Posted: 5/30/2015 10:32:53 AM EDT
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Anyone in the biz up near Somers? I have. 2600 colonial with baseboard heating two zones but single zone AC central air(unit is in attic) in the winter I control the heat from each floor but summer only upstairs thermostat controls the AC.
I cannot get even cooling! Right now 77 downstairs 68 upstairs and 73 outside! The house was built in 06. |
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You probably have 3 or 4 flexible ducts running down through your 2nd floor closets right?
Check your attic ductwork for dampers coming off of the trunk line on each of the branch ducts. Should be little handles sticking off of the collars coming off the trunk. Make sure they're all open ESPECIALLY for the downstairs branch lines. Some could have dampened them down, or completely closed them. Also check your registers downstairs. Sometimes they get closed and you forget. And just make sure your filter is clean. If you have a large central return, it should be in the grill on the 2nd floor. If you have branch returns(Id be willing to bet you don't) the filter is in the air handler in the attic. Those are the easy fixes. Now you also could be dealing with an undersized system, low freon/puron charge.....and what Ive been seeing a lot this year, damage to the condenser unit, and lineset outside from ice falling off of roofs. But the fact that your getting cooling on the second floor, leads me away from all of these problems, and even the filter being clogged. How old is the system? What temp do you have the T stat set to, that your getting those temps? |
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Toady,
A/C is much more sensitive to good air distribution. Where is the return? Are your registers in the ceiling or floor? I would start with replacing the filter. Not your problem but always good to have maximum flow. Get a good high Merv filter. You probably need to just balance the airflow. Most contractors don't do this because it takes time and a bit of trial and error. I rarely have seen a contactor properly calculate heat loss/gain. Most just use "rule of thumb". Same goes for sizing registers. Hopefully each branch has a damper installed. I would try forcing more air downstairs by closing the upstairs dampers to 75% closed. Then see how the temps go. You will have to play around a bit until you get the desired results. Flex duct is used because it is cheap and easy. I am guessing your system is made with flex duct. Flex duct has much higher static pressure than rigid metal duct work. Static pressure is the restriction to airflow. Because of the long runs from attic to 1st floor your upstair registers will get more air just by nature of the length of the run. So try the dampers. If you have none then you need to install some. You may find that because the air handler is in the attic and the system is not ducted properly no amount of effort will fix it. Usually in house of your size style there are 2 air handlers. One in the attic for the second floor and another is the cellar for the 1st floor. Or there are two duct to provide supply and return to the first floor. If you can't balance the system with dampers than you need a professional to take a look at the system. |
I just realized I made a mistake. Your house was built in '06
Your coming up on 10 years with your system. And the newer systems are really only lasting 10-15 years, based on their use. Toady, Im assuming you live in a development street, based on the age of the house? The downside to that when it comes to heating/cooling systems is that the cheapest bid got to do all the work in your neighborhood. USUALLY(not always though) the equipment is not as good, and the install is slapped together as quick as possible, so they could move on to the next house. Undersizing is usually a HUGE problem on these streets, and correct balancing is almost never achievable. Im sure your ducts are not going through the closets though. Your system was put in while the house was a skeleton Im sure. HOPE that you have dampers installed in your attic, and Edge is right, throttle the upstairs dampers down, and make sure the first floor dampers are open. |
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Depending on the tonnage of the ac, and the size of the ductwork, you need to add supply and return ducts downstairs through a common wall through a closet. Only enough cfm's for downstairs. If they sized your unit for the upstairs only, they sized your ducts accordingly as well. That being said, you might have to add a new condensing unit and an A coil for the larger btu unit. Along with that, you need the duct to be replaced with larger duct work to handle the cfm's. Typically 1ton (12000btu) requires 400ish cfm.
In your scenario with the air handler in the attic, it may be beneficial to put a new condensing unit outside and replace the A coil with one properly sized for your whole house, replace the ductwork so it can handle the proper cfm per tons, and add supply and return downstairs. Or the cheapest way out without doing any ductwork, buy a single zone mini split and put it downstairs in a good area that will cool the kitchen and living room, if it's an open floor plan, if not you might have to add another head in a different part of the down stairs to cool better. |
| You can also leave the fan running longer. Since my duct work is not ideal for A/C I let the fan run. My system has on central return downstairs. In A/C season I shut dampers to some of my downstairs supplies. This forces most cold air upstairs. It spills down the stairs. Doing this has closed the temp difference between floors. Last year when the system was first in and all dampers wide open the temp difference was 10 degrees and very noticeable. Then I closed the downstairs dampers and the temp difference is only a few degrees. I let the system fan run for an hour before bed and everything is even. |
| That might be the case. You need an hvac guy to properly size the downstairs and evaluate your equipment you have now installed to see if it can handle the downstairs. Because who knows what they did when they put the units in. If you have enough btu's for it all, and enough cfm for it, add 1 return, and a few supply's. Along with zone dampers and another tstat |
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That might be the case. You need an hvac guy to properly size the downstairs and evaluate your equipment you have now installed to see if it can handle the downstairs. Because who knows what they did when they put the units in. If you have enough btu's for it all, and enough cfm for it, add 1 return, and a few supply's. Along with zone dampers and another tstat What your describing green is not that simple. You can't just add a return or supplies because the equipment is sized properly for the ductwork thats there. You'll lose the static pressure in the ductwork and lose all of your air velocity. If the system is oversized(which Im betting its not) then you can kinda get away doing this. Also, adding a zone damper system is not even doable on a single zone duct system. You'd have to change the ductwork, so you'd have two main trunk lines. Branch ducts coming off of one trunk for the upstairs and branch ducts coming off the trunk for the downstairs. This way the t stat downstairs would control 1 trunk damper, and the t stat upstairs would control the other. This would all be pretty nuts for Toady, seeing as he's getting out of here in a year. Based on everything, he has two options......tear out the entire A/C system and start over(Im being very freaking sarcastic ) or throttle down the dampers to the upstairs registers. The first option could cost up to 10 grand for the size of your house......the second is free.
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What your describing green is not that simple. You can't just add a return or supplies because the equipment is sized properly for the ductwork thats there. You'll lose the static pressure in the ductwork and lose all of your air velocity. If the system is oversized(which Im betting its not) then you can kinda get away doing this. Also, adding a zone damper system is not even doable on a single zone duct system. You'd have to change the ductwork, so you'd have two main trunk lines. Branch ducts coming off of one trunk for the upstairs and branch ducts coming off the trunk for the downstairs. This way the t stat downstairs would control 1 trunk damper, and the t stat upstairs would control the other. This would all be pretty nuts for Toady, seeing as he's getting out of here in a year. Based on everything, he has two options......tear out the entire A/C system and start over(Im being very freaking sarcastic ) or throttle down the dampers to the upstairs registers. The first option could cost up to 10 grand for the size of your house......the second is free.Quoted:
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That might be the case. You need an hvac guy to properly size the downstairs and evaluate your equipment you have now installed to see if it can handle the downstairs. Because who knows what they did when they put the units in. If you have enough btu's for it all, and enough cfm for it, add 1 return, and a few supply's. Along with zone dampers and another tstat What your describing green is not that simple. You can't just add a return or supplies because the equipment is sized properly for the ductwork thats there. You'll lose the static pressure in the ductwork and lose all of your air velocity. If the system is oversized(which Im betting its not) then you can kinda get away doing this. Also, adding a zone damper system is not even doable on a single zone duct system. You'd have to change the ductwork, so you'd have two main trunk lines. Branch ducts coming off of one trunk for the upstairs and branch ducts coming off the trunk for the downstairs. This way the t stat downstairs would control 1 trunk damper, and the t stat upstairs would control the other. This would all be pretty nuts for Toady, seeing as he's getting out of here in a year. Based on everything, he has two options......tear out the entire A/C system and start over(Im being very freaking sarcastic ) or throttle down the dampers to the upstairs registers. The first option could cost up to 10 grand for the size of your house......the second is free.If the dampers don't help then the other option is to add a second air handler unit in the cellar for the first floor. Of course you will need a second evaporator and condensing unit. Not a low cost solution for sure. If it was me I would throttle the dampers as much as I can and leave the fan on for a couple hours after the thermostat is satisfied. I am assuming you have a boiler and hot water baseboard heat. If you have a furnace with hot air heat you could turn on that fan and move the air around. |
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If the dampers don't help then the other option is to add a second air handler unit in the cellar for the first floor. Of course you will need a second evaporator and condensing unit. Not a low cost solution for sure. If it was me I would throttle the dampers as much as I can and leave the fan on for a couple hours after the thermostat is satisfied. I am assuming you have a boiler and hot water baseboard heat. If you have a furnace with hot air heat you could turn on that fan and move the air around. Quoted:
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That might be the case. You need an hvac guy to properly size the downstairs and evaluate your equipment you have now installed to see if it can handle the downstairs. Because who knows what they did when they put the units in. If you have enough btu's for it all, and enough cfm for it, add 1 return, and a few supply's. Along with zone dampers and another tstat What your describing green is not that simple. You can't just add a return or supplies because the equipment is sized properly for the ductwork thats there. You'll lose the static pressure in the ductwork and lose all of your air velocity. If the system is oversized(which Im betting its not) then you can kinda get away doing this. Also, adding a zone damper system is not even doable on a single zone duct system. You'd have to change the ductwork, so you'd have two main trunk lines. Branch ducts coming off of one trunk for the upstairs and branch ducts coming off the trunk for the downstairs. This way the t stat downstairs would control 1 trunk damper, and the t stat upstairs would control the other. This would all be pretty nuts for Toady, seeing as he's getting out of here in a year. Based on everything, he has two options......tear out the entire A/C system and start over(Im being very freaking sarcastic ) or throttle down the dampers to the upstairs registers. The first option could cost up to 10 grand for the size of your house......the second is free.If the dampers don't help then the other option is to add a second air handler unit in the cellar for the first floor. Of course you will need a second evaporator and condensing unit. Not a low cost solution for sure. If it was me I would throttle the dampers as much as I can and leave the fan on for a couple hours after the thermostat is satisfied. I am assuming you have a boiler and hot water baseboard heat. If you have a furnace with hot air heat you could turn on that fan and move the air around. Yep he definitely has a boiler. If he had a warm air furnace he would have an evaporator coil sitting on the furnace, and a condenser outside connected to that, and no air handler in the attic... Actually, I think he says that in the first post if I remember correctly. What you COULD do in this case is add a hydro-air unit in the basement. Connects to your boiler and does warm air and cooling instead of using radiators/baseboard heat. But you also need to run ductwork in the basement for this route. Best bet Toady, ride it out for the year. Honestly, most people's A/C never runs as efficiently, and with correct airflow as they do on paper. Very difficult to get systems in the field to work perfectly. So many variables. |
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What your describing green is not that simple. You can't just add a return or supplies because the equipment is sized properly for the ductwork thats there. You'll lose the static pressure in the ductwork and lose all of your air velocity. If the system is oversized(which Im betting its not) then you can kinda get away doing this. Also, adding a zone damper system is not even doable on a single zone duct system. You'd have to change the ductwork, so you'd have two main trunk lines. Branch ducts coming off of one trunk for the upstairs and branch ducts coming off the trunk for the downstairs. This way the t stat downstairs would control 1 trunk damper, and the t stat upstairs would control the other. This would all be pretty nuts for Toady, seeing as he's getting out of here in a year. Based on everything, he has two options......tear out the entire A/C system and start over(Im being very freaking sarcastic ) or throttle down the dampers to the upstairs registers. The first option could cost up to 10 grand for the size of your house......the second is free.Quoted:
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That might be the case. You need an hvac guy to properly size the downstairs and evaluate your equipment you have now installed to see if it can handle the downstairs. Because who knows what they did when they put the units in. If you have enough btu's for it all, and enough cfm for it, add 1 return, and a few supply's. Along with zone dampers and another tstat What your describing green is not that simple. You can't just add a return or supplies because the equipment is sized properly for the ductwork thats there. You'll lose the static pressure in the ductwork and lose all of your air velocity. If the system is oversized(which Im betting its not) then you can kinda get away doing this. Also, adding a zone damper system is not even doable on a single zone duct system. You'd have to change the ductwork, so you'd have two main trunk lines. Branch ducts coming off of one trunk for the upstairs and branch ducts coming off the trunk for the downstairs. This way the t stat downstairs would control 1 trunk damper, and the t stat upstairs would control the other. This would all be pretty nuts for Toady, seeing as he's getting out of here in a year. Based on everything, he has two options......tear out the entire A/C system and start over(Im being very freaking sarcastic ) or throttle down the dampers to the upstairs registers. The first option could cost up to 10 grand for the size of your house......the second is free.i understand that. iam a licensed tech in 2 states.  that is why i suggested and mentioned in my posts to have a tech size up what he has now to see if it is capable. and if it wasnt, hed have to change it all over, as i mentioned in a previous post here. they might have sized it right but did a half assed job installing it hoping it would work properly. this is all guessing work that were doing here but yet were all giving logical answers. you need to either 1: call a tech and have him do heat losses, see how many CFM you need downstairs and look at your HVAC system to see if it can handle it the required load and if it cant handle the load you want it to, youd need to have new ductwork installed with condenser and air handler.
2: install a mini split ductless wall unit downstairs for a couple grand and not deal with any ductwork at all. 3: deal with it until you move. but then when you sell your home the buyers will bitch if they know anything or if the downstairs has a noticeable temp diff compared to the upstairs, youd be stuck fixing it or negotiating it some way or some how. |
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Shut the upstairs dampers, leave the fan on for an hour or two after the thermostat is satisfied and live with it. If you can reduce the 10 degree differential to 4 or 5 then good enough. If you are moving in a year don't waste money on new equipment. You will not get it back.
If you spend $5,000 on a "fix". You will not get a penny more for the house. Worst case is when you sell you have to give a bit back to cover the A/C problem. You are out the same money or less. if you are here for 5 or more years you may want to investigate some options. |
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I do care,but hoping it is something I can fix like a few options given. Replacing or adding a unit is not in the cards. I have buddy who is a tech but don't want to waste his time if it something I could do myself.! Thank you everyone! I just meant, that you don't want to deal with a big deal if your moving soon anyways. |
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Gotcha green! 
Im just a 1 stater  haha
I can't remember if we've talked about that before.... Do you work in the hartford area? Exactly, this is all just ideas/guesswork hoping to help a fellow member out. But I think Toady really doesn't care that much PM'd |
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PM'd Quoted:
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Gotcha green!
Im just a 1 stater haha
I can't remember if we've talked about that before.... Do you work in the hartford area? Exactly, this is all just ideas/guesswork hoping to help a fellow member out. But I think Toady really doesn't care that much PM'd I'm curious as well, I work with various contractors throughout Hartford county |
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Toady, the first pic shows the damper in the collars we use. Its controlled by the handle at the top. We bend them like this, so that when the flies duct is attached to this collar you can still use the handle for adjustments. You should have something very similar in your attic.
The Second pic shows them on the main trunk. We started this attic, central air install this morning. Luckily its cool out This is a "finished" attic in West Hartford, so its nice to walk around in, but it takes extra time to cut out the floor, and the ceilings are all plaster coated sheetrock. Very fun Each cut destroys sawzall blades.
ETA: This is a pretty small system which will only take care of the second floor at this house. The first floor will have a couple mini split ductless units. The customer didn't want to use up their closets with runs, and we couldn't have gotten enough runs downstairs to adequately cool this house's first floor anyways. Similar situation to yours. |
