Closing in Lanai and Air Conditioning

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Old 02-10-2012, 12:34 PM
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jane032657 jane032657 is offline
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Default Closing in Lanai and Air Conditioning

The contractor is just about to start on our lanai enclosure to a Florida Room and the question of AC upgrade came up. We have a CYV and the system is brand new, never turned on yet as we do not even live there yet.

I am wondering if I should sell the AC system as new and upgrade; or just expand it into the Florida room which is not huge and will have the pocket sliders onto the bird cage.

With calculations they say it should work ok but I wonder if others have done this and stretched the AC system and if it worked ok or did not make the house cold enough in the peak of summer? Our CYV is 1503 sq ft and the Florida room will be about 250 sq ft. The company that put it in said that will be the max it can handle with the Florida room closed in, but what have your experiences been and do you wish you upgraded?

Last, does anyone ever buy these systems on TOTV do you think?

Thanks!
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Old 02-10-2012, 05:48 PM
784caroline 784caroline is offline
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WE enclosed our lanai area (260sf) and added an additional 150sf hobby room off the master bedroom and connected it to the now enclosed lanai with a pocket door. WE also took out the sliding glass doors to open the now enclosed lanai to the main family room. WE also wanted to add heat/ac to both new areas which addeed approx 400sf....and we wanted the heat/ac to be directly ducted to the main furnace...not simply tapped to the nearest duct in the family room.
When our contractor took the plans to the county for approval, they required him to present a completed heat/ac survey. The contractor then had to contract with Munns and this survey is not just someones guess...the survey considers the type of windows you are installing (low e insulated, tempered heat gain etc) the direction of the new space in relation to sun direction and compare that to the capacity of your existing AC unit or heat pump if you have all electric.

It costs a couple of hundred bucks to have this survey completed but we certainly liked the results and it has proven more than satisfactory for us. Every house will be different and if the survey is not required to secure your building permit it certainly will provide you peace of mind. Believe me saving a couple of hundred bucks to install something that will not adequately cool or heat the extra space will only make you more uncomfortable (and miserable) once you start using it. AS you probably already know an enclosed lanai facing any part west really gets hot in the summer

BTW: If the existing Ac is not big enough to handle the new addition, you donot need to replace the exisitng AC. There are new units out today that attach to the wall and vented outside with a separate outside compressor and are fairly reasonable and work pretty good. One that comes to mind is the Mitisbuti "Mr Big".
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Old 02-10-2012, 06:20 PM
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jane032657 jane032657 is offline
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Great information, thank you. The AC is already in the new villa. We were trying to decide if we should sell it and upgrade, it has never yet been used. The company that installed it said it should handle the new closed in lanai with no problem but that would be the max. There was no detail needed that I know of for the permit accpetance. I like your idea of adding something to the Florida room if we need it rather than spending thousands of dollars upgrading for this smaller space. Thank you for your effort in sharing your experince.
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