A/C installation (II)

Greg (father-in-law) and I started working on the A/C Wednesday afternoon. I had picked up the A-coil, line set and pad in the morning and when Greg got to the house with his truck we picked up the condenser. The first matter is to cut a hole in the plenum of the furnace. We cut the hole above the burner, then attached some strips of right angle aluminum to rest the A-coil on. You can see the furnace coils are positioned right below the brackets that the A-coil rests on. The A-coil is filled with a gas (nitrogen I think), to ensure that the integrity of the unit is intact when you install it. You use a tube cutter to remove the cap on the end of the bigger pipe coming out of the A-coil, and the gas is released at that point. You set the coil on the brackets and then work on "brazing" the line set to the A-coil.

Part III

A/C installation

After going through 4 different air conditioner contractors list year and continually hearing $3500 to $4500 as a price to install an A/C for our house, I went to a local appliance store and priced an OEM unit. The total price was just under $1600. After consulting with my father-in-law, who used to install A/C units (70's), we decided to take a chance and install it ourselves.

I search low and high for tutorials on the internet and came up with very little, it seems most people do not take this kind of work on themselves. But, Greg had done it before and I was full of silly confidence. In the end it worked out, but we did get lucky. I feel like I could perform this installation again. I will detail the experience in a couple of posts for the future diyer to try :)

I found a great, very complete tutorial: Alpine

Part II