New AC and 2 Repaired

Operations Updates
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We have a new AC unit for the air in the lobby, electronics room, and the metal shop annex. Two of the units in shop area have had 50% replacements.

These were unexpected expenses, but ones required by our lease agreement. The good news is that the new unit will be more efficient, and thus cheaper to operate. It was also good to see that the shop managed to stay at proper temperature running on just two of the three units.

We are also planning on placing some wireless monitors to alert us to problems. The first will be a pressure sensor that will signify the need to change the filter. Another will be a moisture sensor to shut down appropriate systems when water is in the drip trays. Hopefully we won’t have anymore floods through the ceiling tiles! And lastly, we have new thermostats that are wifi connected and will allow remote monitoring and control. Thanks to our board President and fellow member, Jon, for taking care of this project!

Lastly, we have a new AC service company. Felix Vara, of FrostyCool, along with his son, has been very responsive and helpful. We can definitely recommend their service.

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The best thing that could be done for them is a larger plenum.

We’re putting a ~20x20 tackified polyester in the air handler’s end. That’s a good choice of media, but that air handler only has that there because it can be configured for different size compressors. That’s a 5 ton, the biggest one you can put it. 20x20 filters are great for 2 ton config. 5 ton is a lot of CFM and when limited to 20x20 cross-section it ends up having to be a pretty high air velocity through the filter media.

The 5 ton requires a lot of airflow, and it basically max’es out the air velocity that can go through a clean 20x20 filter. It exceeds the allowable pressure drop quickly once it’s even partially loaded with dust.

The 4" paper box filters didn’t really perform much better. Also expensive.

The key benefit would be to keep the polyester filter media, same width, but make a way to mount a longer piece of it. At least 2x, but the more the better. The CFM will be spread out across a larger area so it is slower and has less pressure drop. It will flow more freely and will flow easier with the media half loaded with dust since there’s a lot of

Those filter frames were custom made by a company town to any size. Pretty inexpensive too. I know they were somewhere down south but not sure, they may not even be around anymore.

In addition to a basically larger filter area, I’d brainstormed some ideas like making the filter frames just hang from a hinge on top so you could just push it up off its hinge with a pole, get it down, and replace by hanging a new frame and filter on the same spot with a pole. If it’s that easy, it would be done more frequently.

Another idea I mulled over was whether you could put the whole roll of filter media up top , pull it through the frame, and leave the bottom dangling so someone could pull down 20" off it at any time, moving fresh media onto the frame and moving the dust-loaded filter down where you coud cut off the taste bit. I was never sure how this would work, though,. Basically it would look like getting a really big paper towel to dry your hands.

Of that what I never worked out is how the sides are going to stay in the frame if you’re not up there manually tucking the sides into the frame.

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If you can make that work, the filter media only needs to be in place in the opening, the suction when is in operation will keep it in place.