Thanks Tim for your input.
Yes our unit is electrically driven system (fan not tower) and they won't allow us to use freon now, but our engineer does put something in it that has taken the place of that. And the original compressors, one of which we still use is very large.
The whole unit down in the basement is probably eight feet tall and about two and a half feet deep and probably 8 feet long. It does have a reset button on it but it also uses fuses and if one has blown the reset button will not work. Our heater has a metal front on it which you have to remove to be able to light the pilot light and I know that because I have had to do that one time since living here and read the directions on the metal front. Our hot water heater is also in the basement for the house. It is very cool down there and we do have a wine rack set up in there also.
Yes, it does seem crazy for a new unit to cost that much but the homes here are large and I guess that is just the going price as they must believe redoing an A/C/Heat unit is just a lot of work on these old houses. We cannot use window units as our windows are metal casement and small paned and we might could put a unit in the wall, but would be a matter of pulling out brick to accomodate it on the outside. Most of the homes that added air in years back had towers in their back or side yards and you don't see many window units except in servant quarters which we have a window unit in ours and it cools the entire apartment which is about 500 or 600 sq. ft. We have not seen a fan like ours anywhere in our whole subdivision. I was told that our unit was a special design just for this house, but I don't have any design plans nor papers to it. I called Way Engineering when we started working on it and they told me they did not do that work any longer and did not have a suggestion as whom to call about repairing it. Thought surely they would help me, but didn't.
The house next door was remodeled and sold this past year and his attic was full of old compressors that had not been removed and he said he had to pay the man who installed his new unit to get them removed. I don't know what unit he put in but told my husband his bills were running 1700 to 2500 a month during the summer. The house is basically all glass across the back. He was shocked when my husband told him what ours ran. I would estimate his home to be about 4,000 sq. ft. That house has been remodeled so many times and cut up and restructured by five different owners each having a different style and was always a problem selling. Stayed on the market this time for two years and it is not valued in the same price range now as it originally was, but it does have a pool with a pretty rock fountain flowing in it. It was brick, then painted brick, then sand blasted and now the brick has been covered with plaster over it and it looks kinda contemporary or southwestern design.
And I think you are right about the size of our compressor giving us more efficiency. We are running on six tons and for us older folks it is just fine. My kitchen is also 100% electric but I no longer cook that often. My husband was stationed at Fort Lee in Petersburg, Va, so I know what the weather is like there. We lived in an old hotel for a month, I think it was called the Petersburg Hotel until we got quarters and was there a year on the post in the barrack apartments which were large and they used coal to heat them. We would go out to the civil war reservation for picnics on the weekend and enjoyed living there very much. My husband's brother's ship pulled into Norfolk for repairs and he came to visit us and we have pictures taken by some of the old cannon guns there. That now seems like a hundred years ago and we have never been back. We left there and went to Fort Campbell, Ky. and lived there a year in Wherry Housing on the post also and had all electric there until his two years were up in 1953 and came back home to Texas. We have been back there once in 1978. Our first child was born under the wings of the 11th Airborne.
Also one of my high school friends lives in Midlothian, Va. and I hope to get up there one day to visit her and go to Atlantic City with her. She's a gambling buddy of mine. I keep the temperature of her city on my starting page so when it is really cold I tease her to move back home. She is a widow and her children are there and never wanted to leave their schools after their Dad passed away, so she stayed.
Again thanks and enjoyed your response.
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