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Posted by Don Young on September 11, 2006, 11:23 pm
> All,
>
> Looking for advice on a home heating/cooling problem, here's the story:
>
> We have a two story house (2100 sq ft, almost equally distributed up and
> down) in central Texas (mild winters, somewhat hot summers). Lennox
> single 4 ton HVAC unit roughly 7 years old, single zone system. Summers
> aren't bad, although the upstairs rooms are a bit warmer than downstairs
> - nothing too unpleasant. Although two rooms (that face south and are
> over a two car garage) get pretty warm in the morning & afternoons.
> Winters on the other hand are completely different. The downstairs is
> consistently 10-15 degrees colder than upstairs. It's almost unusable
> on colder (30's) nights. We've tried small space heaters downstairs,
> but they really don't help much.
>
> We've talked with several people about options and here are the leading
> three:
>
> * replace single pane windows with dual pane
> * replace HVAC with a dual system, or more powerful (5 ton) with
> continuous fan
> * add damper system to current HVAC to create dual zone
> system
>
> The problem is all three solutions came from people who sell that
> particular product, and all claim the same thing "this should solve 90%
> of your problem". The first two are pretty expensive, so for that money
> I expect more than a 90% solution. Also, I don't expect sales reps to
> recommend a product they don't sell, so I'm not sure I'm get a straight
> answer.
>
> While money is a concern (I don't want to spend 50k to fix this) I am
> willing to spend a reasonable amount if it solves the problem (3-15k).
> We're going to stay in the house at least 10 years, but getting the
> system to pay for itself in energy gains is not the leading priority.
>
> We've looked at vinyl vs. Anderson Renewal windows and love the Anderson
> windows, but the price is pretty steep and the sales rep was a bit odd.
> Vinyl through Home Depot seems to have a great warranty (haven't read
> the fine print), but it's still vinyl windows and I haven't been
> convinced they're going to last - and it still just seems wrong to have
> vinyl windows to me. They looked great until we saw Anderson windows.
>
> A local company serviced our HVAC this year and when I asked the tech
> his advice, he seemed to think a damper system (~3k) would significantly
> help. We do have two returns (upstairs & downstairs), so adding a
> thermostat downstairs (the one we have now us currently upstairs) sounds
> good. He's the first person that's explained a damper system to me in a
> way that he sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
>
> So there you have it - I would really appreciate feedback from someone
> (homeowner) who's done this and what the results were, or hearing from a
> general contractor on recommendations.
>
> thanks,
> -andrew
>
> twostoryhvac at gmail dot com
A low cost experiment is to just run the circulating fan continiously. Be
careful about closing dampers or covering returns as you can wind up with
inadequate airflow thru the furnace and overheating. A good technician could
possibly improve the situation by re-balancing the airflow. Anything you can
do to reduce the downstairs heat loss would help some. The percentage of off
time for the furnace, if any, will give you some indication as to whether
the system has adequate capacity.
Don Young
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