New answers tagged hvac
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Yes standard fiber filters can be added, I suggest adding them at the return point if possible this keeps the heavy dust particles out of the duct system. Having a granddaughter that has severe breathing problems I can tell you keeping the electrostatic filter clean is your best bet. Adding fiber filters for large dust particles is the next best thing.
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In terms of sealing a return vent, it is sufficient that the drywall and studs are compressed to create a channel in the wall. No need to caulk the corners, unless there are gaps. No metal lining needed.
For wall to floor transitions you can cut sheet metal to create a custom fitting (box), and seal its metal seams with tape or mastic duct sealant. Lip the ...
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Drywall itself can act as a return duct. Just install your inlet frame and fit drywall to that. Be sure the entire return path is sealed. The transition from wall to floor cavity, for example, can be troublesome.
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There are two red wires in your blower. Assuming the one I labelled below is the one from the thermostat, and the other three wires I labelled are also from the thermostat, you have this wired correctly.
Don't use the O terminals. The thermostat's smart fan controls won't work that way.
Make sure the wires I've labelled in the picture below all come ...
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Older thermostats have a "Fan" switch that works independently of the system's On/Off switch. That switch should be on Auto, not On or Circ or any other setting.
Newer thermostats have fan control too but some don't have a separate switch, just a setting somewhere. Find it. Make sure it's on Auto. Some newer thermostats have additional hidden &...
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Many AC systems have an option to keep the blower on continuously. The idea is even if it isn't actively heating/cooling the air it helps circulate the air to avoid hot/cold spots. I have never heard of one that randomly turns on and off. Do you have either multiple thermostats or a smart thermostat? I could imagine they might want to turn the blower on and ...
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Heat loss or heat gain is how fixed heating is installed. What that means to keep a uniform temp in the room we put registers under / over windows . Where the outside temp affects the room more.
I don’t find mini splits following this quite as much possibly because there air discharge is 3-5x the area of a fixed vent and the minis usually have active vents ...
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Assuming you have a single zone system, that cools the whole house at once. First step is an experiment. Ignore balance, see if the system has the capacity to cool the bedrooms at all if it is completely unbalanced.
Step 1: Do an experiment
Open the bedroom and nursery vents, close all the other vents in the house. All the downstairs ones closed.
Close ...
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Hot air naturally going up. You need to enhance air circulation. Some thermostat has circulation mode. Booster fan in air outlet. Some ceiling fans in area, where no air circulation. All problem because of design of whole system. But change it very complicated.
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The uncovered outlet is a fresh air intake. It should not be pushing air out but should rather be sucking air in. Please verify that it is indeed sucking air in when heating; if it's actually pushing air out then there is a problem for sure.
If it's pushing air out during cooling and the burners are not activated then it could be working as designed.
The ...
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As strange as it sounds... this is valid in most areas.
Most people are used to water heaters and traditional HVAC furnaces, which need a double-wall metal flue to directly exhaust the hot combustion gases. What you have here is a condensing furnace, which uses a secondary exchanger to increase efficiency by extracting the heat before sending the remaining ...
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[ Edited to reflect that this may or may not be outside vented and may or may not be dangerous. If you upvoted mainly because I warned of the dangers, now's your chance to remove it :) ]
That is a high efficiency heating system. It uses a PVC pipe instead of a chimney for its exhaust. There are two kinds. Some are "direct vent" that use another ...
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Yikes, hook that line back up!!! That line that hooks up to the combustion chamber and vents carbon monoxide out of the house!!!!
If your system is not cooling is it in cooling mode?
Are the batteries in the thermostat good?
If the system is a few years old it may have a small leak and be low on refrigerant!! But NEVER run the system with the vents ...
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Your G terminal isn't meant for that
On gas furnaces, the G terminal is basically an "override" input to allow the end user to turn the fan on without a call for heat or cooling. As a result, your results with your current fan relay aren't totally surprising; in fact, it shouldn't turn on at all unless you set the fan switch on your thermostat to ...
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Summary... 100% add the duct work. It will be cheaper in long run, look better, and will increase resale value of the home.
Few things here:
Once you add those walls/ceilings (given it is not a drop ceiling) adding duct work will be very costly and messy. This is sort of like running ethernet cable throughout the house, but air ducts probably have ...
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One thing you could consider would be to install dampers in the duct work to close off various legs of duct. This would allow you to have heat available anywhere in the house you want, but to close off areas from heating when you don't want them to be heated. This would, effectively, give you multiple zones, though they'd be manually controlled.
Also, adding ...
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TL;DR Space heating doesn't make sense in a typical US house that already has duct work in place.
There are, broadly speaking, 3 types of home heating in general use in the US:
Fossil fuels - Natural gas (generally most cost effective) or oil. If you have this, it would definitely be forced air, as that matches "duct work".
Electric resistance ...
answered Apr 8 at 16:32
manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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The answer is yes, you can. You could ask why your system isn't working that way. You could start by looking at whether it seems to generally be intended to work that way, in which case something is wrong.
If your system is meant to have two zones you should see the hot water pipe that comes out of the boiler split into two pipes, and each one should ...
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Yes, it can be done. It just needs to be plumbed (and wired) right. Each thermostat should control a valve that admits hot water to its section of the house.
The boiler should be wired to fire up whenever either thermostat is calling for heat.
For example, if the basement is cold, but the rest of the house is warm, then the valve allowing water to the ...
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M-Cycle heat exchangers allow you to cool your house using a radiator, water, and fan only. Look up the research and even the products in the market.
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I'd simply take this transformer back and get a different one
The transformer you have was designed for use as a replacement transformer inside HVAC equipment, hence the design with primary and secondary wires in the same nipple. However, this also means it's RU (UL Component Recognized, or Rather Useless to us) instead of being UL listed, which isn't ...
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My first thought is it’s a floor drain until I notice it is close to the wall.
This is a location for a clean out. Can you see standing water?
If it is a clean out and not a floor drain it should not be left open.
If you see standing water indicating a p trap below the floor it is a standard floor drain and would be fine to continue to use for the ...
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This is a regular basement floor drain. there is a trap below the slab and that's why you see the water... that's a good sign. You should get a drain cover from your home store similar to the one below. Measure the diameter of the drain and hit the home store or a plumbing supply store for the cover.
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It's just a typical floor drain, and it's the ideal place to drain your dehumidifier. What you see is the water trap, which prevents sewer gas from escaping. It presumably connects to your sanitary sewer, so be conscientious about what you dump into it.
Here's a modern drain just to illustrate the trap concept:
image source
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It is a simple case of dirt in your evaporator getting wet.
You now know more than either of the idiots you had come out and check your system. This should have been done on the first call!!!
You can go to most home stores and get aerosol cans of coil cleaner to spray on the coils (the ones inside close to the air handler. The coil usually has a access panel ...
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Smells in AC systems are somewhat common.
When the heat is used the drip pans dry out and any gunkies (a professional term for growth in the drip pan).
When the AC is used the dormant gunkies get some moisture and come to life.
The moisture is normal when the AC is on.
Ways to reduce or eliminate this growth add condensate pan tablets or strips that kill the ...
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Yes, you can move it up as long as the top plate does not restrict the air flow. I don't know where you are located but where I live there is no code against moving it.
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What about using the back of your fridge to preheat your make-up air? I had a mechanical consultant do that in an apartment building where the intake air was delivered to the gap behind the fridge..
Might be a nice (old-school) compromise..
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Venting a flammable gas may be safe as long as there are no sources of ignition in the area and the gas has time to dissipate. Kind of like having a propane or LP gas cylinder filled once the cylinder is full they vent the gas between the pipe and fill valve. Outside away from ignition sources this is considered safe so I would expect the same to be true ...
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It depends if your "heating bill" already includes heating the basement. If you have forced air heating or cooling with the basement on the same zone as the living area, it should make no difference because the air is already circulating and mixing.
If you heat your basement and it's on a separate zone, your bill might go up as the zones will not ...
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In theory, door open/closed of a well insulated basement does not really affect the heating energy consumption of the house.
However, there is a subjective element that could cause you to heat more.
Even if the heat bill stays the same, you might find it colder in the basement, with the door open/absent: with an open/absent door, cold air from the main level ...
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Where on the existing duct did you "tap in" or install the 8" round supply? If it is in the end of the existing duct, that will not work. Also, flex duct has a lot more resistance to air flow than does hard metal smooth pipe. I have found those in-line duct fans to be almost useless. They usually make more noise than necessary for the little ...
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Has your furnace/AC unit been sized for the addition?
Try unplugging the fans from the ducstat and plug them into a regular outlet and see if they continue to cut out.
Keep in mind that these fans will only help move the air that's available from the main blower, they won't increase the air available. Your run of 8" duct and then split into 2-6"...
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I'm not entirely sure from the picture but it looks like there may be corrosion involved in the failure of your hose barb. If that is the case I would modify FreeMan's answer by recommending a plastic hose barb for a replacement.
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Looks like someone "repurposed" steam radiators by adding return lines. You've got a buttload of uninsulated pipe there. I would seriously consider re-plumbing between the 3 radiators without dropping down and up again in between. This may be impossible or at least aesthetically ugly depending on where the radiators are & whether you can run ...
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That is a simple brass hose barb.
I'd carefully unscrew it from the pipe, being sure not to twist and damage the PVC. Then I'd take it to my local hardware/big-box store and purchase one in a matching size.
If you have enough slack in the tubing, I'd also cut it off an inch or so below where the barbs are stuck in it and bring that to the store. I'd use it ...
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