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can i build a roof over my heat pump? if so how high do i need to put it

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#21 ·
How does Trane Get Away With

With all this talk of recirc'ing the air, How does Trane get away with the top they put on the XLi series??? That blows air out the top sideways and not straight up.....
 
#22 ·
wraujr said:
With all this talk of recirc'ing the air, How does Trane get away with the top they put on the XLi series??? That blows air out the top sideways and not straight up.....
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that's the way it is designed. You still can't build a roof over the top of the XLi's still need 3ft of clearance, which nowdays will put you at around 7-8' up:D

Heard that the weather guard tops have issues in those Hell like climates of Arizona though.
 
#23 ·
I would get it cleaned out once a year like Beach said. Lennox used to say 10 feet. I have measured as much as 20 degrees increase in air temperature around an outdoor unit over ambient when air is recirculated due to enclosures. On a 3 ton system, that can lose 4,000 BTUs per hour in cooling capacity. Why do that to your system?
 
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#24 ·
Hello:

I have my 3-ton AC unit, rheem, sitting under a deck. The deck is only about 2.5' above the top of the unit. I wasn't too worried about a slight decrease in efficiency, because there is not much demand for AC in this climate, and the unit only runs about 50 hours per year.

Last summer, I did use an IR thermometer to check temperatures around the unit. I found that the air inlet temperature on the sides of the unit were the same as ambient. In other words, I am not getting any hot air re-circulation. This is just my observation, you can take it for what it's worth. A case study of 1.

Larry
 
#26 ·
Mostly performance. If low enough to impact performance then service access would be affected as well. IOW if it is high enough that performance is not affected, service access should not be an issue.
 
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#27 ·
Someone just said they were using an IR thermometer to measure air temp. I didn't think those things measured air temp very well. Was it really possibly measuring the temp of the coil surround and not the air going through it.

Maybe I'm thinking about a different kind of thermometer.
 
#28 ·
Hello:

Rhizlebop, you are correct. I actually measured the outside case temperature of the unit. I took that to be the temperature of the air flowing over the slots. It was the same temperature as the other solid surfaces in the shade in the area, and also matched the outside thermostat.

Larry
 
#29 ·
larryb said:
Hello:

I have my 3-ton AC unit, rheem, sitting under a deck. The deck is only about 2.5' above the top of the unit. I wasn't too worried about a slight decrease in efficiency, because there is not much demand for AC in this climate, and the unit only runs about 50 hours per year.

Last summer, I did use an IR thermometer to check temperatures around the unit. I found that the air inlet temperature on the sides of the unit were the same as ambient. In other words, I am not getting any hot air re-circulation. This is just my observation, you can take it for what it's worth. A case study of 1.

Larry
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IR thermometers are not accurate for that kind of measurement. Get an air sensing probe. Put it in the outside air, not under the deck but in the shade and get a reading there. Then put it under the deck and get a reading there after the unit has run a while. That will give you a better read. By the way, what emmisvity is your IR thermometer set for? Different objects radiate differently. Shiny surfaces have low emissivity, dark surfaces typically are higher. If your IR thermometer emissivity is non-adjustable, most likely it reads wrong much of the time. You need to understand the limitations of those tools to get accurate answers from them.
 
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#30 ·
panaman said:
so your basically saying.. build like a screen house for it?
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Also please remember if you are gonna enclose the heat pump make sure there is room enough to clean out the condenser coil and also to have access to the control panel

3 feet all around oughta do it nicely. Just tell the inspector you are building a bird aviary

Hell, since you are building this from scratch put in a bench seat for the tech and maybe a built in cooler

You might just have the cleanest a/c unit in town then:D
 
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