water in heat vents

donnaree

I live in a two story home and yesterday noticed gurgling noises coming from the heat vents on the lower floor. I removed the vent cover and found standing water. I have never come across this problem before and have no idea what to do. I am a single mom and no money to have a professional come to my home. Can someone please give me some ideas as to what to do?

beenthere

Is the lower floor slab, or is there a basement or crawlspace under it?

donnaree

slab...no basement or crawlspace

beenthere

When the in slab ducts take on water. Thats a sign, its time to abandon them. And run new ducts in ceiling.

donnaree

at this point, I just wet vac the water out of the vents until I can afford to run new vents?

COLDIRON

How's your water bills lately? I am sure you have water pipes under there. Hope one of them didn't spring a leak. Not trying to alarm you just inform.

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No Warranty Means- If it breaks in half you get to keep both halves.

jagans

Hi Donna, I think it may make sense to turn off the furnace at the breaker, then mix up some hot water and bleach in a bucket and pour it down into those ducts. Let it sit for a while then wet vac it out. Im thinking it would be a good idea to kill any mold you have growing down there. Once you have it dried out pretty good I would leave the blower running all the time on your furnace. Just turn the fan to on. You also want to clean out your condensate lines and trap if you have a high efficiency furnace. Maybe water is flowing out of the furnace because the trap is blocked with debris.

Go to your furnace and remove the lower and upper doors, they usually just lift up and out, and send us a picture of what you have.

How much water are we talking about?

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" A lot of men build things, and a lot of things fall down "

COLDIRON

I lived in a house many years ago that had that same setup as yours. 90% of the homes were converted to hot water baseboard or attic ductwork. they either collapsed or had water seepage.

__________________
No Warranty Means- If it breaks in half you get to keep both halves.

Fairview

I'm sorry you have such a serious problem but water in the ducts is a good example of poor construction practices. It's far less expensive for a builder to level a section of dirt and build a house than bring dirt in to raise the structure to the correct level for drainage so that's how it is done.

Then as time passes the surrounding area raises more in elevation because of lawns etc. and that in conjunction with the lovely flower beds next to the house a water trap is developed and now we know the rest of the story.

Abandoning the ducts at this point is probably a good plan but the drainage problem needs to be addressed also.

HVAC1000

This seems to be a common problem here with slab construction. Or at least the little of it you can find around

Sorry I know it's off topic but I like your Paul Harvey quote there. I remember riding around with my dad as a kid to service calls and listening to Paul on the radio. Even if my dad was in the middle of a furnace tune up he would excuse himself to the customer and we would go out to the van and listen. That or he would have me bring in the portable radio

jagans

"This is Paul Harvey............................................ ....Good Night!"

__________________
" A lot of men build things, and a lot of things fall down "

jagans

I thought ducks were supposed to be in water? Yeah, I know shut the h up. Too much coffee. Sorry Donna.

__________________
" A lot of men build things, and a lot of things fall down "