What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Ground Breaking, shop build starts

scard

Well Known Member
Advertiser
Ground Breaking, shop build starts (Concrete!)

Well, I guess we've finally broken ground on the new shop building. We moved to our new place almost nine months ago so the -8 project has been mothballed. We started planning this building even before we closed on the house. This is something I've always wanted to do. It is going to be 40' x 30', 12' ceilings, fully finished like living space except no "plumbing". There will be a full length 8' wide porch on one side so I can watch my vegetable garden grow. The GC is "TC Construction" and I seem to be the field supervisor. It should be exciting but boy it is amazing how hard it is to get contractors to do work for money.
groundbreaking1.jpg


Image from a raspberry pi attached to the garage doing motion sensing and capturing images for compilation into time lapse for the build.
 
Last edited:
Congrats to you----------but ........no plumbing???

You'll just have to read through the quotes. I can't afford the taxes or the completely re-engineered septic system that would be required and never approved.
 
AAAAHHHHHAA.

Got it.

Would be a shame if you could not run your air compressor lines;):rolleyes:
 
what if there might be something here or there that you had measurements for and maybe at a later time a hammer broke through thin portion of concrete and might have gone to something that was planed but never GOT installed at the time of final inspection?
 
what if there might be something here or there that you had measurements for and maybe at a later time a hammer broke through thin portion of concrete and might have gone to something that was planed but never GOT installed at the time of final inspection?

You read quotes quite well kind sir :).
 
Just got in from the hangar a few minutes ago giving some US friends a tour. She peeked in the washroom and I said it's the best part of this hangar.
 
Porta-Potty

I have a detached shop I built. Has water but sink drains to the wash on the property. I just use the sink to wash up after a day of airplane building. Bio breaks give me a chance to go into the house and check in with the boss.
 
Shop Plumbing

My shop is five miles from my house. Since the site did not pass a perk test I installed a 1500 gallon holding tank for septic which is pumped every couple of years and the utility sink unofficially drains to a rock bed.
 
You'll just have to read through the quotes. I can't afford the taxes or the completely re-engineered septic system that would be required and never approved.

Taxes? Texans pay a higher tax rate if the building has indoor plumbing? ;)
 
If you have a decent contractor he can help you not have any plumbing. Or, bring in your own plumber to make sure the plumbing that isn't there isn't connected properly so that it won't work the way it was intended not to. That, of course, is provided you don't understand how to not flow downhill yourself in which case not running any plumbing can easily be accomplished over the weekend when the contractors are working hard on your project....from their living rooms.
 
If you have a decent contractor he can help you not have any plumbing. Or, bring in your own plumber to make sure the plumbing that isn't there isn't connected properly so that it won't work the way it was intended not to. That, of course, is provided you don't understand how to not flow downhill yourself in which case not running any plumbing can easily be accomplished over the weekend when the contractors are working hard on your project....from their living rooms.

ColoRV, methinks you, Sir, are a dangerous man and a potential threat to good order and discipline. You are on the watch list. Oh, and BTW, keep up the good work. :rolleyes::D
 
mo-cam1-5863_res.png


As the sun is going down today 9 dump trucks (12 cu.yd each?) of fill has been spread and compacted. Now we are waiting on the pier driller, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday. There are 12 12" piers that are going to be drilled to 10' or until non-crumbly limestone rock shelf is found. ($35/ft extra) The structural engineer will be onsite for the initial drill. Yeah, back story; We dug three profile holes on the site with a big JD 410 backhoe. We went to 9' before finding solid rock. I was blown away. I had never seen such a deep hole in central Texas W of I35. The top 3-4' is heavy clay. The walls in our house show a foundation done wrong on this soil. Not the shop, not on my watch. (disclaimer: I work at a national civil engineering firm. read: "resources")

So, last weekend, we rented a trencher to cut the trench for the electrical conduit. There is a power pole that is on our property that has our service entry on it (left of picture). Armed with the profile hole info, the Logistics Officer picked up a 36" trencher on tracks while I was sleeping Saturday morning. We were 98% certain we knew where all wire and water was. We had put eyeballs on everything but the water from the well to the house, but knew where it was. This is in the county, well and septic.

Ok, I know if you're still reading you know what is coming...
I had only finished half of my Saturday coffee when I heard the trencher fire up in the circle drive out front. I knew I would be in trouble if I didn't come running within 30sec. And we were immediately working. I started within the building footprint. It only took 3min. to find the main water line from the well to the house with the trencher!!! Yeah, we were instantaneously filming a Laurel and Hardy episode in slow motion. I had told our neighbor the day before that it was the one thing that we had not yet put eyeballs on in the ground but "...we'll find it tomorrow for sure."

Tanya ran for the well pressure tank shutoff as we had already pre-briefed this event. I shut the trencher down and we went to lunch while our heart rate came down. Back from lunch I ran to Home Depot for quick and dirty repair supplies (one 2' length of 1-1/4" PVC and two couplers) and the water was flowing at the house in 10min. Now our change of priorities had us re-routing a water line around our building. Cut a trench this way and that way. If you know Central Texas, this is clay, dirt and ROCK, so very slow going with lots of pain.

Plenty of pain, but we're very glad that we hit the water line on a weekend as opposed to our foundation contractor or even worse, the pier driller who would have gone straight through it. Note: the piers must be poured within 8hrs of being drilled. This snafu in that process could have cost us thousands.

Sunday came and we were making noise by 7:30am. We hired a day laborer to hand dig the last few inches for the water re-route tie in locations. He was completely confused with the fact that Tanya and I were in the trench digging on the other side (all day, 9hrs). We also got to work on our original objective of cutting the trench for the 200A service 100'. Noon Sunday I started laying in the new water service pipe and tied in both ends. We were not without water for more than 30min across the whole weekend. Bam!!

Yes, we got the 100' electrical trench cut with great pain. In fact, TC is out there right now as the sun is going down and I'm writing this working on cleaning it out in prep for this weekend's plan to set some sand, place some conduit, and cover about 85' of it.

What does this have to do with anything? I don't know about you, but this has been an RV dream of mine for a long time. The first RV was built in our first small tract house. Then we made more money and got a little older and started the second RV. It now waits for the next step of THIS.
 
Last edited:
You say you have rocks. Ha, if you had rocky soil you would not have access to a trencher. No such thing here as we have boulders that would not fit in the tandem truck. Last summer I was loading up one of these to get them off of a friend's property. I was using my crane as my twenty two ton excavator could barely move them and as I began lowering the rock into the truck box the chain touch one side and made it slip. What a bang and chains swinging. I think that was when I cracked my windshield in the crane. These rocks also make a good noise when we dump them out.
So lets just say when we run an underground line, it might not be in a straight line around here. Good luck with your hangar build. I built my 60'X60' hangar probably 15 years ago just out in my back yard (grass strip) and love it. I doubt I would be still flying and building if I had not done this as I'm not one to drive a 1/2 hr. to go flying. Maybe if I was retired I would, but many times I come home and only decide to go flying after I have supper.
 
Congratulations on the new project. Enjoy yourselves. :)

All of our abodes have been integrated into hillsides which gave the opportunity for the shop to simply be the basement with garage door exits.

Diane pokes fun at me with visitors by telling them that I put a drawing of a completed RV7A in the basement construction plans (which I did :rolleyes:)
 
YIKES! I did the dame thing with a trencher while living in Ramona, that main had 160 PSI and almost broke the meter connection at the street. but I was just installing a sprinkler system, not as cool as a shop ;-)
 
Hey, it works

Congratulations on the new project. Enjoy yourselves. :)

All of our abodes have been integrated into hillsides which gave the opportunity for the shop to simply be the basement with garage door exits.

Diane pokes fun at me with visitors by telling them that I put a drawing of a completed RV7A in the basement construction plans (which I did :rolleyes:)

I tried paper-doll cutouts, to scale, of the RV-10 on top of my new home basement blueprints before telling the engineer which support columns he was going to have to eliminate and span with miracle-trusses, or whatever he called them. Glad I did. I have room to put the wings on that beast and turn it 360 in the shop. ;)
 
Ok, I know if you're still reading you know what is coming...
I had only finished half of my Saturday coffee when I heard the trencher fire up in the circle drive out front.

Cookie, armed with a trencher and a determined look....now there's a mental picture.

She was just dying to run that thing, wasn't she? ;)
 
Got piers

It was another rough and tumble week on the "RV Construction" project. Tuesday was pier drilling day. Tanya met the foundation guy on site at about 7am while I came to grips with getting out of bed. I was 15-20min behind with a cup of coffee and one eye open. From 150' away, through that one eye, as I shuffled toward the action, I could see that Tanya and the contractor were doing some "field engineering" on the pad. The best analysis I could muster was "bummer, we haven't even gotten started and something has already come off the rails." They were laying out the piers for the drillers and one of the spacing dimensions didn't jive on the structural engineer's plans. No problem, Tanya had already made the final executive decision on the dimension by the time I arrived to the brief.

The pier drilling company had two rigs on site at 7:30am and got to work in a friendly competition to see who could drill more holes (the final score was 9 to 5). That was a very interesting process and I watched every minute of the 2.5hrs that it took them to drill the 14 holes while Tanya went to work. All piers were about 10' deep and drilled at least 1' into a solid rock shelf. Our structural engineer arrived about mid way through drilling to inspect the holes and ensure that we were in the rock layer that we expected. He was very happy to throw a 16' piece of 1" rebar into a few holes and have it almost bounce back out. He asked the foundation guy how we got two rigs. "It just happened :)." The key here is to get concrete in these piers ASAP after they are drilled. We moved up the concrete order three hours.
IMG_1525_res.png


And there was concrete for the piers. That pour took about an hour and the next day and a half was spent setting up perimeter forms.
IMG_1548_res.png


Then it is time to dig grade beams. The mini excevator made decent progress. If you aren't familiar with concrete pier and beam foundations, it is very similar to wood pier and beam. Except with... concrete. This is opposed to a "floating foundation".
IMG_1562_res.png


At the end of the week the grade beams were done as well as "final" grade elevations. That sets the thickness of our foundation. The funky trench in the forground is our "homework" for the weekend. To finish all of the electrical conduit into the east wall. This is our primary 200A service entry. So where Exactly is that wall?
IMG_1573_res.png


So, Friday evening Tanya and I started laying out string lines for this critical wall to place our conduit. In this picture, Tanya is standing in front of an 8' wide full length porch of large cedar posts and beams. Uh, Houston, the wall isn't on top of the grade-beam or pier. It is off by at least 2". TC made an immediate call to the foundation guy that his presence was requested either tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. Time was now ticking on us being able to finish our weekend work.
IMG_1577_res.png


The foundation guy showed up 8am and we gave him a proper beat down. The piers were drilled perfectly 2" too far from the "datum". I told the foundation guy the words that the structural engineer would say if asked about this. The distance from what we're now calling the datum is a critical distance as it is our truss span. Luckily we have not yet released the latest truss design to manufacturing, but must within the next few days. So the simple solution is to move the wall 2". Everybody is onboard with that solution and I get 6.6sqft more shop space! Woohoo! With the wall string lines moved everything looks much better and Tanya and I got to work on conduit.
IMG_1581_res.png


"Final grade?" yeah, I don't think so. We spent an hour making a grading map and marking high spots/areas. They'll have guys with shovels out tomorrow to make it right but Tanya just couldn't stand it so she picked up a shovel and fixed 65% of the high spots while I headed for the A/C. I told her she was crazy and that we had hired people to do that part while I departed the scene of the crime.
From the pi cam collecting time lapse.
mo-cam1-8175_res.png


It was a good week. Steel on Tuesday, final forms on Wednesday, and the big event on Thursday for the final pour. The concrete will be flown over the trees in the last pic with a huge pump truck. Should be exciting. Yeah, I'm burning some well deserved time off work for this paid entertainment.

P.S. Finally they left the keys in the bobcat this weekend! Guess who unnecessarily moved a big pile of dirt Saturday evening :). "Let's see, turtle - rabbit, of course i've got this. Just like the riding lawn mower :)." Tanya watched as I played tonka truck in the sand box.
 
Last edited:
Non-Plumbing

The 'to-remain-nameless' company will be here tomorrow to mentally picture non-plumbing runs. I'm sure Scott will be waiting for them with their 7am arrival.
 
Concrete

...And then there was concrete!

This actually took two tries. The day of the pour, everything was setup and the first of six concrete trucks arrived. As they were preparing to start pumping concrete Tanya was inspecting the truck's load sheet. It's what she does. "Everybody Stop!" Mind you, this is a big orchestrated event with a lot of people, labor, etc.. This was only 3000psi concrete. Not the mix that our engineering called for. We rejected the three trucks that they had loaded and the plant didn't have enough trucks to re-batch our job today. The job was shut down for the day. What happened? The foundation contractor ordered the wrong mix. Oops, sucks to be him. I bet his profit margin just evaporated.

After the fireball and lightning bolt fire from Tanya stopped, everybody recovered and the contractor orchestrated a new show for the following morning. I went out in the morning and cleared all the corners of evil spirits, shook a dead chicken around the site and did a little neckid' dance.

Everybody was on a very short leash for the do-over and paperwork inspection was diligent. So we poured almost 60 yards of concrete with relatively little drama. Only one person threatened to "call the cops" because we had the street mostly blocked. (nod and smile). There were 7 guys on the primary crew and they worked on it for 8hrs solid. It was a little bit of a complicated pour but I want what I want. Materials and trusses should be delivered this week with framing starting next weekend.

Ready to go. We'll be building RVs again soon!
IMG_1649_res.png


IMG_1695_res.png


IMG_1720_res.png
 
Kudos for Tanya!

Kudos for Tanya! This (as you know) is a classic situation with concrete - the second is a hot load, that got water mixed too soon and won't survive the pour process and weakens it.

I want to see the gantry crane installed.
 
Boy, it has been a full time job babysitting this thing for the first couple of days. We have three sprinklers on it. The unfortunate part is that we couldn't find a hose timer that you could set more often than every hour. That just isn't cutting it during the heat of the day so we're on a 20min watering schedule to manually trigger the timers for a few minutes of watering. I could have planned better and setup a couple of sprinkler control valves triggered by a Pi or something.

The foundation guy says we're "over the hump" now, but we're still keeping water on it today. No cracks yet (knocking on wood). The pi cam caught an intruder with a squeegee scraping off some of the surface scum at 6:30am this morning while I slept. The rest of the forms will be pulled tomorrow. Happy 4th!!

mo-cam1-9870_res.png
 
Very nice job, and I'm impressed by that concrete catch - good one, Tanya!

On the timers, you could set up a manifold and get a few more hourly timers and arrange them so that one comes on every 20 minutes.

Dave
 
Scott, it may be the water hiding them, but I didn't see any control cuts in the slab. That is about the only way to keep cracks from happening. Concrete will crack - either on a control crack line or wherever it wants. With the steel you have in the slab, you won't have any up and down so don't worry too much about cracks. Looking good!

Edit - zooming in on the steel photo, it looks like they may have divided the slab with expansion joints. It is a bit hard to see but looks like your contractor knew what he was doing.
 
Last edited:
Scott, it may be the water hiding them, but I didn't see any control cuts in the slab. That is about the only way to keep cracks from happening. Concrete will crack - either on a control crack line or wherever it wants. With the steel you have in the slab, you won't have any up and down so don't worry too much about cracks. Looking good!

Edit - zooming in on the steel photo, it looks like they may have divided the slab with expansion joints. It is a bit hard to see but looks like your contractor knew what he was doing.

There aren't any control cuts or expansion joints. This foundation is almost completely independent of what the soil does. I'll deal with some simple shrinkage cracks if we have to, but the idea of cuts to catch all kinds of stuff over the years sounds like a bummer. The contractor was ok, but the real expert was/is our structural engineer. He does big commercial jobs with my company and is a real expert. Contractor: "Wow, I've never seen this in residential construction. Size and amount of rebar, depth of piers into rock, size of grade beams, ..." (Scott smiles) I told the engineer (an old hippie that has more commercial work than he can accept due to his local status) what I wanted. "Like a fine custom home, or a bullet proof commercial building. I think we got it. Those statements came from the fact that our house foundation absolutely sucks, and now I know why.

Ok, moving on.
The rest of the forms were stripped July 4th morning and we spent the rest of the holiday cleaning up the perimeter and doing a little initial back fill with the tractor.
mo-cam1-10275_res.png


As I was typing this, Tanya hollers "Delivery truck!"
Our custom order cedar. Two AMUs. We immediately rejected one of the cedar gable louvers as the loader had tossed 50# of Simpson Strongtie material on top of it and broke most of it. I hope I spend a whole lot of time with those cedar 6x6 posts and 6x8 beams on the porch! If not, I'll be in big trouble. One of those members will bear a porch swing for two.

IMG_1722_res.png


I met with the framer for a few minutes today so he could see the site and let us know where he wanted material dropped. My -8 project is watching these updates and wants to come home from the hangar.
 
Got Sticks!

On Thursday, the main part of our build package arrived. It was interesting to see the expert forklift driver doing multiple three point turns around our trees in order to get the long stuff to the build site. It kind of reminded me of putting a glider in a hangar when it's wingspan is wider than the door opening.
IMG_1746_res.png


The trusses were being dropped off when I got home from work on Friday. Too bad they had to drop them at the street. Somebody is going to have to walk them back to the build site about 170' away. They weigh 170# each. I hope they fit! You would be surprised how many ways it could be that they are the wrong length.
IMG_1752_res.png


On Saturday, the framing crew of 4 showed up 8am and got with it.
IMG_1761_res.png


By noon, we had four walls! Amazing. The scale of this thing is starting to become real. Those 12' tall walls are way up there. Where is that certificate of insurance...?
IMG_1774_res.png


Yep, two guys hauled all the trusses and stacked them up next to the building in order.
IMG_1782_res.png


Rack 'em, stack 'em, and hoist them with a rope by hand. Those are some strong dudes. I was wondering how they were going to do that.
IMG_1794_res.png


While the framers were doing their thing and I was "supervising", Tanya spent 5hrs sealing all of the cedar for the porch structure.
IMG_1805_res.png


By 5pm, we have four walls and all the trusses up and tacked in place.
IMG_1807_res.png


Tanya's cedar sealing results. Beautiful. We're excited about the porch.
IMG_1816_res.png


The framers will be back on Tuesday. They are basically just fitting in our "little project" with a 5000 sqft custom home that they are framing.
 
Have to say Scott, watching your progress makes me want to start another build project. I was a house builder in my past, the last project was my "barn" for my RV build. I miss the fun and progress of building.
 
It has been a week of progress. Framing out the fascia and soffits took a long time. The radiant barrier roof sheathing is amazing. It is almost "cool" in the building. I'm looking forward to having it 68 degrees when it is 105 outside. The porch structure started going up yesterday and it looks as awesome as we had hoped. The siding is up on the back wall. We're about ready for the metal roof, but first Tanya has to get the fascias painted. The framers promise they'll be done this Saturday (delaying our run north for OSH until Sunday), I highly doubt they'll finish. It has been a full time job answering their questions and solving problems as they come up, sometimes including "...nope, tear it down and try again."

I'm just giddy with excitement to get back to airplane building in here.

IMG_1877_res.png


IMG_1851_res.png


IMG_1854_res.png


IMG_1873_res.png
 
Good looking build Scott. I'm a homebuilder in Lakeway area, feel your concern with pouring a slab right now. I have two separate pours coming up in the next couple of weeks. I live in a garden home, and am stuck with building a -10 in my garage. I'm jealous of your soon to be RV cave!
 
Air Conditioning

Scott,
I built my shop five years before Van introduced the RV-8. I did not install plumbing either, except for water. I ran PVC underground and connected it to a house facet. No problem. The house is close enough for bathroom emergencies. I did install central air conditioning so working summer or winter is in total comfort. I wish I had done the high ceilings so I could have installed a car lift. Oh well. My neighbors might have complained if I had. The Doll was completed over sixteen years ago, but that air conditioned shop is still a true blessing.
 
Scott,
I built my shop five years before Van introduced the RV-8. I did not install plumbing either, except for water. I ran PVC underground and connected it to a house facet. No problem. The house is close enough for bathroom emergencies. I did install central air conditioning so working summer or winter is in total comfort. I wish I had done the high ceilings so I could have installed a car lift. Oh well. My neighbors might have complained if I had. The Doll was completed over sixteen years ago, but that air conditioned shop is still a true blessing.

Yeah, the real intent for the 12' ceilings is for a car lift some day when I can't fly anymore. My last shop had full hvac. This one will too. I'm still torn between a conventional A/C and a mini-split or two. We're going to do rainwater collection off of the roof for water for the shop and my veg garden.
 
My last shop had full hvac. This one will too. I'm still torn between a conventional A/C and a mini-split or two.

Scott, I highly recommend a standard split-system for cooling, and if you have natural gas, stay away from heat pumps. We've had too many service issues with the mini-splits, and you can go with a higher SEER rating using a conventional slit-system. My $.02 and worth every penny...

-Marc
 
Really cool posts..

Scott and Tanya,
I am really enjoying your posts about your shop build. I am a project manager for a precast concrete construction company, so I can certainly identify with many of the challenges you're facing. What has worked for me all these years is: Be organized AND prioritized; pro-active, yet flexible; and lastly, kind, but firm. I can't wait to see pictures of the finished product.
 
Scott, I highly recommend a standard split-system for cooling, and if you have natural gas, stay away from heat pumps. We've had too many service issues with the mini-splits, and you can go with a higher SEER rating using a conventional slit-system. My $.02 and worth every penny...
-Marc

Just another side of the coin. I've been running heat pumps here in the Dallas area for over 38 years and never had a problem.
 
Scott, I'm filled with envy. Living in central Austin, my shop will have to be a fraction the size of yours. As a homebuilder I have to say, that is a nice job.
 
Just another side of the coin. I've been running heat pumps here in the Dallas area for over 38 years and never had a problem.

And the same in the Tucson area - standard equipment in lots of homes.

I installed a mini-split in my 500 sq ft workshop and wish I had done it years earlier. :)

A couple of 2-tom 18 SEER units would cost just over 2 AMUs each and are an easy self install. Mine took only a couple of hours after the wooden mounting box was made over a wall cabinet and a $60 service call got the Freon loaded.
 
Maybe I should wait

to add my $.02 until I hear back form my HVAC contractor, but the inverter splits we put in the new shop and lounge (together filling the entire basement of our new house) did a great job heating the space this winter, and easily cool the shop to 68 degrees, but I have 68-70% RH in there unless I run a separate dehumidifier as well. Something seems wonky about a unit that chills the air but doesn't seem to remove water vapor at the same time. Basement walls and floor have no visible traces of ground water penetration, so I know it's vapor ingress, and the delightful Virginia 95*F and 90%RH we are having this and every July in the mountains.

I just want to say that this is my first experience with splits, and it's a little puzzling so far. Maybe some install kinks that need to be worked out. Never seen this with conventional heat pumps and central air handlers/ductwork.
 
to add my $.02 until I hear back form my HVAC contractor, but the inverter splits we put in the new shop and lounge (together filling the entire basement of our new house) did a great job heating the space this winter, and easily cool the shop to 68 degrees, but I have 68-70% RH in there unless I run a separate dehumidifier as well. Something seems wonky about a unit that chills the air but doesn't seem to remove water vapor at the same time. Basement walls and floor have no visible traces of ground water penetration, so I know it's vapor ingress, and the delightful Virginia 95*F and 90%RH we are having this and every July in the mountains.
I just want to say that this is my first experience with splits, and it's a little puzzling so far. Maybe some install kinks that need to be worked out. Never seen this with conventional heat pumps and central air handlers/ductwork.

Sometimes a unit that is too large will cool too quickly and not run long enough to remove the humidity. Just a thought.
 
to add my $.02 until I hear back form my HVAC contractor, but the inverter splits we put in the new shop and lounge (together filling the entire basement of our new house) did a great job heating the space this winter, and easily cool the shop to 68 degrees, but I have 68-70% RH in there unless I run a separate dehumidifier as well. Something seems wonky about a unit that chills the air but doesn't seem to remove water vapor at the same time. Basement walls and floor have no visible traces of ground water penetration, so I know it's vapor ingress, and the delightful Virginia 95*F and 90%RH we are having this and every July in the mountains.

I just want to say that this is my first experience with splits, and it's a little puzzling so far. Maybe some install kinks that need to be worked out. Never seen this with conventional heat pumps and central air handlers/ductwork.

The newer units, including the Gree one I bought, usually have a DRY function or equivalent - from my manual -

MODE Button ? Pressing this button will present the AUTO, COOL, DRY, FAN and HEAT mode options which can then be selected. AUTO mode is the default mode. When the indoor unit first powers on under this mode, the temperature will not be displayed.

DRY?Select DRY MODE to increase moisture removal during warm humid conditions.
1. Room Temperature > Setpoint +4?F, the system will be operating in cooling mode with low fan speed.
2. Setpoint -4?F, < Room Temperature < Setpoint +4?F, the system will cycle 6 minutes ON and 4 minutes OFF in cooling mode. The indoor fan will be at low speed.
3. Room Temperature < Setpoint -4?F, the system will be OFF and the indoor fan will be at low speed.


Time to talk to your HVAC contractor...:)
 
Scott,
Some good info and not so good info about HVAC on here. So as not to derail you shop build site (envious by the way) Look me up at OSH. I get there to HBC Sunday and will probably be sniffing around for cookies. Always like to talk heat transfer.
 
Just another side of the coin. I've been running heat pumps here in the Dallas area for over 38 years and never had a problem.

Heat pump reliability isn't the issue; they are as reliable as any HVAC cooling system. The reason I don't recommend them is the cost of operation. We know that any time electricity is used to generate heat it cost more than doing the same job with natural gas.

The mini-splits just don't seem to be as reliable as a full sized split system, so for cooling, I recommend a standard split system with a FAU and ducting.

~Marc
 
Scott,
Some good info and not so good info about HVAC on here. So as not to derail you shop build site (envious by the way) Look me up at OSH. I get there to HBC Sunday and will probably be sniffing around for cookies. Always like to talk heat transfer.

No concern for derailing this thread. Frankly I'm a little surprised it is still alive, for being marginally RV related, but I know many of us wish for the perfect shop space.

We would love to talk HVAC at OSH. We'll be squirming on this topic as we intend to condition this space (30'x40'x12') to some extent year around. A big interest is keeping the moisture way down for engines, parts, and tools. If conventional, we're researching keeping the ducts within the conditioned space. Obviously I have the headroom available.

No natural gas here. Well, septic, propane. We were shocked at our first winter propane bills. We were Wishing for a heat pump :).
 
No concern for derailing this thread.

snip----------------------------------------snip

No natural gas here. Well, septic, propane. We were shocked at our first winter propane bills. We were Wishing for a heat pump :).

OK, not to derail, but we switched from an old 80% propane heater to a high efficiency 96-8% heat pump for the house a few years back, raised the electric bill about $100--150 a month during the heating season.

Lowered the propane bill $3-400 a month.

Netted out a nice return.

By the way, insulation is usually the best bang for the buck------only pay once and it is yours forever.
 
Well you shouldn't have got me started.
Region and climate make all the difference in the world. In florida we have S. Fl. that uses so little heat that electric strip heat is the most cost effective. (That was hard to say as electric sucks power)
Central Florida needs a HP as we only have about 5 % coverage of Natural gas coverage. N. Florida use a lot of gas as they get cold. Too cold for good HP operation.
Panhandle has little gas but gets cold so water source heat pumps work very well.
Propane suck money as Mike states.
Now this is only heat.
Cooling - different regions make a huge difference. The coastal or gulf states have a real humidity issue along with the hot weather.
We use a lot of Mini-split heat pumps but they have their application. Computer rooms, back porches, home offices and areas where adding ductwork is a problem.
Many issues with the cheaper versions. Sorry Gil.
Mel has it right that too large sucks and won't remove humidity. Again regional. Gil could care less about humidity.
15-20 years ago the most cost effective energy improvement you could make for your home was to replace the A/C.
Now days in the hot climates it is to replace the old single pane windows with double pane Low-E glass.
Scott, I hope you planned on Low-E???
 
Now days in the hot climates it is to replace the old single pane windows with double pane Low-E glass.
Scott, I hope you planned on Low-E???

Yep. the two Low-E, silly expensive casement (very tight seal) windows went in just hours ago. Those suckers are like closing the hatch on a submarine. Not something you usually see around here. I advocated for no windows at all. We don't need no stinkin' windows, they just take up space for insulation. Tanya just wasn't having it. "We're installing a couple of windows and that is it." she said.

In our last house the double hung windows leaked so bad we ended up taping them up. In this house, they're even worse. First we'll get the shop built and get back to RV building. Then we'll worry about the house :). How's that for priorities?
 
Back
Top