That was a concern of mine. While we rarely get above 80 here, my west facing deck gets incredibly hot from 2pm to 7pm in the summer. Plus my wife hates anything plastic. The composites run an easy double in price and not sure they would last double. Either way, I will not be doing this again in my lifetime.
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A friend re-did her west veranda in Hudson, NY with some kind of expensive plastic wood, and it looked great, required no painting, and never gave me a splinter again.
I was just a frequent house guest, but I loved it. So many porches in upstate NY are painted grey, and are peeling and rotting.
I also noticed a similar material was used to restore the porches at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT when we visited a few years ago.
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Itâs nice stuff
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Use a lock out padlock and just make sure no one is around that doesnât like you. 
My father was an industrial electrician and they had padlocks to be sure the power wasnât turned on while they worked on a line. He was about 20 feet up on a ladder working on a line when some idiot (never identified) took his off and closed the circuit.
He went off the ladder and landed on his back on concrete. He spent a couple days in the hospital and his hard hat probably saved his skull from becoming mush. Alzheimer Disease did that a couple decades laterâŚ
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Trex. I think that was the product name I could not remember.
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This is giving me 0 confidence about trying that for coil cleaning myself.
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In theory, coil cleaning can be done by just turning off your t-stat
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Because I, like my fellow vitamin-themed friend, have an underlabeled breaker box for the home, I tend to just⌠turn off the main breaker when I do DIY electrical tasks.
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Nothing wrong with that!
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Definitely, cooler and wetter places might be better suited for trex, like in the northeast. I was disappointed to learn of trexâs limitations for my momâs house and region, but also grateful that she didnât make a bigger problem for herself.
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Which â â â â the bed todayâŚ.. They were here today, blamed the fact that she had a picture frame over the air intake in the basement and said that froze the unit. Told her to leave it off for 3 hours and try again and it will workâŚâŚ. - It didnâtâŚ.
These guys have done some work for me but a lot of work for my Dad. Never a problem. They are coming back tomorrow to hopefully make it rightâŚ.
That picture was on that intake (stupid idea) for 19 years and they never had a problem. I knew it wasnât that. Itâs a secondary return. The big air return is on the first floor.
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The guys were back here for a couple hours. Turns out that the TXV valve was clogged with some sort of crud on the inside unit. Something he hasnât seen in 15 years. They are up and running again⌠Interesting
Has me wondering if this was the issue all along, although the new unit worked fine for 3 days before it didnâtâŚ
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Maybe someone took out the strainer to clean it and forgot to put it back.
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Not too sure. I assume something got into the lineset when they were brazing in the new unit. He didnât charge them which is good. Came back 3XâŚ..
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NY is trying⌠Itâs quite insane the rules and the changes. Suddenly the refrigerant that was supposed to be fantastic for the planet isnât and is now banned. Thatâs R22. Then 407C came out. NY figured out that 407C units could still use R22 so now thatâs goneâŚ.. R22 is banned. You can still get 407C but not the units themselves in NY. Now 454C is all the rage. How long till thatâs gone?
Couple points Iâd like to make and feel free to delete or junk drawer this:
1. All of this is very expensive. Instead of spending a few hundred bucks to fix a broken unit, youâre in the hole for 8-10 thousand. Indoor coils are not compatible with 454C so everything has to go. Inside and outsideâŚ.
- Even great contractors donât care about the planet. I watched the AC guy just let all of the R22 go into the air instead of capturing it last week, next door.
Someone tell me how this actually helps? It Doesnât. Not to mention perfectly good units, made of mined materials, goes right in the trash. Itâs nutsâŚ
I get the point of making these changes but the right things arenât being done and it defeats the purpose, and then some.
Rant over.
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HVAC guy told me that the ânew refrigerant",â which I assume to be 454C, is basically propane. And, while this can run fine in current systems, leak detectors are needed - especially on the indoor coils - because the refrigerant is flammable and explosive. I would have to believe that retrofit leak detection kits will be available sometime soon for the older systems, allowing them to safely run the new refrigerant.
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It is very close, yes
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Crazy, right. Highly flammable is what I was told as well. Nothing like having essentially a bomb inside your house with coils full of âlbsâ of flammable gas / oilâŚ. Oh and letâs put it right by a furnace (same unit), and some electricity for a sparkâŚ. lol smhâŚ.
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Does it also have the rotten egg smell added to it? That would be my leak detectorâŚ
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