Sold home and new home build

[babybart]

I just did the electric for a guy on a gut job farm house. He dug the 350' trench from the house to the road, installed the conduit turned up at the pole and turned up into my meter can. Power company came in and pulled the wire and ran up the pole to new cut-out switch.... $1275. 400 amp service.

 

[muddstopper]

https://www.alpinehomeair.com/viewp...utm_term=4576992030061947&utm_content=Goodman
This is the type heat pump system, not the exact model, I will be installing. Except for the controls for the compressor and fan, everything else is mounted inside the duct work. This type system makes making changes a lot easier than a air handler mounted in or under the house. The biggest downside to this type system is you have to run ductwork from inside the house to outside the house. Also I am having a hard time finding anything with a seer rating more than 14. Other systems can have a lot higher seer, I don't know why.

 

[muddstopper]

Our electric comes through a coop, the most expensive in the state. They charge $100 per foot to bury wire to a house. Would it be an option to put the meter at the road and you bury the wire to the house from there? Several people around here have done that to save money. The downfall is the wire is yours to maintain if something goes wrong. I see one like this everyday on our road. The meter is next to the road on heavy wood posts and base. Then, they trenched the wire up the hill to their house, several hundred feet.

I find the $100 per ft. price a little hard to believe. I think the engineer said it was around $9 per ft. for mine. I also am running the power about 1300ft and it will require 2 transformers, at around $500 each be installed, also one pole and about 200ft of overhead. The last transformer will be placed 186ft from the house as that is the maximum distance for the house hookup. I forget what he said that cost for the house connection, but it was the same if it is 186ft or 5ft so he went 186ft so I don't have to pay more for the mainline. I am installing a 200amp service at the house, I can go to 400amp without any extra charge, but Why should I. The engineer did say If I later wanted to build a shop, I could install 400amp service to the shop and then remove the meter from the house and put on my shop, so only one meter and power bill. If I understand my electrician son correctly, I can add a lug in my meter base combo and run 200amp wire to my shop anyways and have 200amps at the house and the shop. Either way I will have to run new wire, I just have to keep the run short enough to not create a problem.

 

[92utownxh]

You're right didn't mean to add the extra zero. $10 per foot.

 

[Mustang71]

I dont think you will find a package unit with a high seer rating. Split systems and mini splits will have a higher rating. On days where it's over 85 here most 13 seer acs run non stop all day to maintain 72 degrees so that's y I'd be concerned about a 60ish degree coil but maybe if it has enough surface area and you move enough air it might keep up.

 

[muddstopper]

I dont think you will find a package unit with a high seer rating. Split systems and mini splits will have a higher rating. On days where it's over 85 here most 13 seer acs run non stop all day to maintain 72 degrees so that's y I'd be concerned about a 60ish degree coil but maybe if it has enough surface area and you move enough air it might keep up.

A 14seer is all I have found so far. I think the code for here requires 14seer. As I said about the Aframe coil my buddy used, not enough surface area. Checking the temp differential between water in and water out, he could only achieve about a 2degree differential. His soil temp in sandy soil at 2ft depth was 60F. I just bought this computer and I don't have the link saved to the cooler coils I plan to use. I will have to fire up my old computer to share a link. Basically it is very similar to a oil cooler you might find on a piece of hydraulic equipment. Now that I think about it, I have a new oil cooler I could rig up to do a little pretesting by using a garden hose and a fan. I could build a cardboard box for the cooler to fit in and connect the hose and then check air temps in and out.

Found this video of the heat exchanger and installation procedure

 

[CUCV]

The amount of money it cost to bring 200amp service to my barn makes me sick. The first guy came out from the power company and really didn't want to do underground for the 600'ish run and quoted me like $18k underground $5k overhead. I really didn't want to look at poles and overhead lines in the back yard so I was working towards a combination of both then the guy retired. The new guys was all about underground so the overhead numbers grew on my half and half idea. In the end I went all underground and had to pay the electric company about $8.5K. I dug the trench, purchased and installed the conduit, purchased and installed the transformer base.

 

[muddstopper]

The amount of money it cost to bring 200amp service to my barn makes me sick. The first guy came out from the power company and really didn't want to do underground for the 600'ish run and quoted me like $18k underground $5k overhead. I really didn't want to look at poles and overhead lines in the back yard so I was working towards a combination of both then the guy retired. The new guys was all about underground so the overhead numbers grew on my half and half idea. In the end I went all underground and had to pay the electric company about $8.5K. I dug the trench, purchased and installed the conduit, purchased and installed the transformer base.

You guys are making it sound as if I am getting a bargain. $8.5k for 600ft and I am running twice that for $9300 and they are digging it in and supplying the poles and 2 transformers. I guess I shouldn't complain. I am going to complain about the septic inspector. They don't want to approve where I want my septic tank and fill lines, but they are perfectly ok with moving the lines to the opposite side of the house about 60ft from my proposed site. Said they hit rock with their soil probe, bullshite. We went 1300ft and never hit any rock and they claim they hit rock in a 30ft wide area and then no more rock. Now I got to dig test holes if I want the septic where I suggested putting it. I aint buying it.

 

[Mustang71]

It's a great idea to test it out with a model. I think you have good ideas about heating and cooling but I'd hate to see you spend a ton of time and money into something and it doesnt work like planned. I know refrigeration and gas or electric heat work. Your creek fed air conditioning is like heating with wood it takes a lot of messing with to get it right. The solar heat I have seen work here where we get 0 degree winters and heating a home seems to be easier than cooling one. In your situation I'd get a solid heat and cool method built into the house and then try out ideas. Have the hvac guy put the water coils in the duct work and after you have a home spend time messing with water coils.

I've been down this road with wood furnaces and I do this stuff every day. At the end of the day, as much as I hate it, I can rely on the Lennox lp furnace to heat the house when my idea didnt work out and I have to modify it.

 

[muddstopper]

When heating water with solar, what kind of heat exchanger are you using. I am considering the brazed plate water to water heat exchanger to heat water for my normal hot water needs. That way instead of paying big bucks for a water tank with a exchanger inside I can use a regular water heater with the plate exchanger mounted outside the tank. Using the plate exchanger will allow me to keep the potable water separate from my solar heated water.

 

[Mustang71]

I would think using an indirect tank would be the easiest and cheapest setup. Use a taco pump controller with 2 taco pumps for heat and hot water but hot water would have to take priority over heat. I'm not sure of the exact controller since we rarely use pumps to zone a system. If you were to use an electric tank with solar for supplement then a regular heat exchanger would work but idk how you would get the solar to take priority over the electric elements and if you couldn't then when you start using hot water you would be using mostly electric to reheat the water. I guess you could put a timer in to not run the elements between certain hours and hopefully the solar would keep up. This is y I dont think about this stuff or I'd be cutting my plumbing and heating apart all the time lol. I dont heat with solar but I have met a few people with solar heat from the 70s who say it works great.

 

[muddstopper]

Solar heated water would have to have its own tank. My plans is to do something similar as I already have with my wood fired water heater. fresh water runs into the solar storage tank and is heated by the solar collectors and then passes thru to my electric water heater. Using a external plate heat exchanger would keep the solar heated water separate from my fresh water. All hot water will come from the electric water heater and that water will be replaced with the preheated water from the solar heated water heater. This way, there is no contamination of my potable water and my electric heater will provide my hot water needs in the event bad weather prevent the solar collector from working. The water that flows thru the plate exchanger is kept separate from my potable water at all times. Granted, a old electric water heater will not store enough hot water to heat a house. It would require a much larger collector and a lot more storage to even attempt heating the house with solar. The solar water heater for hot water will be located in my utility room and will be installed at the time of build. The solar collectors and extra storage will be built after I have moved into the house. Collectors my be on the house roof, or could possibly be mounted on the land. I suspect to keep cost in line, I will probably build a inground water storage tank somewhere close to my heat exchanger located above grade from my ground based solar collectors. This will allow for convection flow of the heated hot water without the need for a pump. It will also make expanding the collector size in the event my first attempt at sizing falls short of what is needed. I will need a pump to circulate the hot water thru my duct mounted heat exchanger.

 

[milkie62]

The joys of building. I was 22 yrs old when my wife and I bought approx. 100 acres of land. I was determined to build my own house even though at the time I could not even cut a piece of wood straight. I drew up my own plans and submitted them even though I made changes as I went along. It started out as 1490 sq feet since you can only build 1500 sq feet in my town w/out an architect.I had a wall framed out so I could put an addition on when I was done since we built w/out a mortgage. After I was done added another 1200 sq feet. Pretty happy with the outcome and no mortgage.But if I had to do it again I would have gotten a $50k mortgage and got it done sooner .

 

[dave_dj1]

I'm a big fan of closed cell spray foam. It not only encapsulates the structure but makes it more rigid as well.
I recommend it to all my clients when we are building new or adding on.