As someone in the HVAC field in sales you are correct. Techs can start at 20/25 an hour with our best guys now making $45 an hour. There is always work!!
Gonna be a clusterfuck
- Thread starter cowbell88
- Start date
Mines a gas one w/ battery backup (2 D batteries) for ignition, a 750 watt battery power backup and a 5500 watt Honda generator if needed. I'm too old for cold showers
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You don’t really need a business degree to figure that out. School of hard knocks and a good accountant is as affective if not more.
Just talked to my friend to get the details straight (needed to catch up anyways.) He's a second generation builder. His father started 40 years ago and was building 200+ homes a year before selling the business in 2005 to a public company. Since then they have been building high end custom homes and currently have 6 on the books from 6800-14,000 SF. Super knowledgeable and I trust him.
They went through the attic and tried to find all the look leaks. Found 17 ironically. (Big house, 5000+ SF) 9 were fitting failures and 8 were the actual PEX. All of the PEX failures except for one were right at the fittings. The one that wasn't was in a a very long run right over his kitchen.
All of the PEX was Uponor and installed by a very reputable plumber. It has a minimum burst pressure of 480 psi on 1/2" pipe. According to this article below unfortunately, frozen water expansion can create pressures from 25,000 up to 114,000 PSI at 0°F. In a pressurized system like a home water line at +/- 60psi there's nowhere for it to go. The key is to not let it freeze solid and at my friend John's house in TX they stayed below zero for 24+ hours.
Freezing Pipes
I learned a lot about this crap after moving up here to the mountains. It's amazing how a well sealed and insulated house can perform. We have other issues like ice damns, but my heating per SF is half of what it was in Texas even though we have snow in the ground from Halloween to Mother's Day.
My house is entirely PEX, but I am not concerned because it's entirely enclosed in a heated envelope and water lines are buried 5-7' deep outside below the frost line. In cold climates we all tend to have alternative heat sources in case we lose power (propane for me.) You just can't let pipes get below freezing for more than a few hours or they will likely burst.
You did the right thing though DCD. For a house already built in Mississippi, find a cheap safe heat source to warm up the attic pipes a little for the one or two times a decade it gets below 10°F. But if building new, talk to someone experienced in building science that can run the numbers on a conditioned attic for your mechanical, or even better yet go with a crawlspace instead of a slab.
I can see a big benefit to a completely sealed house it your climate (I think you said you were in Idaho or Montana but can't remember, but either way still cold as a well diggers *** in Utah). Don't know how hot it gets there but I would assume the AC isn't nearly as big of an issue.
Down here as you know the heat brings mold and all kinds of other bullcheet. I get the science, but I'm still leery of a non-ventilated attic in the South. I like the idea of free-flowing air. Certainly agree that a crawlspace is preferred.
What about wrapping heat tape on pipes in attic? Seems to be the cheapest/easiest fix?
For sure on the heat (humidity/moisture) causing issues. With modern knowledge and materials the fully encapsulated home/attic works, but it definitely has to be done right. You wouldn't want to be the first or even tenth from the builder.
My house is interesting. It doesn't have an attic at all. Flatish metal roof with 1/12 slope. Roof is framed with 12" I joists 16" OC and filled full depth with insulation. It's built on an insulated slab as well. So the entire volume of the house is heated and cooled.
The house is very airtight. There is no forced air hvac. I have mini splits in the bedrooms and a hydronic radiant heat system in the slab. When we cut on the vent hood for the stove, one of the bathroom fart fans will start to flow backwards for replacement air if we don't crack a window.
It's not a big deal in the summer, but in the winter running the heat without any air exchange would turn the interior into a biodome of humidity. The fix is something called a Heat Recovery Ventilator or HRV. It exchanges the air by capturing the heat from the indoor air in the exchanger and swaps the air for fresh out door air that is warmed up by passing through the exchanger.
Sounds complicated but it's super simple and shockingly effecient. I have mine currently set to run 10 minutes every hour and to kick on full time if humidity hits 50% indoors. It uses very little electricity to run +/-$7 a month. They make another version called an ERV that removes the would provide the opposite effect by removing humidity from the outside air in the summer to exchange air in the south.
THe air quality is so much better with this system. I the summer when wildfires are blazing out here and smoke is everywhere, my friends houses with forced air smell like a campfire inside. I get nothing. And dust is virtually non existent.
I'd seen some higher end builders in Austin and Dallas toying with this stuff a few years ago before I moved, but I just thought it was hippie green washing BS. But after seeing the cold climate version I am all in. If I were to build new in the south I would skip the attic Al together and put a small mechanical room in somewhere. Insulate and airseal the hell out of it (what we call a passive house) and run ductless mini splits and an ERV. I figure the extra costs if the ductless and insulation are more than offset by having more living SF in a much smaller footprint.
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why is the water heater in the attic starting to gain traction in new home builds? I would never ever put the WH in the attic. On very cold nights… it’s right up there in the cold. Plus in the winter… the cold air is sucking the heat right out of it and it’s having to work harder. Not to mention if a leak got started in the supply lines.
I 100% would not buy a house with it in the attic.
That would do it too as long as the power stays on. I would definitely go low tech on an existing home and make sure your insurance is up to date and not lose any sleep over it.
My buddy said he fell for the myth that PEX wouldn't fail. They lost power for 2 days so there was no real reasonable way to heat it anyway. I imagine the lack of heat in the house let the attic get that much colder too. He spent all his efforts protecting the pool plumbing and didn't worry about the PEX unfortunately.
I had my water running 50% in a sink in the laundry room in the back of my house. No problems with freezing. I did lose power Christmas Eve for about 9 hours - that really sucked. At least I learned from the ice storm in January and had my generator out after I realized power was not coming back on quickly. We are not too bothered with the water issues - we had alot of bottled water already and a few gallons of distilled water sitting around.
There was a busted pipe about a block away running out into the street and one of the big roads north of me had three lanes blocked due to a major leak. MLGW spent most of the day fixing that one. They were out last night at 6 PM fixing the small leak north of us. They have been quite responsive fixing the leaks as they find them.
There was a busted pipe about a block away running out into the street and one of the big roads north of me had three lanes blocked due to a major leak. MLGW spent most of the day fixing that one. They were out last night at 6 PM fixing the small leak north of us. They have been quite responsive fixing the leaks as they find them.
Then you probably wouldn’t be living here. Almost every house is that way.
It's been common since the 90s at least in the Jxn metro. I don't like it, but have two in the attic.
For real. We stayed at the Peabody last year as well one team each year. I wonder if this years visitor to the Peabody has water? I know my building doesn't.... just a few blocks away.
Memphis heard that Jackson is getting $600M for neglecting their water system. Mempho wants a piece of that Biden give away!
The only drawback to having the water heater in the garage, in my case at least, is that the master bath is at the opposite end of the house from the garage, which means it takes 30 seconds or so for hot water to reach the bathroom. That's not a biggie and there are ways around it if it's bothersome.
A few years ago I walked out into the garage and the water heater was spraying water all over the floor. The tank liner had failed. Imagine the damage if that'd been in the attic.
Same here. We just got new floors in most of our house and a new roof due to a storm that came through in July and ripped off a bunch of shingles. Took 3 months and ~$50k total to get everything finished (we only had to pay $4,500 or so).
I'll be damned if I'm going through that crap again due to a frozen, busted pipe.
Then they just start the computer game/chat/disqus and look at you like you have 3 heads.
