HVAC Air Intake leaks in winter from snow drifts

1672 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by biggles, Jun 16, 2011

josefis1

Discussion Starter · #1 · Jun 16, 2011

Hello all. Thanks in advance for reading my post. First time for me. I have an issue. A friend has a house that was remodeled 5 years ago. The HVAC contractor said they needed to add an additional air intake to help balance out air intake to the furnace. As they added a high powered kitchen exhaust system.

The problem is that they placed the new intake very low to the ground. Roughly 8" from the ground. During the snowy winter months snow drifts get in and the ducting leaks a bit which stains the basement ceiling tiles.

My thought is to put an additional hood over the existing hood to create further protection that would stop drifts from getting in. My concern is impacting the amount of airflow intake. I can't see a reason why that is but since I'm not an HVAC contractor I thought I'd check with some people in the "know".

Any thoughts?

Here's a picture of the existing hood and a sketch of what I was thinking of having fabricated.

I contacted local HVAC contractors and haven't received much advice. Most said you need to move the line higher but that really isn't an option they're considering at this point. The problem isn't that bad that warrants that type of investment.

Any thoughts and feedback are greatly appreciated.

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biggles

· Registered

Joined Jan 1, 2008

3,630 Posts

#2 · Jun 16, 2011

ever consider a 5" diameter piece of PVC piping elbow it up and down as an inverted U so it points down keeping it high for those drifts with a drain cap on it to keep the birds out of it.check the seal against that bricking sounds bogus should leak with snow melt running down the brick but you need to raise the intake doesnt have to be sheet metal square box rising up ... then U 'd downward