Regardless of the acrimonious comments, BX is typical of the guys in the field. As I win small concessions from him and others, I realize what I am fighting. If I met with him on a regular basis, I would probably cherish his acquaintance. I am not the typical HVAC service guy, so I am not wedded to previous ways of doing business. Although I serviced several generations of equipment, I only spent about 20% of my time with HVAC and refrigeration as a service guy. I performed service for many years, but only spent a small portion of time with HVAC. I did not believe in many of the NEW techniques for installation, until I understood why they are necessary. If I had the money or desire for continuing education, I am sure that I could learn new tricks. What I do not like are old-timers that just donÂt want to keep up with new design techniques. Texas has attempted to force continuing education of contractors. This is a hindrance to the small guy, and large companies do not typically train the rank and file worker. The real problem is the availability of junk courses that can be taken that do nothing for training or learning of new information. Furthermore the requirement is only for licensed contractors. It does not include the workers. When a major company has multiple trucks, I would imagine the information gleaned is not passed to the workers. Since management is a small subset of the workforce, the training of workers does not exist in Texas. As long as they have a CFC certificate, this is all that is needed. As to duct installation, training is on-the-job. The typical worker is non-English speaking; non green card entitled foreigners. This group of people is NEVER trained for more than is necessary to do a minimal job. Furthermore when they are knowledgeable, they are too old to do the job quickly, so they are replaced. I am sure this is not the norm in all geographic areas, but in the southern areas this is typical. The hot climate areas are where design is so important for proper operation of equipment, but is done by minimal trained workers. When you see a legal worker, he is probably at the same level as the other group discussed. Last summer was proof of the need for trained installation workers. The typical cooling bill for my area was double of previous years. Complaints of bills higher than mortgage payments were common. One story that emphasizes this issue was on TV and about an owner of a 3000 sqft house that had $900+ monthly electric bills, which were more than his mortgage payments. If I sound too authoritative, sometimes it is needed, to wake up the general population. We tend to ignore problems until faced with them ourselves. Then when we look for help; it just isnÂt there.

Thank you! I might be the GC on the job we have not determined if that will be the case yet. I do have the architectural plans and am VERY involved with the process. I can pretty much tell you or a computer generated list what all products we are using, windows, insulation, flooring, lighting, etc. I just don't want to be over sold on a high efficient unit for the main floor because of square footage. It seems like everyone just uses the standard of 1 ton for every 500 feet and we are going to be so well insulated with all the energy efficient products that we can use that I wonder why we need a 5 ton rather than a 4.

What the 2-hot water tanks mean is that the geothermal desuperheater will produce hot water at about 110°F that will be stored in a passive buffer tank and will feed an active electric hot water tank. This should result in an energy savings of at least 33% with regard to producing hot water. This is not a Âcombination unit that would provide both forced air heating & cooling and full capacity hot water production for in-floor radiant heating. All geothermal units should be available with a desuperheater option for the production of domestic hot water. During the summer time when youÂre air-conditioning, much the heat thatÂs being extracted from your home will go into your hot water tank as opposed to being vented into the outside air as is the case with a conventional air-conditioner or heat pump. In the A/C mode with a geo system your hot water is considered essentially free. What type of ground heat exchanger (ground loop system) is being proposed? SR

The calculation software I have seen can only support one indoor heating and cooling temperature. One work around is to break up the calculation into groups of rooms with the same temperature and add the results. Another method is to use the 70 degree temperature for the whole school. This would create the biggest load and equipment sizing. You could then create another calculation with the weighted average temperature based on the room sizes. The cooling load will be reduced. You will then have to determine if should reduce the equipment size from the 70 degree calculation.