At Cannon Creek Airpark, the hangar and the house want two different machines

Two buildings sharing a wall

Cannon Creek Airpark is a private fly-in community on about 625 acres three miles southwest of Lake City, with a paved runway, a turf crosswind strip and homes built from 1986 through 2008 that share a wall with their own hangars. Every lot is really two buildings with two completely different jobs.

The house is a house. It wants to be about 75 degrees in July and 70 in January, with the humidity under control so the rooms do not feel damp. The hangar is a tall, mostly uninsulated metal or block box with a door the size of a wall, a concrete floor that sweats, and an airplane inside that would prefer the relative humidity stay low enough that aluminum, steel cables and avionics do not corrode. Temperature matters less; moisture matters more.

The most common mistake we find at the airpark is one system asked to do both.

What happens when they share

An owner runs a flex duct or two from the house air handler into the hangar, or leaves the connecting door open with the house system running. Three things follow. The house system is now sized wrong for the load it sees, so it runs constantly in summer and never catches up when the hangar door has been open. The house loses its humidity control, because a system running flat out cools without dehumidifying well. And the hangar is still damp, because cooling a space to 78 does nothing for a floor that sweats every time the door opens on a July morning.

The house side

The homes are 1986 to 2008, which puts their original equipment anywhere from recently replaced to long overdue. Construction is slab-on-grade block and frame with attic ductwork, on private wells with the hard, iron-carrying water of the Floridan aquifer. The calls from the house side are what we see across the 32025 side of Lake City: aging heat pumps, original flex duct, drain lines scaled by well water, capacitors and boards after a lightning storm over the open field.

One difference stands out. Airpark owners travel, often for weeks. A house that sits closed with the system off comes back smelling of August. We set these houses up to run at a higher setpoint with a thermostat that reports to a phone and alerts on humidity, so a failure in week two is known in week two.

The hangar side

For the hangar, the equipment list is short and specific.

• A dehumidifier sized for the volume, freestanding or ducted, draining to the apron, holding a setpoint around 50 to 55 percent whether anyone is home or not. This is the one piece almost every hangar should have and most do not.
• A ductless heat pump if the hangar doubles as a workshop and the owner wants it comfortable to work in. Heads mount high on the wall out of the way of wings.
• Insulation and door seals before any of it, because conditioning a box that leaks around the door is throwing power at the sky.

We do not recommend full cooling of a hangar to house temperature. The electric bill for that on a Clay Electric or FPL meter is rarely worth what it buys.

Scale, lightning and the field

Two local hazards cut across both buildings. Well water scales dehumidifier drains and condensate pumps, so those are wear items checked on every visit. And the airpark is a wide-open field under a summer sky; lightning is the everyday hazard from June through September. Surge protection at both disconnects is inexpensive against the control boards it saves.

How far the truck comes

The airpark gate is roughly two hours twenty-five from Cook’s Palm Coast address (37 Fairmont Ln). We are family-owned, a Lennox dealer, and we repair every brand in both the house and the hangar. Whatever time the hangar phone gets dialed, a dispatcher answers, and darkness outside adds nothing to the invoice.