winter time-heating advice
 

it's winter time- if anyone has any problems with heating their homes or wants advice on any work they may be getting done- feel free to ask-will give my opinions and recommendations-fellow member and hvac co owner-phil:thumbsup:

Okay, I got one for ya. I have a 3400sf two story house with a basement and two heat pumps: one that covers the first floor and basement and another that covers the 2nd floor. The geniuses that installed the indoor part of the heat pump in the upstairs unit installed it in the attic all the way at the west end of the house over my kids' bedrooms. The master bedroom is all the way at the east end of the house. The MB is also over top of my garage and has a 2-foot deep tray ceiling which, combined with 9-foot ceilings, makes for an 11-foot ceiling. Said HVAC installers also only put two heat registers in the MB. All of that makes for a very cold MB in the winter time. If I crank up the heat to make it comfortable my kids rooms at the other end of the house get roasting hot. I've considered installing two additional heat registers in the MB, but the heat coming out of the existing two registers doesn't feel warm or like it has a strong flow, so I don't know if two more would do any good. I have a ceiling fan and have tried to use it to push what little heat might be rising up into the tray down to the floor but all I get is a cool breeze in the room. I don't know why they didn't install the unit centrally in the attic, but I'm wondering if it is possible to relocate it. Any suggestions?

What's the cfm and air temp coming out of the registers? The duct work should be corrected if your cfm is low but if you don't want to go through all of that then you could try a inline booster fan. The cheaper ones are just that, cheap so be careful and do some research on them. http://www.fantech.net/inline_duct.htm

Not trying to step on your toes openclass :thumbsup:

how close are you to odenton?have a sister that lives there- will be visiting soon,one- is the duct work used coming off the main truck lines? -round pipe or flexible duct?2-i bet they didn't size duct work for 900 fpm on the supply side-even if 1 room is farthest away from unit- if ductwork is SIZED CORRECTLY,and dampers are used at main lines at branch takeoffs- this won't be an issue-?how old is house-i just did custom 6000 sq ft house-i put upstairs unit in basement [easier to work on, change out later]now this customer has zero issues with heat or airflow, and i have 20' of supply and 20' of return ductwork going from furnace in basement to attic penetration-why?i sized correctly,how old is house?are walls insulated, until i look at it, could be myriad of problems,living room in the house i described is 20x20 with 17' cathedral ceiling with only 2 supplies-i have no issues with airflow there.is said contractor todd air or grove heating?booster fans will add air flow but they will cut the discharge temps down considerably-a bad on warm air from a heat pump system...phil

installing centrally is ideal, but like i said-if ductwork is sized correctly-there shouldn't be an aiflow issue in mb...wher is thermostat located?" off floor? and in regards to mb and kids br?in hallway?

I have a 2100sqft 2 story house, it currently only has central heat. I am looking at putting a central heat and air unit in. The windows are all energy efficient, and the walls are R-20 and the attic is R-48, any idea what size unit I should go with? Also what brands would you recommend and why?

will report back as soon as steeler game is over-phil

80,000 btu furnace, 3tons a/c , go with amana, trane or american standard,

booster fans are a waste of money, they retemper the air too much

Our hvac contractors(all 5 of them) do not recommend them but in some cases the fans do serve a purpose. Especially if the buyer wants a certain design built and it's not hvac friendly. See it all the time on the custom Lake Erie homes. Of course it's always after they have moved in and then start complaining when we knew it was going to be a problem :rolleyes:

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jdh-curious what your credentials are?unless you performed a manual j on his house- how did you come up with 8ok 3t?general rules of thumb?:eek:

Those numbers that he gave you are just an estimate, furnaces are very commonly sized to large for homes if you really want an accurate estimate you should have someone come to your home and run a blower door, and inspect the home and they will put all your information into a computer program, I use RemRate and we can input numbers to accurately size a furnace.

We do a MEC sheet on every home to size the furnace.

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i-myself am an american standard dealer-why?-after i put them in i have zero issues with them-the last thing i want to hear is my phone going off at 3 am with a furnace, boiler,etc problem.now you need to have a heat load/ heat loss load calculation- manual j done on your house-do not go with the old rule of thumb sizing.i personally do a load calc on every job i sell- what this does is-
1-save the customer money by spending less on a smaller unit that will get the job done.-both in the initial cost of the unit plus operating costs

now if a gas furnace is what you need, i recommend a 3 stage variable speed modulating furnace by a/s
it fires in the 2nd stage , and based on the thermostat-it reads in 1/100ths of degrees-it modulates the gas valve accordingly-remember you don't need the same amount of btus to heat a house on a 10 degrees day as a 40 degrees day, so why burn the gas?this will also provide a comfort level from on/off cycling.the variable speed will move the air over the evaporator slower wringing out even more moisture.also being dc driven, save on electric bill.too many contractors just put in the same size equipment as what was there.i look out for the customer.actually my company motto-is "your satisfaction...our goal"-i take that very seriously.also you can have the most efficient equioment out there, w/o fully insulated walls and insulated attic, your wasting money in heat loss and heat gain.few years ago i took out a 80k furnace and replaced it with a 40k unit in the house,customer was doubtfull,i told them if they were going to insulate as instructed this is all they need or job was on me -IN WRITING,guess what?that person is tickled to death with their gas bill and has sent me a load of work with referrals.i guess i take this seriously as i'm not a worker for a company, im the owner...phil:thumbsup:

I have a few questions below, I live in a 1250 SF Ranch type home built in 1997.

- What direction should I have my ceiling fans turn during the winter months (blowing air down, OR sucking it up)? I've heard this argued both ways... Having them turn so the heat blows down from the ceiling seems logical, but can cause a "breeze" that will make you feel colder (thus making you turn the heat up in the house, costing more in heating).) BUT if you have them pulling the air up that heat could be trapped at the ceiling, with the cold air at the floor.

- Should I leave the ceiling fans on ALL the time (24/7) in the winter, like will the cost saving on the Gas bill (for the furnace) over come the extra electricity spent running the fans all the time?

- I have a programmable thermostat, and keep the temp in the house at 69 while I'm there in the evenings, 64 while I sleep...how low is too low to set the daytime temp (while I'm not there). Currently I set it down to 62, and it takes it about an hour and a half to make it back up to my 69 set point for the evening.

BTW, great idea for a thread! I'm enjoying the questions and responses!