Mad Mike
Well-known member
Ouch! That's double my spend. Prolly a 5000 sq baller palace in Barrie.
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Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?
- Thread starter mimico_polak
- Start date
Haha. Not that big.
Ditto for retirees
Those cables tend to run about 5 watts per foot so a 1 Kw load. For BS numbers say $0.20 / Kw X 24 hours = $4.80 a day X 14 days = $67.20. Subject to calculations only understandable by Hawkings.
Putting the cables on the outside means a lot of heat lost to the outside. Inside the RWL they may not keep it 100% clear but will made a hole in the ice to let things drain. All of the heat is dispersed inside the pipe.
Fine control of eaves / roof and RWL's is hard due to variables. IE the sun heats the roof, melting what's up there. That runs off to a RWL in the shade and that freezes, maybe splits.
Is that sailboat in Hamilton Harbour still up for grabs? Turn it upside down and convert it to an abode. No eaves troughs required.
Cheap insurance against the damage from ice dams. I had water pouring over the edge of the flat roof parapet last night and about 10 mins after switching the cable on it stopped. I figured it loosened the ice inside the drainpipe and drained everything. There’s a ton of snow on the flat roof right now and this is the worst time of winter for these things. You’re right though, if I’d managed to get the cables inside it would be better.
Even a single pass through the downpipe should be sufficient. You need to melt enough to make a path for water to flow. Once water is flowing, ice doesn't stand a chance and you could turn the wire off.
A few months after finishing this office project I redid the base cabinets as the grey ones bothered me (initially was gong to paint the grey ones a dark colour until I bought them and realized they couldn’t be painted). Also lowered the new boxes for a better height.
Putting in a smaller furnace was a good idea. House came with 125K BTU High efficiency one stage (with 100 degree temp rise !!!). Changed it to 90K btu two-stage. At -23 outside with lots of wind, it's running on low speed for 30-40 minutes per hour (~52K btu required to maintain temp). Obviously changing the house temp takes longer but meh. Cycle time is much improved as the old one would only run for a few minutes and then kick off.
You just found the secret to more comfortable heat , our old super heater furnace would jack the temps in 8-9 mins then sit for 20 then 8-9 mins . New unit ran a bit longer of cycles and the effect was more consistent heat . Sizing a unit shouldn’t be hard , I’m guessing a lot of over specing goes on.
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Probably just easier to be way to big and never get the call that the furnace won't keep up. We have a ground source heat pump without backup coils and it has never been a issue it is just slow at raising the temp after a setback.
Sent from the future
Heat pump is hopefully getting added next year. Havent entirely decided whether to aim for two stage heat pump and full power gas as backup or one stage hp and two stage gas backup. I think two stage hp to simplify dehumidificatio/cooling and minimize fan power. Ducts are undersized (as with every house you dont personally design) and full load cooling really works the fan hard. That was part of the reason for the two stage furnace.
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Jacked up the fan time to 55min/hr and holy snap the top level is hot as hell. But the main floor is quite cold. I’d wager a 5-7C swing between the two.
May not even be worth insulating the top floor, as the heat is keeping well. But the main floor is the issue.
May not even be worth insulating the top floor, as the heat is keeping well. But the main floor is the issue.
It may be worth investigating the duct dampers. Close down the airflow to upstairs so more of it goes to main floor and then drifts up (start by fully opening main floor damper if it's not already). Nothing will be labeled and control arms may not even be oriented correctly so it may take a little trial and error to figure out what goes where. I have figured out a few ducts but not all of them. When I know i'm right I label the duct with sharpie to help me (and the next person) in the future.
We have the same issue. Installed a ceiling fan at the top of the stairs to “push” some of the rising air back down and recirculate more. Seems to help a bit.
Our return air duct was a joke.
I was going to convert my fluorescent fixture to LED but saw some LED replacement bulbs at Costco. Half the price and a tenth the work of changing the fixtures so I went for it. I'm not sure about efficiency but they work OK.
Not exactly to the house but a shop snafu, creating my own Friday 13th, the day of everything going wrong. (Yeah we go for rides)
I needed a small piece of steel and didn't want to go to HD so having a milling machine I tried making a big piece into a small piece. Three or four hours and a broken cutter later I had a pathetic excuse for what I wanted. I decided to throw in the scrap metal pail and it landed next to almost exactly what I wanted. *&(^^&
Not exactly to the house but a shop snafu, creating my own Friday 13th, the day of everything going wrong. (Yeah we go for rides)
I needed a small piece of steel and didn't want to go to HD so having a milling machine I tried making a big piece into a small piece. Three or four hours and a broken cutter later I had a pathetic excuse for what I wanted. I decided to throw in the scrap metal pail and it landed next to almost exactly what I wanted. *&(^^&
Mad Mike
Well-known member
Most houses of MPs vintage eill have dampers in the last section of each run, just before the floor grate. Pop the grate, reach into the duct and if you find one, restrict the upstairs vents and filly open downstairs vents. Do the same with high returns.
Reverse in AC season.
If you don't have inline dampers, you can restrict supply vents by stuffing in an old towel it t-shirt.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
We have something similar, a single 5" power vent that draws high on the top floor and pushes warm air down to the basement. It moves 250cfm when the downstairs temp is 2f lower than upstairs.
I found this setup in my 2 story houses up north, the HVAC guy explained unto.me. Tried it in my house, it really made a difference.
A family member bought a house that came with three thermostats and no instructions or labels. I figured it out for them. Cool system. One thermostat on main floor was furnace. Second thermostat in lower-level (wo basement) controlled inlet air damper on wood stove. Third thermostat on main level controlled a transfer fan to suck heat out of room with wood stove. Old school hole in the floor would have been simpler and worked without power but it was kind of cool.
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