RatLabGuy
You look like a monkey and smell like one too
- Joined
- May 18, 2005
- Location
- Churchville, MD
Speaking of house filteres etc....
So we're having this problem at the house, our son's room is chronically colder than the rest of the house by around 4 degrees. It's a classic 60s 1-level Ranch, albeit bigger than many, something like 1700 sq ft.
His room is on the far end, as is ours. Ours isn't bad at all.
Can't quite figure out why; yes the attic insulation sucks, and I've already bought many rolls to add to the top, but it's the same all the way across and over all the rooms so that feels unlikely to me.
I realized the basement is just as warm as the house... which is convenient, but means all that heat is coming from somewhere!
The gas furnace is about 1/4 of the way along the length of the house, opposite the bedrooms, which means its a good 40-45+ feet from there to the end where Jonas's room is, plus the 12' branch to his register.
My thinking is, the air temp is is falling off alot before it gets there, radiating into the basement, and I need to insulate all the ductwork. So I've bought a whole lot of R6 to coat it with.
Meanwhile, it turns out almost none of the duct junctions were taped, and in some cases barely even mated w/ 1/4"+ gaps. Even better, all the return lines are created from boxing in joists (they just cut a hole in the top of the main trunk under a joist, then nailed sheeting up along it to some point under the floor, then the wall space above between studs serves as the return "duct")... and in many cases the sheet mating is really bad w/ huge gaps etc, could really feel the vacuum loss from around these underneath.
lesson: Inspect your ductwork, you may be losing a lot of "good air"!
So I've been spending alot of time w/ HVAC mastic (e.g. bull snot!) and tape covering all the seams, getting it all "tight".
Now that i've done that, there is a slight difference in the pressure at the supply vents, but especially the returns. In fact the sound of rushing air is very noticible now when it's running.
Meanwhile Jonas's room yesterday was still pretty cold (I haven't insulated the ducts yet). He tends to keep the door closed all day. I'm almost wondering if the increased vent pressure is working against me now? Am I now sucking what litle warm air I'm getting out "faster" than before?
This led me to another curious question. The bedrooms all have both a supply and a return, but many spaces have only supplies (kitchen hallway, den has 2 and 1 return, living room has 3 and 2). 14 supplies, only 6 returns. The return vents are only a little bigger than the supplies.
Now maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to me that w/ this design, if I assume the house is air tight (which of course it is NOT!), that means the sucking pressure at each return is > 2x the outgoing pressure at the vents... at least now that I have sealed up all the leaks, lol . This seems like it would be (a) counterproductive and (b) hard on the blower motor.
OK so after all that rambling I'm not even sure what my point is anymore...
Am I on the right track? Any other possibilities that could explain the uneven heat? It is generally warmer in our living room (which is right above the furnace), and even though our bedroom is also on the far end of the house, it has 2 supplies
So we're having this problem at the house, our son's room is chronically colder than the rest of the house by around 4 degrees. It's a classic 60s 1-level Ranch, albeit bigger than many, something like 1700 sq ft.
His room is on the far end, as is ours. Ours isn't bad at all.
Can't quite figure out why; yes the attic insulation sucks, and I've already bought many rolls to add to the top, but it's the same all the way across and over all the rooms so that feels unlikely to me.
I realized the basement is just as warm as the house... which is convenient, but means all that heat is coming from somewhere!
The gas furnace is about 1/4 of the way along the length of the house, opposite the bedrooms, which means its a good 40-45+ feet from there to the end where Jonas's room is, plus the 12' branch to his register.
My thinking is, the air temp is is falling off alot before it gets there, radiating into the basement, and I need to insulate all the ductwork. So I've bought a whole lot of R6 to coat it with.
Meanwhile, it turns out almost none of the duct junctions were taped, and in some cases barely even mated w/ 1/4"+ gaps. Even better, all the return lines are created from boxing in joists (they just cut a hole in the top of the main trunk under a joist, then nailed sheeting up along it to some point under the floor, then the wall space above between studs serves as the return "duct")... and in many cases the sheet mating is really bad w/ huge gaps etc, could really feel the vacuum loss from around these underneath.
lesson: Inspect your ductwork, you may be losing a lot of "good air"!
So I've been spending alot of time w/ HVAC mastic (e.g. bull snot!) and tape covering all the seams, getting it all "tight".
Now that i've done that, there is a slight difference in the pressure at the supply vents, but especially the returns. In fact the sound of rushing air is very noticible now when it's running.
Meanwhile Jonas's room yesterday was still pretty cold (I haven't insulated the ducts yet). He tends to keep the door closed all day. I'm almost wondering if the increased vent pressure is working against me now? Am I now sucking what litle warm air I'm getting out "faster" than before?
This led me to another curious question. The bedrooms all have both a supply and a return, but many spaces have only supplies (kitchen hallway, den has 2 and 1 return, living room has 3 and 2). 14 supplies, only 6 returns. The return vents are only a little bigger than the supplies.
Now maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to me that w/ this design, if I assume the house is air tight (which of course it is NOT!), that means the sucking pressure at each return is > 2x the outgoing pressure at the vents... at least now that I have sealed up all the leaks, lol . This seems like it would be (a) counterproductive and (b) hard on the blower motor.
OK so after all that rambling I'm not even sure what my point is anymore...
Am I on the right track? Any other possibilities that could explain the uneven heat? It is generally warmer in our living room (which is right above the furnace), and even though our bedroom is also on the far end of the house, it has 2 supplies
. And the N one hast he tree and bush, so now that I think of it, there's never any direct sunlight on that window.
