My favorite is all I have been hearing lately since they blew the response to the last heat wave is ads on Pandora, the radio, ETC, from ConEd talking about how hard they work and how great they are.
Why would a company bother wasting valuable money on ads when the customer doesn’t have a choice for where they get their power from? They have no competition.
Just use that money to do some preventative maintenance…
We had flickering lights in parts of our house since May. Those areas of the house are the same that had the major partial outage when the ■■■■ hit the fan when it was 100 the other day. They had to do some work in a manhole to fix it, and after that everything has been fine.
They can see from their central station exactly where the problems are but don’t bother fixing them until major failures occur.
I know this because I was actually talking to the guy when they cut complete power to do the repair without notice.
Make it make sense. It didn’t used to be like this. I’ve been living in Queens for 30+ years.
This is a 2 family house but it’s not big. 2400SF total (both houses) - not including the basement.
We aren’t energy hogs either. $8,000 a year to ConEd for Gas / Electricty.
They send 15 people to fix a simple problem and if there’s scheduled work, they will send a guy to block parking spots with his car for days at a time - eating / drinking / using his car as a bathroom…
I got my 34 year old Trane replaced just as they were phasing out R410A. At least going from R12 to R410A I was able to keep the lineset and just replace indoor and outdoor units. R454A/B requires new linesets I believe, and my lineset is inside the wall, so that means a “gutter.” Glad I snuck under that wire!
And for the record, the 34 Year old Trane was still working, just fine, but we knew it was on very very borrowed time with no parts.
A friend of mine worked for a real estate developer who also owned a H/A supply co. in Houston. They brought tons of R-22 before it was phased out. Selling at a premium and hoping the inventory will sell before the older equipment gets retired/replace.
He was saying we could keep our lineset and only have to replace the indoor coil if we had to go 454.
I sure hope so because I have a hard lid ceiling in my basement. And it’s a brick house so that would be major demo bc the furnace is on the opposite side of the house from the condenser…
New Compressor
All New R22
Labor
Shipping
New Contactor - Bc that’s the only other serviceable part on the unit that hasn’t been replaced in the last 2 years. Did the Fan motor last year and the capacitor this year myself. Also did the indoor blower motor and capacitor myself almost 3 years ago.
If only I knew how to braze pipe / inject refrigerant. LOL
Better than $7K or $10K. Hope to get at least another 10 years out of his thing…
That’s what my HVAC guy told me. He said the system changes needed are basically enhanced leak detection, since most people don’t want to be venting propane into their houses. This seems to me to be one of the stupidest changes in the history of stupid changes.
I just stepped outside to grab a mail bucket, and first thing that hit me was a smell; at first I thought that there was paving going on nearby, although I hadn’t seen any “No Parking” signs up that would be the norm for anything planned.
Then I noticed that the light was rather orange. Looks like we’re getting some forest-fire smoke.
The US Gov map isn’t showing any smoke plumes, so I hadn’t really been expecting it; but other sites show some big plumes; and worse, they show that Wednesday into Thursday will get MUCH worse for the NYC area.
I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with this this year.
It sucks. Pretty much an every year event now here below British Columbia. Many in my area do not have A/C but thankful we do to be able to close windows and escape the smoke. We’ve seen 1/2 mile visibility at the worst times.
One of the reasons I choose to stick with R22 and spend almost $4K on a 21 year old unit was 454 will probably be gone before you know it.
“Upgrading” to it now, will probably mean “upgrading” again sooner…
Banking on the repaired unit giving us another 10+ years until the next big thing, that isn’t flammable becomes avail…
Coil is super clean (I take the shell off every spring and clean it) - I also cover the units from Oct till we need them, with a vented condenser cover.
I totally agree with you. ■■■■ does happen. But we reported this problem in May when it first started and they did nothing.
And communication is the other problem that ConEd has… PSE&G does a great job communicating with its customers. My Dad is one of them.
Text updates with where the issue is and when it will be repaired. Text messages letting their customers know if they need to shut power down for repair and precisely when it will be done, and approximately how long.
ConEd does some communicating after you report an issue. 9 times out of 10, they will text saying the problem has been resolved, when it most certainly has not been…
Agreed; PSE&G is pretty good. We don’t always get updates, but often do, and they are reasonably accurate.
And the fact that they’ve put solar panels on most of the poles really helps spread out the supply and reduce the strain on the grid; if we lose power due to grid issues, it’s usually after the sun has gone down, so it’s at least a bit more bareable than mid-day.
