The HVAC dealers seem hell bent on selling me yet another, better, more costly, heat pump. Well, as a matter of fact I have 12 tons of SEER rated 15 TRANE heat pumps NOW – and the truth is that the lousy system does not keep the house warm other than when it is running. Obviously the heat loss calculations were not done and the installing HVAC contractor simply threw in the number of units and tonnage he deemed necessary.

While the house is new and has R40 in ceilings and R20 in walls, the installing HVAC Contractor failed to account for 12 & 15 foot ceilings and travertine marble floors throughout (on a slab, of course.) Our first winter here has been awful! We’ve installed a propane heater in our bed room and bath to make it habitable in the early mornings. Our heat pumps can run until they’re blue and the rooms simply do not stay warm!

I feel the best long term solution is a solar powered radiant tube system in the MBR/MBR Bath & Dressing area and back it up with a small electric boiler set to run at the very lowest utility rate times only. A few hundred gallons of solar heated 140 degree water and a circulating pump or two should not present a major problem to install. However, the local HVAC contractors are incapable of “thinking” of anything that does not suck down electricity by the megawatt per hour and they won’t even bother to respond to a request for design and proposal.

It’s my intention to add the radiant system to the MBR/Bath/Dressing area this year, and then expand it to the central part of the house next year as I can afford to replace the rather pricey Travertine Marble with Hardwood floors. While it may take me three years, I’ll have mainly solar powered heating for the entire house and no more winters in a marble massoleum. The costs of the installation will be recovered in about five years and from then on, my wintertime Heating costs should be minimal. The fact that AZ has more sunshine per month than any other state would make one think that solar powered HVAC would be a major business here. Much to my disappointment it is not.

And interestingly enough, it is these same narrow minded HeatPump Jockeys that are crying because the building industry here is now in the toilet as are home prices. Maybe if they were smart enough to offer something that was BETTER and COST EFFECTIVE the consumers would beat a path to their door, check books in hand! I’ve got a million dollar home and we’re freezing because some of these idiots couldn’t do their homework right, or they maximized their profits by undersizing the units intentionally.

Some of the “biggest” HVAC companies in town are now going under as they no longer have builders standing in line for their dubious services for new homes. A change of attitude and a look at newer technology might be the very thing that keeps them afloat and to date, I cannot find one who’s smart enough to figure that fact out!

Now I can’t find a contractor who’s competent to fix the mess at my expense. How very strange it seems to me…

If anyone out there knows a COMPETENT HVAC CONTRACTOR who has experience installing radiant hydronic in floor heating systems powered primarily by solar collectors – PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHO IT MAY BE! I want to meet this rare businessman ASAP!