Yea they do sell smaller units, worked really well.

 

if you cut an extra duct in your garage you will put the system out of balance and your cfm will drop in the rest of the house .you have to make sure the system is siezed correctly to add and take out any register supply and return air. for every ton of cooling is about 400-600 sqf
and some states it is against code to have your home system connected to your garage

 

yeah, jcc brought up a good point. My garage tap in is only temporary and removable. I only use it when I am working in the garage for a long period of time. My air handler is in the garage and it does mess up the balance. When I am done, I seal it up like it was never there. So don't think that you can AC your garage full time. I only do it to wax a car or something that takes all day.

 

this unit has me thinking.

if you had a 3500 square ft, 2 story house, kids sleep up stairs master down stair, would it make sense to put the up stairs on say 75 or 76 for the kids, put the down on 80 or 81 and put the portable in the master to get say 72 or 73, would this make for a cheper light bill? (this is only for night time sleeping, i like my house 75 in the day whne i am there but like 72 at night.

the house already has tec sheild thermal barriar but the current light bill of my 2500 square ft house are scaring me about the one i just got. we havent closed yet.

 

if you have a 3500 sqf house you need about 8 tons of cooling portable units are only good for the rooms you put them in.
you would be better off if you put 2 sysytems in ,1 for the 1st floor 1 for the second floor

 

Or a ductless, then every single room can have it's own climate. and you dont have to worry about hot spots or cold spots. If it is a new install then teh cost of teh unit it's self is a little more BUT you dont have to buy ductwork so intial cost is comparable or less. Then if you know how to use a drill and sodier copper jonts then you can also save on the install cost too.

 

if you are afraid of the light bill wait until you see a a/c bill for a house that big

 

it has 2 a/c 1 up i down. the house is was built in 2002.

i have figured out that comparing bill is not accurate, everyone keeps the a/c at different levels and my wife is a stay at home mom so someone is there 24/7, in the area i live and in the area i am moving from there are not a lot of stay at home moms.
i know the bills will be in the mid to upper $400 range in the summer.

i am just kicking around the idea of pulling one of ths a/c and replacing it with a high (14 ceer unit) because one of my rent houses has the original 1978 outside unit so i could take the current unit from the new house and put it at the rent house, just dont know how much that will save.

the master (downstairs) of the new house is 15 x 19 and at night that is the only room that needs to be cool downstairs. i also thought about just putting the master beadroom aand bath on it own central a/c but with a 2 story house i dont know how much $$$ that will be. i honsetly think this is the house i will see my kids (8 and 5) graduate college in so i am here for a while.

if the portable unit will work that is the cheapest way and it is small enough that it wont take up space, i currently have a air cleaner, purifier in my room for the reason that me and the wife sleep better with a little noise, so this small a/c would not be much bigger that that.

 

for that size room you only need 8000 btu a ductless unit would be a little more money and will be more efficent and quieter. or just put a window unit in, even cheaper
14 seer units are good if you run them all the time then you will save money on electric and make up for the install 13 seer units wil be the minimum you can buy starting in 2006 . up here in new england its a waste we only have a few months of cooling up here unless your like me and put it on in may and shut it off in sept.

 

Again check into ductless...
I'm not 100% sure because I havent installed mine yet but if you already have 1 or 2 outside units for your current central air then all you might have to buy would be the room unit, some cooper line, and some copper tee's. Should beable to have your system pumped out, then tap into your curent coolant lines, plumb them to the bed room, hang the room unit in the bedroom. (Which can be mounted on cieling, walls, virtually anywhere) Then hook your coolant lines up to it and the wiring. Have it pumped down to check for leaks, when sure it is leak free they will put your coolant back in plus a little more for the additional line. Presto you just added additional custom climate control for that paticular room. The units come with a built in thremostat and wireless remote so you wont even have to get out of bed to change the temperature in your bedroom plus it has teh fan built into teh unit so you would get you noise too. But the energy exchange is handled from your centrals outside unit.

Maybe JCC can confirm this theroy. Just an idea outloud, Might not beable to use current condensors with these units for one reason or another or they might not beable to handle the added load of another coil and additional volume of the lines.

Basically ductless puts the coil and plenum chamber in each room that the inside units are installed in so you have almost zero energy loss (ie your not cooling your attic though energy loss throu the duct walls.)

BTW: it is cheaper if someone is there 24/7. If you move the thermostat 5* twice a day you just sucked up an additional $30 +/- per month, based on national energy average and average national appliance energy ratings. It actually cost money to raise the thermostat when you leave for less than 2 days. Because the system has to work twice as hard to cool it back off when you turn it back down. If you think of it this way.. every time you move the thremostat up or down you just spent about $.10 for each degree. If you trun it down 3 degrees you spent $.30 then you wife turns it up 5 degrees she spent $.50 so that cost you $.80. Put a lock on the thermostat leave it alone and you save money + less fights. LOL

Edited to add:
Here is some information on ductless (AKA mini split) systems
http://www.ari.org/consumer/ductless/how.html
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumeri...heets/ad3.html

 

YOU NEVER WANT TO CUT A/C LINES ON A EXISTING SYSTEM TO ADD A ADDITION COIL. the system has to be designed for a specific tonage.
example if you have a 5 ton unit and a 5ton coil you cannot just add lets say a 1 ton coil there will be to much capacity for the condensing unit to handle and the system will be unbalanced and you will loose cooling capacity and dehumidification capacity. you can buy a ductless unit that can run 3 evap. on 1 condensing units because the condensing unit will have 3 compressors in it and the same with a 2 zone system.
i can get a little deeper into why you shoudnat cut into a system to add a coil but i would be typing all day

 

How much do those really add?
I'm guessing about 500cfm so 1/4 ton maybe.
So in theory if they are 1/4 ton... a 5 ton unit with a 4 ton coil you could add 4 mini split units. Right?
I'm not an HVAC just have a very minimal understanding of the basic principals. I'm just investigating the ductless systme for myself and trying to decide what it's capabilities and potential upgarades and alterations are. My dad is an independant HVAC so ultimatly he will be the one to make the final decision before we start to install and he will be the one to laugh at my ideas the hardest.

 

1 ton for every 400-600 sqf

 

Never mind the previous post.. I see what your saying now and that makes since.
I'm a little dense sometimes. LOL

My understanding of the ductless was wrong. I was hoping to get 6 units on one condensor, I didnt realize that they had a seperate compressor for each unit too.