Comment by bob1029
1 day ago
Single stage hvac systems tend to have better performance in the max capacity cooling cases (Texas) and last significantly longer than units that rely on non-linear electronic devices.
The difference can be as extreme as 10+ years of service life. There are residential systems that were installed in the 80s and 90s that are still running fine today. The hermetically sealed scroll compressor is an engineering marvel. The electronics will generally fail before any meaningful mechanical wear is incurred.
Single stage forced air / air handlers AC systems are basically only found in North America because they are so grossly inefficient and because most people in the rest of the world realize they can save money by not having all of their rooms ran off the same system. The rest of the world runs on mini splits for that reason.
I don't understand why it's so common for Europeans to act like they speak for the entire rest of the world outside of North America.
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>Single stage hvac systems tend to have better performance in the max capacity cooling cases (Texas) and last significantly longer than units that rely on non-linear electronic devices.
Why?
Inverter systems have more conversion losses than single stage. Most of the time, I definitely intend to run my system as hard as it can. There are only 4-5 weeks out of the year where variable speed would make a meaningful difference.
Semiconductors wear faster than copper wires and contactors and are much harder to replace. I can take a part from my neighbor's condensing unit and it would almost certainly work in mine. The make/model is largely irrelevant. I can go on Amazon, search "Start+Run Capacitor" and buy the first thing I find.
> Most of the time, I definitely intend to run my system as hard as it can. There are only 4-5 weeks out of the year where variable speed would make a meaningful difference.
The system never catches up, even at night?
Because all too often the electronics are what fail and replacement parts are not available so the whole thing is scrap even though the compressor is still good.