leave the lifting of bricks up to my BIL, he's the landscaper!

Yes this is why planning out the install and taking the climate zones as well as the soil type into factor is important with geothermal. Its costly and there's no wiggle room for miscalculations resulting in negative ROI and pissed off clients! Geo has improved and the circulators are more reliable but proper maintenance is beyond the scope of most DIY folks. Our heating is complex too! Heatpump is primary down to freezing then no. 2 oil (all forced air) with a pellet stove insert in the family room and conventional wood stove in the basement. All the trouble to keep warm while keeping the wallet happy. We definitely swing towards the cheaper side and with oil prices it's gonna be wood in the coldest months. I don't mind it but I wish I had the physical endurance I did 30 years ago! Eventually I'll probably switch to multi zone mini split as they're easy to install and super efficient especially for heat. Having 15kW of solar helps too. Nat gas is nice and low maint for forced air but it's probably going to get expensive too. Still cheaper for emergency power up to 25kW or so. Love the low RPM Northern Lights Diesel generators but cringe when the tanks (300 gallons x2) need filling especially now! I remember when BGE called me about a wifi thermostat for free since I was on their Peak Rewards plan. I told them up front that I had dual fuel heat and they said it wasn't a problem. Poor guy comes out and looks at wiring and said it wouldn't work! He said he couldn't leave the thermostat without being installed and working which I was hoping I could do as I was planning on using an intermediate logic board so it would work. Don't miss it TBH as it would be another IOT device on the numerous VLAN groups here I need to keep on top of. And if we do have a SHTF situation at least I know I can keep putting logs on the fire and not freeze to death!

Make sure the windows firewall isn't on private or public as it tends to block too much. You can also add a rule to allow the program unfettered access.

Stop mowing too short! Everyone likes to "shave" their grass and then when the big heat and dry ness come in July/August their cherished lawns resemble coco mats. Never understood this.

I really hope it wasn't the same guy/company! This is why I could never do residential "heating and cooling". So much has changed since the 70s and 80s and residential systems using variable air volume, multi zone, multi stage, et-al which are things adopted from commercial systems chiefly due to savings from "time of use" electric billing simply means that residential "heating and cooling" guys that never were properly trained or had experience are clueless. When you throw in geothermal it really gets interesting. Automotive stuff, pretty much all my experience was pre 134a changeover so 1980s. So much has changed and is about to change again. In ACR we call the high pressure line the liquid line and the low pressure line the suction line. High pressure (discharge) right off the compressor (hot gas) will be the hottest and the coolest it will be is right at the expansion valve or metering device. That's where it is SUPPOSED to be completely devoid of gas/bubbles. After the expansion valve where pressure is low it will be the coldest as it enters the evaporator coil. Heat pumps are a different animal altogether as they need to be able to run with a very low evaporator temperature and thus require a suction accumulator which is basically a reservoir before the compressor. This allows liquid refrigerant to accumulate to keep it out of the compressor which would be bad. If liquid enters the compressor that is called slugging which often results in damaged components since compressors are positive displacement devices. Similar to getting water in the intake of a car (hydro lock) I can assure you that you won't be happy with the repair bills! This is why heat pumps need a defrost cycle to periodically reverse the cycle turning the evaporator back into a condenser and melting off frost before it blocks the airflow and becomes un manageable. I just realized this is in the OBS thread, we should probably move this to banter or elsewhere! ;)

The vast majority of the time for evaporator icing is due to low airflow. Attic units aren't maintained like they should be and just neglecting to change filters is often a culprit. Many times, too, a fault of the installer is to put the filter behind a return grill for convenience but the reality is ductwork is quite leaky and return lines are under negative pressure so everything around them gets sucked in and winds up in the evaporator coil fins. And properly cleaning a coil inside a horizontal flow air handler in an attic is no fun job either! As far as condensate pans overflowing, this creates problems outside of the unit. They will overflow long before any water can touch the coil AND if the coil is cold enough for it to freeze instantly [sic], you have other issues (as I mentioned lack of proper airflow) that need to be addressed. I have seen wicking of condensate into lower parts of evaporator coils in large commercial air handlers due to them being rather dirty but this is rather extreme. Condensate pans can be messy, slimy, and not generally pleasant. A good maintenance routine is to use tablets/pellets that keep this minimized. Also the drains must have a proper p-trap to prevent suction from impeding egress of condensate. All of these are installer issues! It isn't possible for a tech to properly evaluate charge and calculate superheat if an evaporator looks like a glacier. It can take many hours with just the fan running for all of that ice to melt and airflow to return to normal. In which case it needs to be properly checked! I won't even mention how many inadequate start up procedure skipping is done that will cause problems to pop up down the road, sometimes as soon as the end of the first cooling season!

Did see a few even one with burning trails. Rather typical night in the woods. Event was a nothinburger. Weather, astronomy, economy, what else is there to fail?

This could be very nice if it's a solid hit. Like blizzard at night! Anyhow, I was messing around with my Google Pixel 6 Pro on a tripod and caught some!

Perfect late evening heavy showers with thunder and gentle breezes. Under a tent, this would put me to sleep in under two minutes!

Got the alert on my watch when I was in the lavatory of all places! Everyone freaks out when they hear it on their phones. Pulled up velocity and the spinup was about 500 yards EAST of my toilet (location). Just dark skies, windy and rain here. Doubt it did anything on the ground but there was definitely some rotation, albeit for a short time.

New TOR watch just came over the tannoy for us in effect until 1800 EDT.

It's coming for us!

Pretty much for us in NE MD...so far. Misty and dreary out. With slugs on the deck. So an advisory against barefoot walking at least.

Finally saw fireflies here last night, first for the season!

This. This is Maryland, home of the megaBUST!

I'm ok with short lived "mini heatwaves". A break to the 70s is always welcome and if it takes some turbulent weather to do it, so be it. Definitely going to start the (woodpile) even earlier as not looking forward to heating oil costs for the upcoming season at all.

That can occur with any wood. The sparks are coming from the guide bar. Its OK to occasionally see (sparks) but frequent sparks mean there is an issue with not enough bar oil (oiler problem/clogged line/pump etc) or chain is too tight or damaged from derailing, etc.

After the first warm May evening here, sometimes as early as the first week we've seen them albeit smaller numbers. Peak usually occurs mid to late June but in 2019 we had an abnormally early peak that occurred in mid June. Some summers we experience a "double season" where they show up again in mid to late September but these tend to be rare. 2009 and 2017 were recent years.

May is nearly over and still no fireflies!

Here we go again. All I want to see is a firefly. Or as many say in these parts, lightning bug! I guess if we swing enough, we'll eventually hit something, right. Hopefully it's that barn that's falling down, save me the trouble of using winches.

Just a few min ago, was still getting lightning strike indicators. Checking the radar, yep, we're in between systems. Checking the eye in the sky, indeed, it really is apocalyptic looking out there! Would be amazing in the middle of the night. This camera has picked up nocturnal storms off the coast of Virginia Beach as well as trails from rockets launched from Wallops Island. Still, though, no fireflies. After two days of heat, tonight, there better be some!