Living Room Furnace

June 7, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Furnace • Hall Of Shame   |   Tags: •

Living Room Furnace

Furnace Room Heater?

Can you imagine trusting a mechanical contractor you hired over Craig's list to install a room heater in your living room while you where at work? These people came home to a full sized furnace installed in their living room, all they wanted was a room heater. Can you imagine trying to watch TV as this furnace ramps up to heat your home? Now imagine that you paid him in FULL already!

 

I actually looked up the contractor who installed this furnace, he has no contractor license, he has no bond, he is not insured and on his proposal he asked the check to be made out in his personal name! Even though on his invoice he was clearly charging tax! Normally I would be the first in line to turn this contractor in, but the customer actually beat me to it.

PLEASE when hiring a contractor, do a little homework. And Don't do a Living Room Furnace

 

Living Room Furnace

Living Room Furnace

Bradford White combi-core

May 29, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Boilers • Water Heater   |   Tags: • •

Bradford White combi-core

Bradford White combi-core not heating

Every once in awhile you come across a good install, but poor design. Here we have a Bradford White combi-core (Boiler) hwt. These tanks heat both the domestic and hydronic water without mixing the two. The first thing I look for when I'm called out on a no heat boiler call is water pressure, and in this case there was no gauge. Not only was there no gauge...there was no pressure relieve valve. I determined there was massive amounts of air in the system, the pressure regulating valve was shot (no water coming in), and their expansion tank was faulty.

 

What we replaced and added

I replaced the expansion tank, replaced the cheap pressure regulator valve, added a pressure relieve valve and pressure gauge. Now if they ever have issues again with their Bradford White combi-core at least the tech can see if there is pressure in the system ... and if the pressure gets to high it has a place to go. I also found a faulty Wirsbo zone valve, and of course replaced it as well.

Bradford White combi-core

Lennox to American Standard

May 27, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Furnace   |   Tags: • • •

Lennox to American Standard

Years ago I use to be an Lennox furnace dealer ... and way before that I use to install Lennox furnaces for a local company.

Lennox Pulse

Lennox Pulse

I can not tell you how many Lennox pulse furnaces I have installed, but I can tell you I absolutely hated the Lennox pulse because of the noise it produced. Because of the way it burns its fuel it creates a pulsing/knocking sound that is so annoying it will drive you out of your home. We literally had to install mufflers and vibration pads to try to help bring down the noise.

Here we have a 100,000 btu Lennox pulse, the grand daddy of noise makers. Seeing this old knocker reminded of my early days installing when I was in my early 20's. Fortunately for my customer there is the new American Standard 95% Variable 2 stage gas furnace that is mouse whisper compared to the pulse.

 

Lennox to American Standard  ... Cont.

 

Lennox To American Standard

American Standard furnace

I had to replace the existing venting with larger 3" PVC, do a few duct changes and added a Honeywell 4" pleated filter bank. Other than that the job went fairly smooth. And because the existing thermostat location could not be moved easily we went with a Honeywell wireless thermostat. If you want to move your thermostat location but cant because of wiring issues ... use the wireless... very cool.

 

Payne Furnace Replacement

May 27, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Furnace   |   Tags: • •

Payne Furnace Replacement To American Standard

Why Alpine Heating

I would say about 80% of my customers that do furnace replacements choose Alpine Heating And Cooling because they have been our customer for years and trust us, the other 20% do their due diligence on equipment before selecting us. Its always a nice feeling when a customer comes back because we carry American Standard and they want a quality piece of equipment.

 

Now you obviously can not tell just from the photo, but this furnace was just a little undersized for the home, fortunately the base can and the rest of the ducting was sized for the home. This made it fairly simple to do the replacement. It is not uncommon for heating companies to use the same base can for every application, this makes it easier for the fab shop and the crew setting the base can.

 

The new American Standard 95% Variable 2 Stage fit right on the older base can, I simply had to make a offsetting transition and reconnect. The venting had to be rerouted to the other side of the garage and a condensate line added, but other than that this was a fairly simple replacement.

 

Now in this case and well as many others We offered a discount to replace their hot water tank at the same time as I replace the furnace. In this case I replaced the older hot water tank with a new 50 gallon Bradford White Tank.

 

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

Payne Furnace Replacement
New American Standard furnace

Navien Combi Water Heater

May 26, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Boilers • Water Heater   |   Tags: • •

Navien Combi Boiler Weekend Home

Navien Combi Water Heater

At first glance I was taken back a little by the material being used in this water heater system. I have never seen black rubber hose being used in a in-floor application. It was not only the rubber hose being used but the size of the hose, 1/4" Id just does not seem like a lot of surface area to me for in-floor.

Existing Black Rubber Hydronic Hose

Existing Black Rubber Hydronic Hose

The black hose simply pushed into the copper pipe to make a manifold, the pressure of the system keeps its sealed. My research concludes that 45psi is the max these connections could hold back. We are running 12 to 20 psi.

Older Combi core HWT

Older Combi core HWT

  Here you can see the older Combi-Core water tank that was used to heat both their domestic as well as there hydronic heat. The mixing valves being used appeared faulty and both expansion tanks where bad.

 

Navien Combi Water Heater ... cont.

Navien has really out done themselves in my book with the Navien Combi Water Heater. This unit not only heats your domestic water, but also heats your home ... all in the same box.

New Navien CH-240 Water Heater

New Navien CH-240 Water Heater

 The Navien CH-240 tankless bolted right up on the exterior wall and really was plug and play, well of course we had to build a primary manifold and modify the existing loop to be a secondary loop ... but not to complicated.

 We controlled the Navien Combi Water Heater boiler system with the new ecobee Wifi thermostat, this way my customer can change thermostat settings from a remote location. And this being a weekend home it will work out great.

 

American Standard AC

May 25, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Air Conditioner • Furnace   |   Tags: • • •

Installing a American Standard AC

This older RHEEM 80% furnace has lived its life and ready for the scrap yard. In fact my customer not only wants a better quality furnace but one with a higher efficiency rating as well. And lets not forget about air conditioning.

 

American Standard fits the bill

The American Standard 95% Variable Speed 2 Stage with an American Standard air conditioner fits the bill perfectly. American Standard is IMO the best furnace on the market today, I talk to a lot of technicians as well as personally service many brands myself... hands down I really do not think you can beat the quality.

 

Install the American Standard Air Conditioner

The new American Standard furnace sits perfectly on its matching indoor coil, the new PVC venting runs up and out through the roof ... and the condensate runs into a simple condensate pump. The refer line set runs up, over and down the wall to the new AC unit. With the help of a preformed pad the AC installation happens rather quickly. In fact most of our installations take less than 8 hours.

Need a American Standard AC, Heat Pump, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

Older Rheem Unit
American Standard AC coil
American Standard AC

American Standard Furnace

May 25, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Filtering • Furnace • Water Heater   |   Tags: • • •

American Standard Furnace 80%

Like for like 80%

Here we have an American Standard Furnace 80% that was replaced with a new American Standard Furnace 80%. What we call "like for like". It is by far one of the easiest types of replacements, especially if its located in the garage.

Older Trane Furnace

Older Trane Furnace

Now in my opinion this furnace should have lasted a lot longer. One issue that caused a short life was a poorly sized filter system, a small filter gets clogged way to fast making it difficult for the owner to keep up with and then eventually causing high limit failures(over heating). Also if the furnace had been vented with double wall pipe instead of galvanized single wall pipe, there would have been less internally corrosion (white dust) that clogs up pressure ports and causes excessive wear on the inducer. We find this a lot in very cold garages.

Like for like 80% cont.

Here you see the new American Standard furnace and a Bradford White hot water tank installed. The new equipment is vented with type B double wall venting that will eliminate internal corrosion. We also added a Honeywell filter system.

New American Standard furnace 80% and Bradford White 50 gal

New American Standard furnace 80% and Bradford White 50 gal

And as you can see the Honeywell F100 4" fits perfectly on top and usually provides annual protection but I do recommend checking every 6 months.

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

Ductless In Anacortes

April 12, 2015   |   Author: Gary Kirkendall   |   No comments   |   Categories: Ductless   |   Tags: •
Anacortes Ductless

Ductless In Anacortes, a perfect example.

Anacortes Ductless

Anacortes Ductless

This home(Ductless In Anacortes) is a perfect example of when you need to consider a Ductless Daikin mini Split heat pump. The home is slab on grade, meaning no crawl space under the home. Even if we had a crawl space there is no logical place to put a furnace. And the home is only about 1200 sqft. way to small for a full size furnace. Making the ductless Daikin ductless mini split ductless system a perfect fit.

And once again I forgot to take a picture of the indoor unit.

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler, Ductless, Mini-Split or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.