Cold Rooms

orion21

Our house is a single story 1200 Square foot ranch, built in 1998.
The registers are in the ceiling, and it only has one cold air return, which is in the hallway.
We had a new "American Standard" Air handler (which is in the garage) and heat pump system put in 4-5 years ago.
Ever since this house was built, the 2 rooms on the west end have been cold.
(The bathroom that is in between the 2 rooms is warm)

I do know that the duct work is above the ceilings, and that it is the flexible insulated type.

After using a laser thermometer at all of the heat registers, I determined that the heat coming out of the 2 west rooms are about 10 degrees colder than the other rooms.

The house is on a concrete slab and has about 6-8" of blown in insulation above the ceilings.

All of the flexible duct work looks to be in good shape!

Any suggestions, ideas greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help.

joecaption

Anyone here would be just guessing on this one, size of runs, how you have the system balanced ( closing vents to force air to a differant area) whether or not the flexlines are crimped or twisted, how much Insulation is under the house and attic, someone has left the foundation vents open, leaking connections ect.

Marty S.

Check the duct work for those rooms for kinks or damage. Had squirrels chew though the eves at our house and get into the attic. They tore the crap out of the duct insulation for one room.

biggles

make sure that return is pulling house air not attic and check that discahrge 360 degrees around the air handler make sure its not flapping ductape how's your outdoor air temp this morning?and how about the attic temp is it chilled down

orion21

Biggles,

"Check the discharge 360 degrees around the air handler" , do you mean to check for leaks where the heat first comes into the duct work from the air handler?

It is 27 degrees outside right now. And it is cold in the attic.



Thanks

biggles

sorry thought you had an attic furnace... my brain was up there with the ceiling registers chilling out...forget my 360 ramble.is that a metal supply truck from the garage? up into the attic with flex take offs in that west chilled area? and if the air handler is in the garage is the return ducted back from the conditioned space....switch to emergency resistance heat see what happen in the western rooms... if you have a sheetmetal supply trunk into the attic is it insulated,and when you catch a heating mode with the heat pump tell me if you can grab that insulated suction line into the air handler during the heating mode...

orion21

Biggles,

It is a metal supply from the top, back of the Air Handle, up into the area above the garage. It is covered with a foil covered insulation, from there it goes into flex...everywhere. The cold air return- going into the air handler, is also foil covered insulation, it is from the roughly 2'x2' grill in the hallway....(it's the only cold air return and it is mostly toward the west end of the house.)

With the heat pump running outside, I could grab the insulated suction line and hold it --it was pretty warm but I would not say it was hot. I did grab the copper line, (I moved the insulation around it).
When I flipped on emergency heat, it seemed to be colder in the west end rooms. The blower was not forcing air out the registers, and if I pointed the laser thermometer at the registers it was colder then when on normal heat.
Also with emergency heat on, the suction line was cold.


Thanks

orion21

Anyone have anymore ideas?


Thanks

REP

There are too many unknows with your system.With only one return you have basicly a mobile home system in other words cheap.
You could run real pipe to those rooms or you could run bigger size flex duct to those rooms.If installed correctly which is short as possible ,stright as possible and with metal elbows for bends or off sets you may improve those rooms.That is if your unit is sized correctly which it probably isn't.
You also have to leave doors open to all the rooms you have supply registers in.Cutting the doors short leaving a space along the bottom is a band aide at best and then you open those rooms to noise from the rest of the house.