[sirrus3610]

I purchased my house about 2 years ago and it has central AC/heat. Its two stories, with 4 bedrooms on the 2nd floor and all the furnace/blower located in the basement.

Long story short, I've come to learn that the previous owner of the house, when remodeling the first floor, conveniently removed certain walls that served as the ducts for my 2nd floor air returns. The air returns in 3 of the 4 bedrooms are not taking in any air at all. This would most likely explain (at least in part) the low pressure of the 2nd floor supply ducts and the major temperature differences between the 1st and 2nd floor.

Does anyone have any thoughts on options for a fix to this problem? 2 of the 3 return air ducts were rendered useless when a pass through was cut out in a kitchen wall. Anyway I can re-direct these returns around the pass through opening somehow?

There is an old masonry chimney running from the furnace room, up through the roof of my house. I believe this was part of an old boiler system and now only serves as the vent for the hot water heater. I'm sure I could use this as some type of "central" return, but not sure how hard it would be to re-route the hot water heater exhaust.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

 

[user_12345a]

You'll have to be very creative.

can use the joist space below the room - open up the ceiling, put wood blocking where the duct ends, use the ceiling space as the duct, build a bulkhead.

If the chimney is on the outside of the house, don't use it as a chase with no insulation.

General contractors sure do suck, and mess up hvac systems in many ways; they think it's like dealing with electrical or plumbing where u can just cap off/remove a plug or plumbing fixture and everything works fine.

The crap being pulled off is criminal - moral of the story is test the system before buying, switch it on and check airflow at every vent, return.

 

[supers05]

No, don't use the chimney. It's way more headache then it's worth.

Like user said, you'll have to find another path for the return air. A work around would be to install another somewhere more convenient upstairs. Wherever you have a wall on the first floor will work, if it's in the hallway of the second floor, it'll work half descently.

This isn't going to be easy, and will probably require some drywall patching and lots of patience.

Cheers!

 

[airtrackinc]

not recommended to route any hot flue exhausted thought cold chimney. You will have excessive condensation on the vent.

 

[supers05]

not recommended to route any hot flue exhausted thought cold chimney. You will have excessive condensation on the vent.

Not only is this an old thread, but you didn't even read the OP right.

Cheers!