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Posted by Moe Jones on July 29, 2006, 10:20 am
Call a electrician out to check your wiring and let them giver you a price
on adding a circuit for each A/C unit before you burn down the building.
--
Moe Jones
HVAC Service Technician
Energy Equalizers Inc.
Houston, Texas
>I have an AC question if someone would mind to take a stab at it.
>
> I live in Brooklyn, NY. Iıve lived in the current apartment for many
> years:
> the building is old, World War II era and is wired with solid copper wire
> insulated by a hard black insulator (looks like a totally oxidized black
> rubber) and the outside is enclosed by a cloth sheath. As you can imagine
> due
> to its age, much of the wiringıs insulator is hard and when handled cracks
> and crumbles. The apartment (a VERY large place, 3 bathrooms) is wired for
> what I assume was a minimal electrical/appliance usage for the era and as
> such the rooms only have 2 electrical outlets each.
>
> Itıs my apartment and four of us live here.
> I do not use an AC unit because of the amperage draw. One of my roommates
> got
> an AC unit last summer and did not heed my warning to research start/run
> amperage draw for various AC units. She just went to PC Richards and
> bought
> one, I assume on looks and price. Her room is connected to one of the
> kitchen
> circuits and other room circuits. When the AC runs and someone uses the
> kitchen toaster or coffee maker, the breaker (15amp) pops off.
>
> An inconvenience, but if she can live with continual interrupted
> electricity
> (and if one other roommate can endure it as well as he shares a circuit
> with
> her) than so be it. If push comes to shove Iıll demand she either get rid
> of
> the AC unit altogether or replace it with one that has a lower amperage
> draw.
> A big pain in the butt at best.
>
> However, today I come home to a bombshell: another roommate informs me
> that
> she has ALSO bought an AC unit. I had casually mentioned to her in the
> past
> about amperage ratings etc., but she apparently chose to ignore or
> disregard
> the info. Her room looks also connected to this circuit and when I came
> home
> she informed me that the breaker with 2 AC units was popping off every ten
> minutes.
>
> At this point Iım going to tell her that she will have to return her unit
> and
> live with a fan like I do.
>
> However, I was wondering if someone who knows the products currently
> manufactured can recommend an AC unit that has amongst the lowest start
> up/run amperage of the models available (what would be responsible for the
> circuit breaker going off, the run voltage??). The rooms are
> approximately
> 1400 cubic feet in size. Iım looking for a unit that will modestly cool
> the
> rooms (it does NOT have to do an arctic freeze as my roommates will have
> to
> settle for what can function in the apartment). The apartment is wired for
> 110V. Price is not an object as I will not be dishing out the money
> (though
> lower prices units are more desirable).
>
> Any ideas?
>
>
>
>
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