[SGVLUG] OT: portable air conditioners

[Claude Felizardo]

Let's see, when we bought the house, it already had two turbines and
two large gable vents.  We use the all-house fan in the evenings when
needed.  We do one room at a time for the fastest air flow - the kid's
rooms first, then the family room.   When we did the room addition I
added an attic fan w/ thermostat in the new gable.  Unfortunately the
tree on the south side of the house had to be removed to make room for
the air conditioner.  The floors of the attics are insulated, more so
over the family room but that's where we spend most of the day and
other than the kitchen, it has by far the most heat producing
appliances.

Some of you may recall from my home weather station presentation that
I have a bunch of temp sensors mounted throughout the house.  I keep
meaning to install a temp sensor in the new attic space.  One of these
days.  Basically I'm seeing a good 30-40 degree temp diff between the
attic sensor in the old part of the house and the living room which is
the coolest room in the house.  Yesterday, the attic peaked at 122
about 3:30 and dropped to 80 by 9 pm.  The living room started at 63,
hit 73 about 11 am and back down around 8.  I don't have a sensor in
the family room but it usually runs 5 to 6 degrees warmer during the
summer.  The wiring closet is at the far end of the family room peaked
at 78 but it's at the far end of the family room and has the modem,
routers and switches.  The A/C never kicked in but I expect it will
come on this weekend.  We turned on the ceiling fans this morning.

How far are you from the ocean?  A friend of mine moved from Redondo
Beach to Torrance and discovered that they were too far from that
great big heat sink and had to install central air after a few brutal
summers and (relatively) cold winters.

claude


On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Jeff Keys <jskeys at gmail.com> wrote:
> I second matti's suggestions. I lived in Claremont for about 25 years and
> played the game of shutting down bedroom vents and closing doors. In the
> early years I added two turbines when doing a reroof and they helped a lot,
> but we still had to run the AC pretty much all day during heat waves. I
> would have put in an attic fan instead but it pushed my budget at that time
> too far. My next-door neighbor did have one, and during heat waves, it ran
> most of the time but their AC almost never came on.
>
> In January I bought a house in Oceanside with no AC, and I don't anticipate
> needing it, but the first thing I'll look at is adding an attic fan.
>
> jeff
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 5:31 PM, matti <mathew_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >  I have been thinking about retrofitting my
> > mothers house to have an intake and exhaust fan
> > system to blow out the hot air in the attic and
> > pull in the cool air at nights during the summer.
> > (she still does not have AC, with the proper
> > night time ventilation and daytime shading of
> > the windows things work well enough AS long as
> > it cools down enough at nite.)
> >
> >
> > ps - what I would try:
> > add insulation, vent the attic space,
> > run a separate zone if you can...
> >
>
>