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Whoa, (based on the circuit board guessing the furnace model/style) this style of furnace can actually be installed with a downflow method. https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1004521/York-P2mp-Series.html?page=9#manual If this is the case, the filters are actually the A coil we're all talking about in your initial picture and they would be accessible behind that insulation wrapping the vent above.  I'd let a tech figure it out.
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Sep 6, 2022 16:44
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I let my lawn die last summer and will be reseeding it this month. The "lawn" is now mostly sections of dirt, with small patches of dead grass scattered about. I am currently ripping up the existing clumps of grass manually and then plan to rototill and level the soil. How big of a deal is tilling some dead grass into the soil? Trying to calculate how diligent I need to be in pulling everything up first.
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Sep 6, 2022 17:07
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Hadlock posted:That line of beige painted metal above the middle, does that pull out, and inside of there lives a 16x20x1 filter? I had a similar looking unit and there was a cassette you had to pull out that was painted the same color as the frame Not the case sadly  The unit being a downflow unit with the a coils being the filter itself may be the case, but yes will be getting a tech out here to see.
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Sep 6, 2022 17:23
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That says cleaned filters 4/15/09 ... that's, concerning.
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Sep 6, 2022 17:47
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Motronic posted:tree stuff If anyone wants to know where your money goes (besides insurance), the $500 bids were quite literally 4 teenagers and a chainsaw, while the $3500 crew is 6 grizzled and sober guys with so much gear they're blocking the street.   big fuckoff cherry picker, soon to be unobscured by foliage:  Routine poo poo I know, but for me it's cool to watch.
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Sep 6, 2022 17:50
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go for a stroll posted:If anyone wants to know where your money goes (besides insurance), the $500 bids were quite literally 4 teenagers and a chainsaw, while the $3500 crew is 6 grizzled and sober guys with so much gear they're blocking the street. poo poo is cool as hell to watch. I'm also glad you didn't go the cheap route because dealing with fuckoff big trees is serious bidness.
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Sep 6, 2022 17:54
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go for a stroll posted:If anyone wants to know where your money goes (besides insurance), the $500 bids were quite literally 4 teenagers and a chainsaw, while the $3500 crew is 6 grizzled and sober guys with so much gear they're blocking the street. Nice! It is always cool to watch pros and tradies that know what they’re doing. The paying for it part is not fun but it’s a better feeling for me than paying rent in a rental that stuff would never be taken care of anyway
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Sep 6, 2022 17:55
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go for a stroll posted:If anyone wants to know where your money goes (besides insurance), the $500 bids were quite literally 4 teenagers and a chainsaw, while the $3500 crew is 6 grizzled and
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Sep 6, 2022 18:02
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mattfl posted:That says cleaned filters 4/15/09 ... that's, concerning. It is! Found the manual for this unit and the black mesh filters are indeed the filter. Now to get them cleaned sometime today if they are the reusable type. 
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Sep 6, 2022 18:25
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Wild. Can you just replace the two mesh filters at an angle with a modern 3m filtrete? The good news is that your kids won't have any kind of hypersensitivity to any kind of allergens with those mesh "filters"
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Sep 6, 2022 18:32
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 I don't know which is worse.https://www.nordicpure.com/ Anyways for the future I've been a fan of these guys, you buy a box of them and it's way better than the one at a time 3M markup at the local store. Now that I use a giant 5" deep box filter thing in the attic I just let the HVAC company replace it with their annual visit but I bought a ton of those previously when it was a 1" mini-pleat. I don't know what size yours are, but just picking a random one: https://www.nordicpure.com/product/14x24x1-air-filter-2/ it's $7.66/filter. The 3M ones at Target are around twice that price near me and use 3M's own rating system instead of MERV. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Sep 6, 2022 |
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Sep 6, 2022 18:42
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Well the polybutylene is out of the one weird bathroom that got redone in between the copper and PEX eras. PO was so confused as to why I'd do it but I've known too many people to get turbo hosed by this stuff. There was less of it than we'd assumed, we cut a big rear end hole in the adjoining wall and found PEX already in place for everything but the shower. Oh well, I have a drywall guy doing some work in that room next week anyway. The joys of home ownership I guess.
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Sep 6, 2022 18:44
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Spikes32 posted:It is! Found the manual for this unit and the black mesh filters are indeed the filter. Now to get them cleaned sometime today if they are the reusable type. Wow, I totally could not figure out what direction that camera was pointed. It was UP, huh. I thought you were pointing down to the coil (which is the smaller silver box under your unit). You still absolutely want someone out there to service it. But great if you can get at the filters easily.
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Sep 6, 2022 19:08
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I have my first real condo HOA issue.  There are 8 townhouse units in my row, give or take. We all share a common roof, and while all our HVAC stuff is separate, we share a common attic that is basically just chicken-wired off from each other. In theory, a pair of shears is all it would take for me to go show up in my neighbors' bedroom closets. I've started hearing the 'scritch scritch' sounds of little claws in the attic now; we have some sort of pest control issue up there. The HOA has informed me that they do not handle pest control of attics, as those are not considered "common areas" even though the only thing separating them from each other is chicken-wire, something animals really don't give a poo poo about. Also, if the pest control expert needs to spray or put out poison, I need to have the permission of all seven other units because the pest control dude would need access to their attic spaces too, due to the chicken-wire separations. At least one of the units is "occupied empty" and two are rentals. Odds of their landlords even being reachable to give the renters permission to give the pest control guy permission to go into their attic is slim to none. 
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Sep 6, 2022 19:46
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No poison. That only makes problems worse. Anyway, have a person out to inspect your attic and work on sealing your segment off. Get a written opinion that it needs to be dealt with holistically (just have them write two sentences legibly on the bill) and take it to the board for a vote to notify the neighbors or something. The board is probably correct but they might not be. The rafters could be the demarcation point. I would attend meetings to attempt to figure out how you do group notifications and such and see if you can vote in a co-op method of dealing with it. They know how to contact all of the owners regardless of them living there. Remember those pests are getting in SOMEWHERE. It's pretty likely the exterior walls. That is how you get them to act to inspect the exterior for pest sealing needs.
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Sep 6, 2022 20:08
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I'm not sure what fire code says about putting walls in the attic but uh, could you just wall off your part of the attic, foam-seal around any particularly agregious gaps? Or install a finer, non-flammable anti-critter mesh
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Sep 6, 2022 21:44
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unknown posted:Whoa, (based on the circuit board guessing the furnace model/style) this style of furnace can actually be installed with a downflow method. On further review, those are probably the filters; they’re definitely not the A-coil; that lives in the silver box at the bottom. Is is in an attic? That’s a down-draft furnace, which is not seen in basements or on slabs, since in such case the air needs to be going up, or sideways. I mean anyone can install anything anywhere; christ knows we’ve seen endless examples of such PO fuckery.
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Sep 6, 2022 21:48
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Hadlock posted:I'm not sure what fire code says about putting walls in the attic but uh, could you just wall off your part of the attic, foam-seal around any particularly agregious gaps? Or install a finer, non-flammable anti-critter mesh Fire code should be requiring a minimum 2-hour rated party wall from basement slab to roof between each of these units. Back in the day that used to be filled block. Lately it's two sheets of 5/8" sheetrock. Why that's not the case here likely has to do with age and/or specific local codes/adoptions.
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Sep 6, 2022 21:56
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Motronic posted:Fire code should be requiring a minimum 2-hour rated party wall from basement slab to roof between each of these units. Back in the day that used to be filled block. Lately it's two sheets of 5/8" sheetrock. No idea about local code, but it's 2010 construction in California. Town website says they adopted CA state code, but given I don't know what the state's rules are... I contacted the HOA again and pointed out some of the issues I have with their weird-rear end rules, and they're 'looking into it'. EDIT: Comedy option... maybe it is supposed to be separated and fire-rated, and the entire block of condos isn't up to code + should have been in the huge lawsuit we're currently involved in against the builder. Sundae fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 6, 2022 |
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Sep 6, 2022 22:15
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PainterofCrap posted:On further review, those are probably the filters; they’re definitely not the A-coil; that lives in the silver box at the bottom. They were the filters, I got them replaced with hepa filters. Dumb setup for sure. It looks like a block was built on top of the foundation and there is a empty space it vents down into with the air lines going through that.  
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Sep 6, 2022 22:21
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Baffling why anyone would choose to put a downdraft unit in a place like that. It seems like more work. But hey, now that the ducts are run that's not your problem.
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Sep 6, 2022 22:28
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Motronic posted:Baffling why anyone would choose to put a downdraft unit in a place like that. It seems like more work. But hey, now that the ducts are run that's not your problem. Sticker was put on upside down at the factory. Sticker must be installed right side up. The laws of physics abides by the sticker.
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Sep 6, 2022 22:38
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Sundae posted:EDIT: Comedy option... maybe it is supposed to be separated and fire-rated, and the entire block of condos isn't up to code + should have been in the huge lawsuit we're currently involved in against the builder. Yeah I'd check and see if you can get this included in SB800 chaos
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Sep 6, 2022 22:40
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Motronic posted:Baffling why anyone would choose to put a downdraft unit in a place like that. It seems like more work. But hey, now that the ducts are run that's not your problem. Cheaper to run a bunch of asbestos pipe around the house before the slab is poured then have someone come back and do it in the attic later. Sub-slab vents are horrible... we're probably looking at abandoning all of them and replacing them with stuff in the attic whenever we need a new furnace.
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Sep 6, 2022 23:25
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devicenull posted:Cheaper to run a bunch of asbestos pipe around the house before the slab is poured then have someone come back and do it in the attic later. Oh my....I wasn't thinking slab ductwork.....that's totally not a thing around here. But I bet you're right and that's awful.
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Sep 6, 2022 23:33
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Motronic posted:Oh my....I wasn't thinking slab ductwork.....that's totally not a thing around here. But I bet you're right and that's awful. Oh, but it is! Quite a few contractors in the 1950s & early 60s copied / cargo-culted the Levitt model of burying infrastructure in the slab. Based on professional experience, they mostly went with running round ducts - sometimes reinforced cardboard(!) under the slab rather than copper pipe for floor heating. It was definitely cheaper to do it that way, and maybe they couldn't get the really thick copper piping Levitt used - I certainly have never found 1/8"-thick-walled 1/2" copper piping in any other house - poo poo weighed a ton, but the lime in the slab got to it eventually. The cheapest copycat bastards laid foil-wrapped cardboard right on the dirt. But I digress. There's no fun quite like having your buried soil line (primary or secondaries) fail and dump raw sewage in your ductwork. Except maybe having an 8' diameter, 3' high pile of dirt & concrete in your living room (think Richard Dreyfuss and his Devil's Tower in Close Encounters, but without any artistic merit). I had insureds cry when they saw it. There are at least three of these developments in the Woodbury/Mantua/Deptford (NJ) area, to name a few; these were mostly Cape Cods. The actual Levitt homes (Willingboro in NJ; Levittown in PA) had their copper floor heating systems fail through the 80s and 90s. Ninteen-nineties--early oughts the cast-iron builds started to fail. We were able to get plumbers to fix a few (hence the dirt piles) but gradually gave in to just abandoning the under-slab infrastructure in place & writing to install downdraft units in the attic spaces. The only digging we did after that was for interior water mains/secondary drains, and after a while we treated them like the ducts: abandoning in place & re-routing the water lines up into the attic. For the soil line failures, we really had no choice when it was in the middle of the house, but to trench. The 2" kitchen galv drains were the loving pits, since we typically had to write to pull the cabinets & sometimes HVAC stacks to get to them. If the failure was near any perimeter wall we'd see about setting up to running a new soil line outside & around to the main. . PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 6, 2022 23:53
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PainterofCrap posted:Oh, but it is! Every time I try to forget about Levittown someone has to remind me. (I grew up 15 minutes away)
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Sep 7, 2022 00:04
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Any recommendations for a battery backup for a 1/4hp sump pump?
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Sep 7, 2022 00:44
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Nitrousoxide posted:Any recommendations for a battery backup for a 1/4hp sump pump? How often do you lose power, how often does that coincide with when this pump needs to run, what happens if it doesn't run? How much damage gets done?
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Sep 7, 2022 00:50
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PainterofCrap posted:Oh, but it is! This sounds like what we have in our 1956 house, floor vents by every window and it’s just a concrete duct from what I can tell. There’s no crawl space to access them so I hope they last for a while longer. Cast iron pipes are still in good condition. I don’t know what we’d do if we went to attic ducts, there’s hardly enough head room in the attic for me to crawl on my knees so I’m sure installation would be pricey.
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Sep 7, 2022 00:58
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Motronic posted:How often do you lose power, how often does that coincide with when this pump needs to run, what happens if it doesn't run? How much damage gets done? I don't loose power often, buuuuuuut, whenever it rains (hard) it is always pumping water every few minutes so a loss of power will pretty quickly become catastrophic if it lasts long enough for the pit to fill. Basement is finished, so lots of damage if poo poo hits the fan. I'm thinking something like this? https://www.amazon.com/BLUETTI-Port...28e6d374b3&th=1 Which should probably be able to run the pump for the duration of anything short of a hurricane.
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Sep 7, 2022 00:59
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Nitrousoxide posted:I don't loose power often, buuuuuuut, whenever it rains (hard) it is always pumping water every few minutes so a loss of power will pretty quickly become catastrophic if it lasts long enough for the pit to fill. Okay, so that's exactly what I was going for. This is high risk. And now we got to......so how long do you lose power for? Because the next thing I'm going to ask is for you to go find the plate on your sump pump to get the wattage and then we can do the calculation that show you just how many minutes less than 5 minutes that that thing can run your pump. Every situation like this always looks like a standby generator to me. And that means auto start, long duration fuel as appropriate based on where you are. And a whole house standby if your budget allows. Otherwise this is entirely a homeowners insurance issue. And, FYI, they will stop paying after the second time......possibly even the first time.....without mitigation. Which would be the generator. Which they probably won't want to pay for.
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Sep 7, 2022 01:08
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Sump pump failure is generally a specific exclusion in homeowner's policies. In the past - over the years, I've paid for it multiple times on the same insured. Why no cancel? With some companies, you can get a water backup endorsement that covers ensuing loss from the failure, but the coverage is usually limited to $5000 - $10000. For everything: water extraction/mitigation, dwelling, and contents. Once I verify the extent of the damage, I'll typically write a check for the limits & call it a day. It's a guaranteed low-exposure loss. Unless you're on a well, I'd consider getting a secondary pump powered by the home's water pressure. And make sure you have the backup endorsement on your HO policy. No way in hell would I trust a battery backup to last. Water's heavy, and Mother Nature likes to send in Olympic pools/minute. I have a large portable generator that is my last line of defense...until I install a water-powered backup. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 01:37
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Motronic posted:Okay, so that's exactly what I was going for. This is high risk. Turns out it's a 1/3 hp pump 5.9a, 110v. Lets just assume 6a 120v and 720 watts. Worst case scenario is probably 50% uptime (it's never even gotten above 25%)
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Sep 7, 2022 01:42
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PainterofCrap posted:Sump pump failure is generally a specific exclusion in homeowner's policies. ....and here we go with the experts on how screwed you would be. Nitrousoxide posted:Turns out it's a 1/3 hp pump With a several hundred dollar 100 Ah battery and a over 100 charger, a battery that you need to replace every probably 3 or so years, you may get a couple hours of runtime out of that. Does that work? If it does, does that make you comfortable for exceptions to time to power restoration? I look at this as "how much I'm home" vs. "this needs to be totally automated" because of course a portable generator and appropriate wiring/just extension cords is cheaper. But you need to be there to deal with it, and have fuel......fresh fuel to make it run. So really this comes down to a few factors that matter: how much you are home vs. risk tolerance. And like.....if I didn't use gas for mowers and stuff I sure wouldn't have a gas generator around because it would just be a PITA with stale fuel, etc. I mean....hell....the last time I needed my portable generator is was amazingly screwed up because I left the fuel cut off turned on and the entire oil sump was full of fuel. So I guess good thing I have the ability and materials to just change the oil doing a hurricane.
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Sep 7, 2022 01:51
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Motronic posted:....and here we go with the experts on how screwed you would be. I live in a rowhome so an external automatic switchover generator isn't really an option for lack of space. I don't have a lawn so I'd never use the gas for anything.
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Sep 7, 2022 02:03
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Hence: inline water-powered pump! https://www.amazon.com/Basement-Sentry-Powered-STWB140-Pressure/dp/B08W111B3R/ref=dp_fod_1?pd_rd_i=B08W111B3R&psc=1
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Sep 7, 2022 02:05
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PainterofCrap posted:Hence: inline water-powered pump! Hmm that might be the best option. My connection to the city water is like 5 feet away from the sump so that's convenient.
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Sep 7, 2022 02:27
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PainterofCrap posted:Hence: inline water-powered pump! 100% when you're on utility water.
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Sep 7, 2022 02:31
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Nitrousoxide posted:Any recommendations for a battery backup for a 1/4hp sump pump? There's another solution than this, and it's a purpose built backup system. Edit(I hit control enter trying to paste a URL) https://www.homedepot.com/p/Superior-Pump-Pre-Assembled-Emergency-Backup-Sump-Pump-System-92941/302330511 There's a standard pump, a low voltage pump, and a battery tender hooked up to an AGM type battery you provide. Intermittently it can last a few days, or continuously for 5-6 hours according to this: https://www.watercommander.com/articles/how-long-does-a-backup-sump-pump-battery-last Then if you know it'll be a long outage during a storm, put it on a generator. StormDrain fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 02:34
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