Interesting Jem.. Well just have to wait and see what shows up. Although, the heat transfer from aluminum heater cores and evaporator cores, compared to similar size copper ones has proven to be much greater IMO. Greater even to the point where we had a company making copper heater cores to replace the aluminum ones that GM had in their cars the 80's that we ended up having to take back out and go back to the aluminum ones, because the customers simply didn't get enough heat from the copper ones, and there was nothing else wrong.

I have 2 Panasonic fans. The secret to any fan noise is proper duct work. This means as long a run as possible directly off the fan without changing direction or reducing size. Avoiding 90 degree bends - multiple 45's are better. Avoid flexible duct work like the plague. It's horrible stuff. Not only will it collect dust and moisture, the turbulence of the air caused by all those ridges contributes a lot to the noise level. Both my fans are exhausted to the outside with rigid duct work properly installed, taped (not duct tape - silver foil tape) and of course screwed together. They're very very quiet. Any fan is going to be much quieter with no ductwork attached, which is how they're demonstrated in big box stores which also are massive, tons of ambient noise etc. all making the fans seem quieter. Also don't oversize the fan for the cubic feet of the room. Very important, as is ensuring there is enough supply coming in under the closed door etc. to feed the fan. As much air as it pushes out of the room has to be replaced with new air coming in under that small crack under the door. If it's not getting enough replacement air, it will be noisier.

I would "jake"it out of the sleeve,sit it on the floor,plug it in and turn it on while somone holds the compressor still. If that makes it quiter,progressivly tighten the bolts between compressor feet and chassis. If putting pressure on compressor changes but not eliminate noise,make certain there are rubber pads or coil springs between compressor feet and chassis. Moderate noise is expected but it is not"nature of the beast"for a unit to make that much noise. Replace it with a mini-split for better efficiency and whisper quite operation.

So yesterday buddy comes over to look over things with the a/c system and I think we've got things nailed down properly now. The superheat for the given ambient temperature and heat loading from the indoor coil was way off (5F) vs. the 14-15F that it was supposed to be so he had to remove some of the refrigerant (I was quite surprised how little he had to remove to get the superheat up) and we even went as far as measuring the furnace's CFM flow rating using a differential manometer. I'm pushing roughly 1000CFM across a 2 ton coil so which is a tad bit on the high side but my colleauge says it's a margin of safety for the a/c to not freeze over as we have relatively little humidity in the air would means that on the cooler days we wouldn't be heat loading the coil enough which could lead to freeze up. I personally would like to try running my furnace on the lowest speed to get the 855 CFM but I'm not sure how that will affect the superheat. Presumably I would imagine that if a system is charged properly using the superheat method for fixed orifice systems that blower speed shouldn't dramatically impact the superheat values to the point where they're completely out of whack. I would guess that superheat would rise but isn't that sort of a given? I mean hotter days for example would increase loading so therefore superheat should rise no? For the record the pressure reading on the manometer with the furnace on medium low with a 3M 1500 series filter installed has a -0.44 in wg static pressure difference. With no filter the static pressure diff changes to -0.55. Humidity was still somewhat of an issue yesterday night when it was raining but it was quite cool outside. I had to drop the tstat to 21C to force start the a/c on but after just 20 minutes the house was nice and dry and less stuffy. Just for the sake of my understanding does TXV technically do any better or worse job of temperature/humidity control over a fixed orifice system IF both systems were installed properly and charged to near perfection? I have a friend that is looking to install a/c and his contractor insists on having TXV and says that fixed orifice is evil and should never be used. I find that rather extreme to make a claim like that. I've tried to do my own research online and although it's a given that TXV is the way to go I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it will better protect the compressor from liquid flooding + it's more forgiving for techs that do an incorrect charge on the system - critical charge isn't nearly as important on a TXV system vs. fixed orifice. Thanks,