so apparently the ducting in my attic is substantially leaky... to such a degree that i can actually feel cool air flowing down the attic and out the soffits that i was in process of replacing. from what i can tell several joints branching from a main rectangular duct are leaking, i suspect that they are responsible for the majority of that cold air i felt. i was aware of the poor condition of the ducting prior to this point... but honestly i had not thought it was as bad at this.
what concerns me however; having spent the last few days reading and researching proper residential hvac installations, is that the attic ducting is just garbage. nothing is strapped, the ducting runs over each other... theres alot of slack in the smaller ducts, and there are dozens of fairly bad kinks that ive been able to observe. i havent seen any mastic used anywhere, just tape and zip ties.
i had an HVAC company(apparently they only install trane products) come out last year to adress some minor issues. while they were there i asked if they could service the coil in the attic, at the time i was under the impression they needed cleaning somewhat regularly, it was my understanding at the time that it had not been cleaned in like 5 years. anyway they didnt seem to want to clean it, they actually said it appeared to be in OK condition along with the rest of the ac system. i asked if could give me a quote for just servicing the ducting. he hem'd and hawed for a while and i got the general impression that he didnt want to do it, but thought i personally should do something with it.
my question is simply... can a grown fat man about 300lbs 6'3" feasibly replace a small single story homes entire poorly constructed AC ducting with something far more appropriate for a 14 cent/kwh electrical service? its a fairly small single story cheaply built tract home built in the 70's , i think there are only 19 registers?
im mostly worried about what i should use to replace the main trunk line with and how to get it back into the attic, it looks like the existing one is just sheet metal? is that even possible? it seem like it would sweat badly..which is didn't appear to be doing. i cant actually get to it without hands and knees crawling and probably cutting some drywall. i understand that there is something called duct board that sounds like a suitable replacement, but can i work with it without specific tools? i have at a table saw and all the typical power tools, but nothing specific for sheet metal working.
anyway back to the original question. should i even bother trying? should i just fix what i can get to? if i can actually just blow out all the old duct work, is there anyway to do it in phases such that i can basically keep the ac functioning while i replace sections of the duct.
im going to buy the manual D and J books regardless so hopefully what ever i end up doing is done correctly.
thanks in advance for what ever advice you can give me.
edit: bad spelling, grammar etc.
what concerns me however; having spent the last few days reading and researching proper residential hvac installations, is that the attic ducting is just garbage. nothing is strapped, the ducting runs over each other... theres alot of slack in the smaller ducts, and there are dozens of fairly bad kinks that ive been able to observe. i havent seen any mastic used anywhere, just tape and zip ties.
i had an HVAC company(apparently they only install trane products) come out last year to adress some minor issues. while they were there i asked if they could service the coil in the attic, at the time i was under the impression they needed cleaning somewhat regularly, it was my understanding at the time that it had not been cleaned in like 5 years. anyway they didnt seem to want to clean it, they actually said it appeared to be in OK condition along with the rest of the ac system. i asked if could give me a quote for just servicing the ducting. he hem'd and hawed for a while and i got the general impression that he didnt want to do it, but thought i personally should do something with it.
my question is simply... can a grown fat man about 300lbs 6'3" feasibly replace a small single story homes entire poorly constructed AC ducting with something far more appropriate for a 14 cent/kwh electrical service? its a fairly small single story cheaply built tract home built in the 70's , i think there are only 19 registers?
im mostly worried about what i should use to replace the main trunk line with and how to get it back into the attic, it looks like the existing one is just sheet metal? is that even possible? it seem like it would sweat badly..which is didn't appear to be doing. i cant actually get to it without hands and knees crawling and probably cutting some drywall. i understand that there is something called duct board that sounds like a suitable replacement, but can i work with it without specific tools? i have at a table saw and all the typical power tools, but nothing specific for sheet metal working.
anyway back to the original question. should i even bother trying? should i just fix what i can get to? if i can actually just blow out all the old duct work, is there anyway to do it in phases such that i can basically keep the ac functioning while i replace sections of the duct.
im going to buy the manual D and J books regardless so hopefully what ever i end up doing is done correctly.
thanks in advance for what ever advice you can give me.
edit: bad spelling, grammar etc.