Yeah some places around my state are exactly like this. Bad sulfur smell thats almost gag worthy. Shit, just driving and stopping at rest stops, some of them just stink of that smell. I mean I guess you get used to it eventually but damn.
Me & the then girlfriend drove to Disney world and stopped somewhere in south GA overnight. The water at the hotel stank of sulfur so bad. I would hate living somewhere like that. Parts of NC/SC have arsenic levels that are naturally occurring in water.
Same here, for me it was my great grandparents house. A very distinct scene that I now just associate with "really old farm house".
Doesn’t seem like a lot. My friends and family price for new AC was $22,000. In my mind it’s a compressor and a coil. All the ducting is already there. Shit man, I don’t know anymore. Everything costs too much and still usually sucks.
Wow you sure it was a friend? WTF. Don't know what you do for a living but I always reached out to my sales guys and found someone who could get AC systems wholesale and bought it myself.Doesn’t seem like a lot. My friends and family price for new AC was $22,000. In my mind it’s a compressor and a coil. All the ducting is already there. Shit man, I don’t know anymore. Everything costs too much and still usually sucks.
No, it's not. But I'd like to get it done soon, and right now "soon" in Texas would mean doing this on days where the high temp is hitting 105. I thought about firing up the old system and just troubleshooting it too...
) I picked one up.
early july, got bulb, lines and filters. mixed up fresh fuel. saw run, not great. figure it needs carb cleaned and adjusted. i had also gotten old little stihl so been using that and the husqvarna has just been sitting. today got it out, put some more fuel in it and some bar oil and it would start and die. started checking everything and emptied the tank. the color is little off, but it is very orange and chunky. the gas cap is now leaking, so maybe a combo of the heat and low fuel allowed it to pull in moisture
so how much 'cooler' does it run like that? My outdoor unit is pretty much 100% in sunlight from about 9am until sunset. The extreme lack of humidity here helps anyway but every little bit would help.OK. Tiny home project for the weekend time.
I realized a few years back that there is some honest truth in "If you keep the outside portion of your central AC cooler, it's more efficient cooling the house". For the past few years I've accomplished this by jerry rigging a large shade umbrella on a post next to my AC unit out back. Problem with this solution was that due to wind/rain/etc each umbrella was lucky to last a whole "AC season" (in my part of Texas that's around April-November for Chez Haus). I've tested this theory by having my AC running unshaded on a full sun August day in Texas and measuring the temp of air coming out on the inside, then the next day shaded it in the morning so it didn't heat as much and lo and behold significantly cooler air was coming out of the vents in my house.
I was researching some stuff on the interwebs about better filters for my AC (Wife and I both have some level of pollen allergies, and we have multiple pets around the house) and the algo threw some videos at me about AC shading devices/techniques. As usual with the internet there were both "This is great" and "this is bullshit!" videos. To be honest, the "this is bullshit" videos seemed to directly contradict what I had personally measured and experienced. So I am still a believer in it because I've experienced the benefits.
One of the videos pointed me at this site :
https://www.cooleriscooler.com/
They actually build a basic PCV frame out of UV resistant PVC alone with a C shaped shade. Everything they showed mapped to my tests. My one problem with my umbrella solution was the durability issue, this looked to go at that issue. My inner DIY guy confidently said "I can build this myself", my "how much do my pet projects end up costing" guy quickly said "Sure, but you'll spend more than the $125 they want, PLUS it will be a time sink and you don't really enjoy it". And since I have more money than sense (obviously, I just dropped another yearly donation to this place!
It arrived, and soup to nuts took me around 15 minutes to assemble and install. Here it is after, going through final inspection by my very meticulous "back yard" expert :
View attachment 636506
And yes, I know I need to do some better trimming and maintenance on the side where the mint/blackberry shrub is invading...
Already looks much better than my old "big ass umbrella" approach, now to see how it holds up through an August (looking like high temps in Dallas won't go under 100 until September at this rate, with no rain in sight)
I'm waiting to see how it handles fall winds. If there's a weak point it's probably that the frame of PVC connectors is just pushed together, held by pressure. If that comes apart, I have some purple PVC cement to throw at that problem. I know the big generic patio umbrella solution was almost always destroyed by a strong wind storm in the fall each year. The fabric screen felt moderately substantive, I could probably fabricate one from a sturdier shade material, but we will see how it holds up. I will agree the light construction is my one concern.
But assuming it can do around the same performance (which it probably will since even though it doesn't shade the top like the umbrella did, it shades the sides much more of the day due to proximity and coverage) that would tell me somewhere around 2 degrees less outside resulted in 1 degree less inside.
