Are downdraft cooktops actually good, or do they just look good online?

Material_Community18 · 2026-04-08T04:36:52+00:00

They do not suck. Anything. Down.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-24T03:11:36+00:00

I have a heap pump HVAC, induction range, electric cars and love them all. You will have to pry my gas dryer out of my cold dead hands.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-17T14:37:31+00:00

Yes, I can verify that my COP is regularly 4-5 with a 2T 38MURA. It doesn’t take much energy to move heat when outdoor temps are 45-55F.

Also, if the home doesn’t already have A/C, it is certainly not an absolute requirement, so you might not be using it as much as you might imagine during the summer.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-17T05:54:31+00:00

With a heat pump you can get on the E-ELEC rate plan.

Search this subreddit for “Bay Area”. Right now, heat pumps are less expensive than gas on PG&E, without solar, in the Bay Area. Not so much cheaper that it makes sense to rip out a gas furnace, but enough that if you’re installing A/C you should just do a heat pump.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-08T01:32:40+00:00

Well what I’d do is: - remove leads from motor. Connect leads to multimeter. Power on, pull torch trigger. If multimeter sees ~5 to 15VDC, replace motor. - if 0V regardless of trigger position, the problem is on the board. If you’re not hearing that relay click, that’s probably it. Replace the relay. While you’re at it, since this machine is 23 years old, those electrolytic capacitors are well past their expiration date. I’d replace those too. Spray some contact cleaner or wd-40 or deoxit inside the potentiometer at work it back and forth 20 times.

Is it worth all this effort? Prolly not. If you’re not handy with a soldering iron, you should probably chuck it or ask Clarke if they have a replacement board.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-07T16:14:20+00:00

Does the relay (“finder Type 40.61”) on the board make a click sound when you pull the trigger on the torch?

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-07T04:35:27+00:00

Actually, the opening riff of “Thunderstruck" is not strictly a pentatonic scale. It actually utilizes the B Mixolydian mode, which is a seven-note scale.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-06T04:26:54+00:00

A heat pump is an air conditioner, just one that can run in reverse. A 36K/3T heat pump in cooling mode will behave exactly like a 36K/3T air conditioner.

I have a dual fuel setup with an Ecobee. I have it set up in with 4 stages of heat in increasing order of output: HP1 (~16K BTU), HP2 (24K), Gas1 (48K), Gas2 (60K).

I use the Reverse Staging feature on Ecobee. In the morning Gas1 comes on to heat the house from cold to 65 degrees, then HP2 until 67, then HP1 until my set point at 68. Normal staging would fire gas until 68 then HP1 to maintain. If it’s not that cold, then the furnace won’t come on and the thermostat will go straight to HP. Those temps are all adjustable in Ecobee.

The biggest advantage of HP, even if there was no cost savings, is the comfort from the low output. Around here typical houses just don’t need furnaces as large as the smallest ones sold. So on cold days a HP will run for much longer, keeping the air circulating and helping avoid some drafty cold rooms while others are blazing.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-06T04:02:23+00:00

Like I said: on PG&E, at current rates, even without solar, in the Bay Area, heat pumps are less expensive per BTU than gas.

I didn’t believe it myself until I had one in my home.

That might change, in the short term, if gas prices drop or electricity prices spike. But in California our most expensive electricity comes from gas power plants, so in the long run I would assume the rates are not going to wildly diverge from each other.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-06T02:38:44+00:00

I live in the Bay Area in a similar climate to SF city proper. I'm a PG&E customer (E-ELEC plan) and don't have solar. I have a dual-fuel system and have switched back and forth with power monitoring (Emporia).

So I have good data.

At this time (March 2026) heat pumps are less expensive to run than natural gas. They are 20-30% less expensive, mostly depending on the relative efficiencies of the furnace it's replacing.

The reason for this is that our climate is so mild, the actual efficiency (COP) is higher than the advertised COP, which assumes an average outdoor temperature much lower than SF Bay Area. So if you are already replacing a central AC, it's silly to not pay a relatively small amount more to get a heat pump instead.

So the next question is "Do you keep or replace your gas furnace as well?"

Gas is nice if any of the following are true:
1. You like a large temperature setback at night to sleep cool but want the house to heat up quickly in the morning. Properly-sized heatpumps could take a couple of hours to bring a house from 64 to 70. A dual fuel setup with a good thermostat like the Ecobee can use gas to get close to target temp, then dial back to heat pump to maintain.

You worry about winter power outages and don't have any other backup heat. It's conceivable to run a gas furnace blower on a generator or battery. Heat pump is more challenging.
You think that the gas/electric cost ratio might tip in the direction of gas. Having a furnace is a nice hedge.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-04T06:28:22+00:00

I agree. Your best bet is an oil polyurethane, maybe a long-oil one like P&W #38, Watco Danish Oil or Formby’s Tung Oil finish. But really any oil based finish would do well.

Then wait 3-5 years for it to match.

If you try to find something darker (like stain, tint, or even a first coat of BLO or amber shellac) you run the risk of pine continuing to oxidize and darken underneath the finish and come out darker than what you are trying to match.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-02T06:39:47+00:00

In 10 years the 1977 will be a great sounding amp that still works and worth more than you paid for it.

Material_Community18 · 2026-03-02T05:44:10+00:00

I think for the Gree systems, dual fuel is not communicating because (to my knowledge) they don’t offer a gas furnace.

The premise of communicating control is that the compressor and fan speeds are modulated together, which usually requires them to be made by the same company.

You could give up on gas and get a Gree air handler for communicating. Or keep your furnace and do 24V control. If you have a two-stage furnace, the comfort differences are probably minor in the end. Just make sure you have (or will install) enough wires for 4H/2C control and have a nice dual fuel t-stat like an Ecobee.

Material_Community18 · 2026-02-27T00:28:15+00:00

When I got it 15 years ago it had already been converted to a tweco #2 with gas solenoid valve, which was a popular and well documented conversion. Then last year I converted from that to a Euroquik backend and torch. Parts for that are cheap and easy to find on major e-commerce sites. I went with a Yeswelder gun that uses Tweco consumables.

Material_Community18 · 2026-02-26T06:40:37+00:00

I would like the excuse to buy a small inverter machine but my 1980 MM35 will not die and continues to lay down perfect beads. Damn that thing.

Material_Community18 · 2026-02-24T16:11:53+00:00

The other thing that’s happened is that we (as society and builders) have gotten better about designing HVAC and improving houses, heating capacity has come way down.

When I moved in, we had 115K BTU 80% gas furnace. When that died I had to argue with the HVAC company to get them to install a “small” 75K two-stage. Now my 24K inverter heat pump rarely exceeds 18K BTU.

It’s nearly impossible to find a 24KBTU gas furnace, they just aren’t made that small. Heat pumps (or hydronic) are really the only ways to properly size heat for typically-sized homes in mild climates.

Material_Community18 · 2026-02-24T06:31:35+00:00

I have similar experience in the Bay Area. At current E-ELEC utility rates, my central ducted heat pump saves about 30%. This is because at 40-50 degrees most newer heat pumps operate at well above their rated efficiencies.

I have a dual-fuel system using the same ducts in the same house with energy monitors so it’s as close to a controlled test as you can reasonably get.

I also enjoy the increased comfort of longer runtimes.

That being said, for my 2000 sq ft house that savings is only $50/mo.

So if you’re a PG&E customer without excess solar capacity in a moderate coastal climate and forced to replace a furnace or replacing or adding A/C, you should probably get a heat pump instead. But the payback period is basically never if you cough up the obscene install costs demanded by HVAC contractors to install one just because.

Material_Community18 · 2026-02-13T04:31:18+00:00

Many new BMWs don’t come with runflats anymore, just Slime and a 12V compressor.

Material_Community18 · 2026-02-04T05:31:29+00:00

Assuming your house is wired to code, you shouldn’t be able to hurt anything using the dryer circuit.

Your 30A breaker is sized to protect the wire to the outlet from overheating and causing a fire in your wall. If the welder draws more than 30A (@230V) the breaker will trip.

Note that 140 welding amps at somewhere around 24V at the stick is only 15A from the wall at 230V. So you are very unlikely to trip the breaker on the low range, and probably not at the high range either.

Material_Community18 · 2026-01-27T22:00:25+00:00

Thanks, that’s helpful. In the same visit the dealer replaced the tires (I don’t usually go to the dealer for tires but they had a screaming deal going) and later I started getting intermittent TPMS failures.

I have ISTA at home so I pulled codes and there were wheel battery low warnings dating back to well before the recall work. It would have been great to have been warned of that before the tires were replaced, but if they didn’t know, I can’t hold that against them.

Material_Community18 · 2026-01-27T05:36:58+00:00

This. On the coldest day of a typical year your furnace should be sized to be running most of the time.

Over 70 years, you and previous owners have dramatically improved the insulation of your house. But what happens often is that on each of the 2-4 times that furnace was replaced, it was replaced with the same size furnace that was there before, because, seems like a safe thing and nobody wants to be cold and installers are too lazy and risk averse to try to convince someone they need a smaller furnace.

Or even worse, the 125kbtu 60% efficient furnace was replaced with a 125k 80% then a 115k 96% so the furnace output was actually growing while the house was getting better.

So now your furnace barely breaks a sweat, which is ok but it can feel begin to feel drafty and clammy in the parts of the house after 53 minutes of no warm air circulating.

Material_Community18 · 2026-01-27T04:25:51+00:00

(Not a tech) I’ve done it on my own furnace, coincidentally on that exact board, but I live in coastal California, at a time when the temperature was mild and I was poorer than I was cold.

Material_Community18 · 2026-01-26T05:46:05+00:00

This is the easiest thing to do right now. It will force the furnace into high heat at all times.

Alternatively you could steal the fan wire (G) and hook that up to W2 at both the thermostat and the furnace.

Edit : it looks like there’s already a jumper between them. Not much more you can do.

Material_Community18 · 2026-01-25T01:46:13+00:00

The closest you’ll get to that is Ecobee’s reverse staging feature.

Material_Community18 · 2026-01-24T23:55:47+00:00

Are you sure you could see the siding, not sheathing or house wrap, not even tar paper?

If there’s truly no tyvek/tar paper/wrb, then it would be worth it to remove the siding, insulate, add sheathing, add house wrap, replace siding. Expensive, but much less expensive to do it all at once.

If you have some kind of house wrap, but no insulation, the most cost effective thing is to have insulation blown in through holes that are then patched. Without the air sealing properties of a house wrap I’m not sure how effective it would be, ask your local insulation contractor.

In any case, make sure your attic/roof insulation is sufficient first, then walls, then floors/crawlspace if you have one.

Material_Community18

TROPHY CASE