Good news/bad news
Bad news: Our compressor component of our air conditioning unit died on us Monday night.
Bad news: The unit is a 3 phase and as I am told a hard unit to locate for whatever reason which I have no idea.
Good news: The a/c tech was able to find a replacement unit in Lakeland, FLa.
Bad news: It won't be delivered in time for an install on Friday and we will have to wait until Tuesday.
Good news: The weather report indicates a high for this weekend through Monday of around 84 degrees. (It could be much worse...it is not unusual to have 90 degrees by this time of year.)
Bad news: My comfort zone is around 72 degrees and I'm not looking forward to not having a/c.
Good news: If it is unbearable then I will not be doing any slave work like house cleaning, etc. over the weekend. I will just take it easy, drink tropical chilled drinks and chill out.
Bad news: The first tech told us the unit replacement would be around $1800 and then the next tech told us it would be $3500 because of it being a 3 phase. What is this 3 phase BS?
Good news: My son is coming home next weekend as we are celebrating Mr. Red Molly's birthday. Hopefully the a/c will be working by that time and we all will have a COOL time.
8 Comments:
of yer news bof good n bad, the last bit of good news must make up fer a lot! too bad bout the ac. so far me n miz bd aint had to turn it on even once yet this year, but they say its a'gone git up in the 90s in the next day or so.
Molly, most home services are not 3 phase. Many neighborhoods are not wired to provide 3 phase. 3 phase is most often reserved for commercial/industrial services. Unless Florida has something different to use smaller wire for some reason I do not know why your house would be serviced with 3 phase.
Your HVAC guy may be scamming you.
One quick way to check would be to open the little box next to your unit (called a local disconnect) where there may be a lever switch, or not, either way there would be three fuses or a triple breaker. Another way to tell would be to look at your house breaker/fuse (MDP) it will have a tag that says something about 3 phase or 120/208 volts or perhaps 277/480 volts (which is unlikely even more), but if it says 120/240 volts it is a normal home voltage (single phase). You also could call your utility company and ask if your house service is three phase.
If your home is single phase (which I bet it is), and your HVAC guy found that someone has installed a three phase compressor then someone would have had to rig it to run with a third leg generating device (which there again is unusual). If your HVAC guy has found this to be the case he could install a compressor that runs on single phase power in place of the other.
I do find it fishy your house would be three phase serviced, but I don't know anything about Florida electric companies. The NEC (National Electric Code, The electricians bible) which covers the whole country still finds home services commonly as single phase.
That is why there are different electrical contractors some are residential and some are commercial. If your HVAC man is residential licensed he has no business working on a 3 phase unit.
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Tennessee Jed you're correct about most home services being 3 phase. Being that I work on the water/sewer side of the utility I don't know about power, but I know the only portion of new neighborhoods that served by 3 phase power are lift stations.
We looked at the meters (yes there are 2). One serves the house and the other one that serves the aircondioner does say 480V.
When I have asked people at work why they have two meters, they said that when the house was built it was served with 3 phase because the air conditioners where less efficent.
I was wondering how hard it would be to switch the air handler to single phase and run everthing off the same service as the house.
Erin, Here we can only have one service entrance for any building even if it is huge. If a building wants 277/480 to power big HVAC's, other motor devices and fancy lights they must use a step-down transformer for 120/208-240 volt to power common devices like TV's and appliances. I thought that was part of the NEC too for safety reasons like lock-out-tag-out and fire fighters.
Oh yes, I would bet it would be cheaper to replace the entire outside compressor/condenser unit with a common 240 volt unit. At least in the long run when it needs service it will be one of the "off the shelf" motors/compressors a tech can get that day.
Thank you all for your comments. I think I am pretty much stuck with what I have. We replaced the compressor unit 10 years ago and that was our first encounter with the 3phase issue and should have changed out everything then when the airhandler was old as well; however, we didn't because of all the confusion about 2 electric meters, etc. Then 3 years ago the airhandler died and that was the biggest PITA to replace because the unit is situated in our very tiny excuse for an attic. (Of course, Erin you know all of this already.) The new airhandler had to be a special model to fit in that small space (the old one and new one had to be taken apart to remove and install) and also while the new unit was being installed the A/C dude fell through the ceiling in my foyer and we had a huge hole that the A/C company had to repair. And the A/C company sent out an idiot to do the ceiling repair and that was another CF. So now we are stuck with a fairly new airhandler unit which pretty much decides for us to stick with the 3phase expensive probably-not-even-legal POS. Well maybe the new compressor will last 15 years and by that time Mr. Red Molly and I will be retired living in a little chateau in the south of France with our only worries being if our little vineyard is producing enough wine for us.
Wow, that is complicated stuff and I have no idea what it means, I just hope it is all fixed by now and you are all cool and comfortable and not too light in the pocketbook.
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