Answering the question: Was hacking my Furnace with a solar powered portable AC worth it? NOPE! But for me, it was a great experiment to try, and glad I did. 
We just had a few 100+ days here - super hot for us. My daughter's room gets BAKED by the sun. Check out this V. Midnight on the 10th, opens windows. 6 am, closes them - but leaves shades open, 9am, I close shades, and it levels out. No AC today. Basically her windows suck.
The previous day, you can see when I turned on the AC, and it kept her room from getting above 82. So, it helped keep her room 20 degs below ambient. I don't think the effort was worth it.
1 ton AC (1500-2000w), coupled with a slow furnace fan (I can't get it to kick into high
) doesn't get enough cold air to the 2nd floor. It just loses cold and it traverses the ductwork.
Here's what I would (and might) change:
3 8k Midea U's are $700 on sale at Costco. Putting in a 3-5 ton AC is like $20k. Mini-splits are 2-5k. I can get away with running 2 simultaneously, and at steady state the use between 200-1000w. 2, yes, 3 is pushing it.
We just had a few 100+ days here - super hot for us. My daughter's room gets BAKED by the sun. Check out this V. Midnight on the 10th, opens windows. 6 am, closes them - but leaves shades open, 9am, I close shades, and it levels out. No AC today. Basically her windows suck.
The previous day, you can see when I turned on the AC, and it kept her room from getting above 82. So, it helped keep her room 20 degs below ambient. I don't think the effort was worth it.
1 ton AC (1500-2000w), coupled with a slow furnace fan (I can't get it to kick into high
) doesn't get enough cold air to the 2nd floor. It just loses cold and it traverses the ductwork.Here's what I would (and might) change:
- Replace my 6 breaker transfer switch with a 10
- Get an 8000 BTU Midea U for affected rooms, put all rooms on the transfer switch
- During heat wave, take low-power breakers off the inverter (I only have 3k to play with - more in next post)
- Use the Mideas to cool places as desired, and make them "solar powered" by flipping the transfer switches
3 8k Midea U's are $700 on sale at Costco. Putting in a 3-5 ton AC is like $20k. Mini-splits are 2-5k. I can get away with running 2 simultaneously, and at steady state the use between 200-1000w. 2, yes, 3 is pushing it.
