Central AC Costs???
 

I will be getting estimates to have central air conditioning installed in our home....wondering if anyone can give me some insight into what the cost will be if any of you have had any experience or are in the field? We have a Cape with forced hot air so duct work is in place!

Make sure you have (or put) a return on the second floor. I think 5/0 does this!!
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Call Bob 5/0. He did mine and a furnace couple years ago and did a great job. I would recommend him.
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I would ask about a furnace at the same time.

If you do heat / air you will want returns in all rooms that have doors .
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My furnace is in fantastic condition....and beyond the AC would not be in the budget! It will be too late for returns in the upstairs rooms....we just did the first floor over!

http://youtu.be/HxSLbpAwibg
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but you said the back room will be done over so maybe it's not too late, and maybe a closet could be used also.you really will need a return for the ac upstairs or it just won't work well and you'll be hot upstairs.

The only place we could still put in a return is when I gut the den next month and put one in to our bedroom....noplace on the other side of the house for one unless we run a duct through the eves in the front of the house behind the knee wall and come out that way?

Up through bedroom closet into Attic and then to rooms from there? I'm not an expert but the ones who are will figure out a way. Do it right, you don't want to have a cold 1st floor and hot 2nd floor in the summer! It will also help balance heat in the winter too. I have a cape and adding returns to the second floor is night and day!
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Thanks Paul I appreciate the kind words.
Larry, you have a couple of factors to think about. fisrt is square footage of your home, then how well insulated is the home, how are the windows, and do you have any tree coverage to protect your house from solar gain In the summer months?
This info will determine the tonnage.
You have a Cape style home, so I would assume that the furnace is in the basement, is the basement a living area as well?
Access to the existing ductwork will be needed because it will have to be insulated because of condensation.

Also I would assume that all supplies and returns are on mounted on the floor
And no, returns on the second floor.
The second floor will be the killer for heat gain, second floor has two bedrooms and a single bathroom.

And I hope the t-stat is on the fisrt floor.



You could try putting a system on the furnace and see how it works out over the summer.
Ifmyou don't get the results that you want you could install a ductless splitmunit in the master bedroom.

Bob....3/4 of the first floor has been gutted and reinsulated all new windows and doors. No trees close to the house. Ductwork is accessible in basement it is just an unfinished basement. Second floor is 2 bedrooms on each end and just a small bedroom where most have a second floor bathroom. Second floor has no returns and the t-stat is first floor. Bob would you be interested in the job? You come highly recommended?

Give me a call Larry.
Btw Paul how is camp Auschwitz?
Lmfao........I'm all set with that.

cool right now Bobby. Perfect for you. BTW I need to get some filters from you, I've been saying that for a year now. I'm Procrastinator extraordinaire.

ya, filters for me too Bob :)

Around 2009, I bought a 1800 sqft Cape built in 1954. Been
renovating it myself. This is our first home, and previous to
installing AC, I had never lived in a home with AC. We live on the
border of CT and NY....sort of a NYC suburb.

If you are not familiar with it there is a site called costhelper...gives
general estimates on costs of different things. http://home.costhelper.com/central-a...ditioning.html

In the Fall of 2011 we had both the furnace replaced and an AC
system installed. Our home had forced hot air, so the ductwork was
already in place. We got 3 quotes....ranging from 10-12k. We went
with the high end. I picked theropride for the hardware.

what was included.
1. new furnace
2. new 1.5 ton compressor and airhandler
3. switch to a 2 zone system with the fabrication of a new main
trunk and a new return trunk.

each of the 3 above broke down the price to into thirds...so each
was roughly quoted as 4k.

So, this is the deal. After the job was done, I had some problems. I
could not keep my second floor cool enough. On super hot days
over 95 or 100, the ac would run non stop an the second floor
would continue to get hotter and hotter. I had the Hvac company
come and they said there was nothing they could do and had
excuses....or said well Capes are like that. On four occasions my
coil in the air handler froze.

Needles to say I was a little ripped. After two years of trying to get
the HVAC company to work with me on a solution I gave up.

So....now the good news. I solved the problem myself, and without
spending a dime.

My cape had returns in every room on the first floor but none on
the second floor. When the HVAC company did the install....they
actually disabled all the returns on the first floor and and made one
large return in the living room of the first floor. No change was
made to the second floor...still no returns up there.

So, the saving grace was that I converted to a two zone system. I
thought about the problem I was having and changed my cooling
strategy.

For two years I set both the upstairs and downstairs to
the same temperature, and I had problems cooling the upstairs.
Both zones would be running all the time and the top floor was
hotter than hell.

What I do now is...I set the downstairs 2 degrees warmer than the
upstairs. It is magic. Both zones are cool and the downstairs zone
never turns on and is actually cooler than the upstairs. What is
happening is all the cool are is forced to the upstairs, and because
cool air sinks and the return is on the first floor..... it cools the
downstairs as well. My system no longer runs all the time, no
longer freezes, and the whole house is cool.


Feel free to pm me if you want to talk about it more. I can send
you my phone number and we can talk about some of the specifics.

spray foam the attic and put an air handler up there with duct work.