Furnace in crawl space

[hvac-tech-lane]

Chris are you the service tech for the owner, or the owner of the building?

[cwlo]

In this case, I am both. I do most of the installs, maintenance, and upgrades myself.

Chris

[geoexchangeman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lonnirat

Originally posted by geoexchangeman
Chris, You need to install heatpumps and use the hydro as backup. They use less energy and better on enviroment. [

This depends on what part of the country you are in and what your electric rates are. It sure wouldn't be a good choice for my part of the northeast.

Chris it makes no differance what part of the country you are from and what the cost of electricity. Heatpumps are still the best choice because they more efficent if you have any temps above 30 for ASHPs. They operate with a COP of 3 to 1 at 30 degrees and if the electrity is higher you just save more. Gas and oil will be higher than electricity at 1 to 1 in a few years.

[hvac-tech-lane]

Chris , in your case I think it would be benificial to get your units off of a centralized system to their own individual systems, this would give you a way to elimiate the risk of high utility bills as I've seen enough of theese buildings where tennants like fresh air in the winter so they will leave the window open and crank the heat up. Normaly a decrease in rent acompanys this type of upgrade but the net benefit to the building owner is to the positive.
Personally as these are rental units (I assume) I would prefer the simplest and most abuse tollerant system that would consist of gas water heaters for each unit sized to run new hydro-heat air handlers with straight air conditioners while I might agree that a heat pump would save some money I doubt that any tennants would understand that, and the pumps would cost more upfront, add more components to need service, need a higher level of maintenance, and user attention. Hope this helps.

[hvac-tech-lane]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by geoexchangeman

Originally posted by lonnirat

Originally posted by geoexchangeman
Chris, You need to install heatpumps and use the hydro as backup. They use less energy and better on enviroment. [

This depends on what part of the country you are in and what your electric rates are. It sure wouldn't be a good choice for my part of the northeast.

Chris it makes no differance what part of the country you are from and what the cost of electricity. Heatpumps are still the best choice because they more efficent if you have any temps above 30 for ASHPs. They operate with a COP of 3 to 1 at 30 degrees and if the electrity is higher you just save more. Gas and oil will be higher than electricity at 1 to 1 in a few years.

Unless there's some new technology coming on line, I don't see how electricity will be close to gas as virtually all new power is generated from gas

[cwlo]

Thanks hvac-tech. I agree totally on going with simpler equipment on rentals. Every maintenance call is $$, and tenants get upset with anything beyond one problem.


Thanks,

Chris

[jacob perkins]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by hvac-tech-lane

[i]as virtually all new power is generated from gas

Unless it is hydro or nuclear...

[cwlo]

Or coal! Jacob is correct, and here in the midwest, its mostly nuclear and coal. Not sure about the rest of the country, but it was my impression that the gas powered generators were mostly for peak demand periods.

Chris

[hvac-tech-lane]

Perhaps I should have stated "virtually all new power generating plants are gas fired" I havent heard of any new nuclear or hydro plants, indeed there have been a number of small hydro plants torn out recently.

[Edited by hvac-tech-lane on 03-16-2005 at 01:08 AM]