September Banter 2020

[CAPE]

Looks like Denver got a little snow.

http://www.keno.org/colorado_web_cams/denver_cams.htm

[mappy]

3 hours ago, mappy said:

It was working. Then died again in the afternoon. Guy comes back this morning to try again. LOL home ownership is the worst. 

Busted coil. Guy didn't have the part, so now we wait for that. I will say, I am glad its September and not July. But the mugginess is awful right now. 

[H2O]

4 minutes ago, mappy said:

Busted coil. Guy didn't have the part, so now we wait for that. I will say, I am glad its September and not July. But the mugginess is awful right now. 

Not sure which is worse, muggy stuffy house or hot as hell cause its 99F outside.

[mappy]

4 minutes ago, H2O said:

Not sure which is worse, muggy stuffy house or hot as hell cause its 99F outside.

Id take muggy and 75 with clouds over 99 heat with an HI in the 100s

[toolsheds]

22 minutes ago, mappy said:

Busted coil. Guy didn't have the part, so now we wait for that. I will say, I am glad its September and not July.

I'm sorry about this....Ours went up right before the July 4th week.  Was without AC for 9 days during the heat.  I told my kids that we were going retro, Back to the 80s when I grew up without AC. 

[mappy]

10 minutes ago, toolsheds said:

I'm sorry about this....Ours went up right before the July 4th week.  Was without AC for 9 days during the heat.  I told my kids that we were going retro, Back to the 80s when I grew up without AC. 

hey, thanks! such is life, right? bad timing with first week of school and all but it is what it is. It will get fixed.

[Mrs.J]

2 hours ago, toolsheds said:

I'm sorry about this....Ours went up right before the July 4th week.  Was without AC for 9 days during the heat.  I told my kids that we were going retro, Back to the 80s when I grew up without AC. 

This reminds me of growing up during that time. We did not have central AC but had 2 window units. One was downstairs in the kitchen and the other conveniently located in my parents bedroom. At night the downstairs one would get shut off and theirs would get turned on and they then shut their door. And left me and my sister in our rooms with ceiling fans and the still night air. So remember those laying in sweat nights in NW Ohio.

[Mrs.J]

@losetoa6 our kids now have it so easy. I often tell them that not until I was in HS did we have a car with AC in it. Used to do the good old 60/40 in the Surburan. And my sister and I would usually end up all the way in the back due to my brothers telling us that is where we were to ride. And on those rare chances of sitting in the middle row our hair was always a knotted mess. 

[CAPE]

20 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

My parents had a 1975 AMC Pacer AKA " The bubble car. AKA " The sweat box ". NO A/C LOL. JUST a case of windex in the trunk to keep all the glass clean 

 

 

 

Even the all time ugliest cars can be made cool.

[toolsheds]

I had to put a box fan in the window to get air at night.  I grew upon main street in Manchester and always remember the fire siren going off at 2:00 am....what a wake up call in the middle of a hot summer night!

My mother still doesn't have central air,  just a few window units, which she never really uses.  

[nw baltimore wx]

10 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Even the all time ugliest cars can be made cool.

Not so much.

[H2O]

15 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Not so much.

Dude. I would take that all day long over the Pontiac Aztek

[JakkelWx]

We may never see snow again

[RDM]

6 hours ago, mappy said:

Busted coil. Guy didn't have the part, so now we wait for that. I will say, I am glad its September and not July. But the mugginess is awful right now. 

Oh crud.  Sorry to hear that.  That lends to a lot of questions.  Happy to offer a few more thoughts and can follow up offline if you ard/or Mr. Mappy want.  Know a fair bit about AC units having done a fair bit of troubleshooting while living overseas in some harsh environments, and worked on our own here in NOVA too and saved a lot in the process.    

The mention of a bad coil points to a fairly old unit.  Normally coils are either air tight, or not.  If there is any leak in the system at all, with the pressures involved the freon will quickly leak out and the low pressure switch will turn off the compressor to keep it from burning up.  The compressor is big bucks if it dies and is typically not repairable - they can only be replaced.

There's two coils in an AC system - the evaporator coil (the one inside your house that gets cold) and the condenser coil (outside with the compressor, which gets hot).  Which coil was quoted as being bad?  Replacing the coil inside can be a major pain depending on the configuration of the air handler and the design of your system.  Assume he used a sniffer to detect the leak?  A freon sniffer is very sensitive and a good one can pinpoint the leak's exact location.  Coils typically don't leak except after extreme age or if a unit is moved in such a way that stress is applied to the line over time. 

With a bad coil, and if the unit is circa 15 years old or older, and if the bad coil is the condenser coil, it may be more reliable and in the end cheaper to just replace the outside unit.  Older units use R-22 freon, which is outrageously expensive as mentioned before.  New units use R-410a, which is a fraction of the cost of R-22 (R-22 is 4-5X the cost of 410a).  Plus, newer AC units have a much higher Seer rating - the higher the Seer number the better with the max being in the low 20's.  By "better" we mean they are more efficient and draw less electricity and save money - perhaps a lot if the current AC unit is 20 years old or older.  The difference in operating cost of a AC unit rated with a Seer of 15 verses a Seer of 20 is substantial (there's various charts you can lookup online).

 The newer AC technologies include variable speed compressors and larger condenser coils when allows lower fan speeds on the compressor unit outside with much less noise.  We have 3 zones in our house and just installed a new outdoor unit a year ago.   The difference in the lower noise when the two outdoor units (old and new) are running side by side is amazing.  One older unit is circa 2005 technology, which is not THAT old - but the difference in technology is obvious.  Our electric bill went down substantially with the installation of the newer more efficient unit, even though it has a higher cooling capacity.  

Lastly, if the solution is to replace the AC, suggest getting multiple estimates.  When our until died last year, we got 3 estimates.  One from the company that normally did our maintenance, and two from other reputable companies.  Two of the 3 were comparable in prices (within 10% of each other) and the 3rd was more than 2x the other two.  The company we went with was able to start immediately and provided references to back their work, who I called.  Could not have been happier with the work they did end to end.  The 3rd company that was 2X the other two readily acknowledged he was expensive and didn't seem to care that he was SO expensive compared to the others.  He even told me that even at his price he had more work than he could handle.  

Good luck. 

 

[RDM]

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

Even the all time ugliest cars can be made cool.

OMG - what memories.  The Pacer was right up there with the Matador.  Our next door neighbor growing up in Ohio had a Pacer - for about a  year.  He gave away to avoid the ridicule he received when he drove it.  Passenger's side door was 4" longer than the driver's door to make it easier to get in the back.  

The Pacer was the same era as our Chevy Chevette, which I learned to drive in.  What a POS that was, until I rolled it late one night...  That took care of that.  The only thing good about the Chevette was that it wasn't my dad's red and white 65 Rambler with 3 on the tree.  My 3 older siblings all learned to drive in the Rambler.  Yet, somehow they all accused me of getting off easy because the Chevette was an automatic!!!  yippie???  It had a 2 speed Powerglide tranny coupled to the infamous 1.6 liter Iron Duke 4.  It could not get out of it's own way if it fell off a cliff, even with a 4.10 rear end.  That was life in the late 70's post Arab Oil Embargo...   

[Dan76]

Not bad lol

 

[CAPE]

46 minutes ago, RDM said:

OMG - what memories.  The Pacer was right up there with the Matador.  Our next door neighbor growing up in Ohio had a Pacer - for about a  year.  He gave away to avoid the ridicule he received when he drove it.  Passenger's side door was 4" longer than the driver's door to make it easier to get in the back.  

The Pacer was the same era as our Chevy Chevette, which I learned to drive in.  What a POS that was, until I rolled it late one night...  That took care of that.  The only thing good about the Chevette was that it wasn't my dad's red and white 65 Rambler with 3 on the tree.  My 3 older siblings all learned to drive in the Rambler.  Yet, somehow they all accused me of getting off easy because the Chevette was an automatic!!!  yippie???  It had a 2 speed Powerglide tranny coupled to the infamous 1.6 liter Iron Duke 4.  It could not get out of it's own way if it fell off a cliff, even with a 4.10 rear end.  That was life in the late 70's post Arab Oil Embargo...   

Dude the mid 60s Rambler was a car you you do something with. Light weight and decent clean square lines. I was a huge fan of the mid 60s Chevy II. My first car was a 1964 2 door sport coupe.I hot rodded that up. I always wanted a 66 or 67 L79 option with the 327/350 hp vette engine. That is a clean looking machine and was a a legit sleeper. Very sought after today.

[CAPE]

Yeah baby..

[CAPE]

This is pretty close to what mine looked like. Same year. Hardtop, and almost the exact same color. Same stance. Mine had Fenton brushed aluminum slotted wheels.

[North Balti Zen]

O’s!!

[Mrs.J]

1 hour ago, RDM said:

OMG - what memories.  The Pacer was right up there with the Matador.  Our next door neighbor growing up in Ohio had a Pacer - for about a  year.  He gave away to avoid the ridicule he received when he drove it.  Passenger's side door was 4" longer than the driver's door to make it easier to get in the back.  

The Pacer was the same era as our Chevy Chevette, which I learned to drive in.  What a POS that was, until I rolled it late one night...  That took care of that.  The only thing good about the Chevette was that it wasn't my dad's red and white 65 Rambler with 3 on the tree.  My 3 older siblings all learned to drive in the Rambler.  Yet, somehow they all accused me of getting off easy because the Chevette was an automatic!!!  yippie???  It had a 2 speed Powerglide tranny coupled to the infamous 1.6 liter Iron Duke 4.  It could not get out of it's own way if it fell off a cliff, even with a 4.10 rear end.  That was life in the late 70's post Arab Oil Embargo...   

OMG my mom used to have a Chevette! All 4 of us kids would pile into the silver rabbit we called it. My brothers were teenagers at the time so my sister and I always drew the short straw and one of us had to sit in the hatch. 

[RDM]

2 hours ago, CAPE said:

Yeah baby..

Now we're talking!!!  Sweeeeeet!!!

[RDM]

2 hours ago, losetoa6 said:

I'll never forget my trip to Florida in this  88' Yugo my uncle rented . It sounded like it was going to explode at its max speed of 55 mph lol. I believe it was a 3 cylinder making  like a scant 55 hp

 

The Yugo is right down there, but above the infamous Trabant.  Will never forget....   I lived in Frankfurt, Germany when the wall came down Oct 1990 reunifying East and West Germany.  Fkt was only about 80 miles from the former border.  So as soon as the border opened the former East Germans flooded the shopping centers in the West.  The Zeil in Fkt was and remains one of the most popular shopping spots in Germany.    

Was driving home from work at the height of the onslaught that Winter behind a Trabant packed with way too many people teeming with all their newly purchased western goods.  It was cold, the windows were all steamed over as the driver was alternating trying to peer through a small splotch of transparent glass in the windshield and sticking his head out the drivers door open window to see where the heck he was going (that's how I could see how packed it was inside as all the other windows were completely opaque with condensation).  The occupants were laughing and screaming and carrying on like it was Mardi Gras.  

On the rear bumper of the Trabi (nickname for the Trabants) was the best bumper sticker in the history of bumper stickers.  It read, in English, "My Other Car is a Trabant Also".  The scene was so comical I about crashed my Honda Civic.  Normally, you expect a bumper sticker that's bragging about the "other car" to reference the Ferrari, Benz or Rolls in the garage at home.  Noooooo - this guy was so "proud" of his Trabi he wanted everyone to know he had another one and was broadcasting the same in English!  At the next traffic light I rolled down the window on my Civic and gave them a "Herzliche Wellkommen Zuruck" (A heartfelt welcome back) and the hoard in the Trabi just laughed even louder and kept carrying on.  The light turned green and in a big cloud of blue smoke they trod forward (many had 2 cycle engines and burning a lot of oil was the norm).  

My comparison, the Yugo's were 4 cycle and very modern by comparison (relatively speaking).  They resembled the Chevette in design and proportions.  

[RDM]

1 hour ago, Mrs.J said:

OMG my mom used to have a Chevette! All 4 of us kids would pile into the silver rabbit we called it. My brothers were teenagers at the time so my sister and I always drew the short straw and one of us had to sit in the hatch. 

That's hilarious.  My parents bought our "Shove-It" in Nov 75 just after they went on sale.  The 76 model year was the first year of production.  Didn't even have AC as an option until later.  So our AC was the windows.  Fortunately, my dad insisted on getting the "larger" engine - the 1.6L compared to the standard 1.4L, which was an even worse dog to drive.

Remember having to carry a baseball bat behind the driver's seat all the way through HS and then part way through college (until I rolled it).  The starter had a dead spot and had to routinely open the hood and bang the handle of the bat on the starter to "bump" it through to start it.  Suspect there's some other old timers out there that know what I mean by "bumping a starter".   

I was lucky when I rolled the Chevette - didn't get hurt but totaled the car.  Was not sorry to see it go though.  The 71 Caprice 2 door hard top my dad picked up as a replacement for $150 ran like a scalded cat, had a front bench and even had working AC.  Couldn't put anything in the trunk though because the rear fenders were so rusted out anything in the trunk was likely to fall out.  

[CAPE]

7 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Now that’s a car

 

6 hours ago, RDM said:

Now we're talking!!!  Sweeeeeet!!!

I love the clean, boxy look of the mid 60s cars in general. The  66-67 Chevy II (Nova) was the best of that style imo. The L79 package in a car that weighed about 2600 lbs made for a really fun ride. These are a favorite today for restomodding. Most people put an actual frame under it, as the early unibody design was not good with all that power and torque.

[CAPE]

29 - 9

19 - 0

NFL starts tonight. Those are baseball scores from yesterday.

[mappy]

12 hours ago, RDM said:

Oh crud.  Sorry to hear that.  That lends to a lot of questions.  Happy to offer a few more thoughts and can follow up offline if you ard/or Mr. Mappy want.  Know a fair bit about AC units having done a fair bit of troubleshooting while living overseas in some harsh environments, and worked on our own here in NOVA too and saved a lot in the process.    

The mention of a bad coil points to a fairly old unit.  Normally coils are either air tight, or not.  If there is any leak in the system at all, with the pressures involved the freon will quickly leak out and the low pressure switch will turn off the compressor to keep it from burning up.  The compressor is big bucks if it dies and is typically not repairable - they can only be replaced.

There's two coils in an AC system - the evaporator coil (the one inside your house that gets cold) and the condenser coil (outside with the compressor, which gets hot).  Which coil was quoted as being bad?  Replacing the coil inside can be a major pain depending on the configuration of the air handler and the design of your system.  Assume he used a sniffer to detect the leak?  A freon sniffer is very sensitive and a good one can pinpoint the leak's exact location.  Coils typically don't leak except after extreme age or if a unit is moved in such a way that stress is applied to the line over time. 

With a bad coil, and if the unit is circa 15 years old or older, and if the bad coil is the condenser coil, it may be more reliable and in the end cheaper to just replace the outside unit.  Older units use R-22 freon, which is outrageously expensive as mentioned before.  New units use R-410a, which is a fraction of the cost of R-22 (R-22 is 4-5X the cost of 410a).  Plus, newer AC units have a much higher Seer rating - the higher the Seer number the better with the max being in the low 20's.  By "better" we mean they are more efficient and draw less electricity and save money - perhaps a lot if the current AC unit is 20 years old or older.  The difference in operating cost of a AC unit rated with a Seer of 15 verses a Seer of 20 is substantial (there's various charts you can lookup online).

 The newer AC technologies include variable speed compressors and larger condenser coils when allows lower fan speeds on the compressor unit outside with much less noise.  We have 3 zones in our house and just installed a new outdoor unit a year ago.   The difference in the lower noise when the two outdoor units (old and new) are running side by side is amazing.  One older unit is circa 2005 technology, which is not THAT old - but the difference in technology is obvious.  Our electric bill went down substantially with the installation of the newer more efficient unit, even though it has a higher cooling capacity.  

Lastly, if the solution is to replace the AC, suggest getting multiple estimates.  When our until died last year, we got 3 estimates.  One from the company that normally did our maintenance, and two from other reputable companies.  Two of the 3 were comparable in prices (within 10% of each other) and the 3rd was more than 2x the other two.  The company we went with was able to start immediately and provided references to back their work, who I called.  Could not have been happier with the work they did end to end.  The 3rd company that was 2X the other two readily acknowledged he was expensive and didn't seem to care that he was SO expensive compared to the others.  He even told me that even at his price he had more work than he could handle.  

Good luck. 

 

hey thanks! so we had the whole furnace/ac unit replaced in winter of 2014, so its still fairly new. my understanding is its the coil inside.  I did notice that there was a lot of ice build up outside on the unit, at the junction where the hose connects to the unit itself before running into the house. was a solid block of ice around that junction area. the leak the guy fixed the first time was inside. I also noticed a weird whistle coming from the inside unit tuesday afternoon when it broke again, which Mr Map said was because of the busted coil. 

other than that, i dont know much else. Mr Map was dealing with the HVAC guy the last two days while I was on school duty. 

[mappy]

while on the topic of cars, my aunt posted this picture of her and i on FB. no idea what car it is, but the pic is from the mid-80s. i was so cute and sassy

[40westwx]

30 minutes ago, mappy said:

while on the topic of cars, my aunt posted this picture of her and i on FB. no idea what car it is, but the pic is from the mid-80s. i was so cute and sassy

"Was"?

[mappy]

3 minutes ago, 40westwx said:

"Was"?

Ha! still sassy!