Hello all,
I have a problem regarding my own home. First some background. I live on the Front Range of Colorado in Boulder. My home, like many here, is a split level ranch built in 1972 during a significant construction boom that took place at that time. These homes are of extremely poor quality. In 2006, when we moved in, the house had just been beautifully remodeled. The ugly split entry had been taken out and a spacious kitchen added to the back. New windows and reconfigured eaves made a significant difference in the architecture - the renovation was pretty thorough. Nearly a total gut job. We love it. However, it wasn't so thorough in the HVAC department.
The original portion of the house has the two steel duct trunks running down the middle, accompanied by a mystery section of a third duct which doesn't seem to be connected to anything. These oversize trunks were once connected to a huge atmospheric gas furnace, but that was replaced in 2002 with a Coleman hot air furnace. Next to this is an extremely low efficiency Rheem gas water heater.
Under the addition is a different story. A second Heil condensing furnace was added to heat said addition and resides in a pretty big six foot high "crawl" space. This unit works okay, but the ducts are uninsulated and very leaky.
The "old" furnace delivers horribly low CFM to the registers, many of which see no heat at all during the winter. The ducts in the original part of the house are also uninsulated and I assume are dumping heated air into the walls. What I would like to do is to zone the original ducts in two in order to more evenly deliver pressure to where it's needed, along with adding insulation. But since the ducts are buried in drywall I assume that that would cost an arm and a leg. I have also pondered installing a Lochinvar Knight boiler and running some zones to two air handlers which would be in place of the furnaces. However, all of this would be crazy expensive.
Any ideas on how we can make this work? We have had the ducts "scoped" and cleaned for dust and found no obstructions.
I have a problem regarding my own home. First some background. I live on the Front Range of Colorado in Boulder. My home, like many here, is a split level ranch built in 1972 during a significant construction boom that took place at that time. These homes are of extremely poor quality. In 2006, when we moved in, the house had just been beautifully remodeled. The ugly split entry had been taken out and a spacious kitchen added to the back. New windows and reconfigured eaves made a significant difference in the architecture - the renovation was pretty thorough. Nearly a total gut job. We love it. However, it wasn't so thorough in the HVAC department.
The original portion of the house has the two steel duct trunks running down the middle, accompanied by a mystery section of a third duct which doesn't seem to be connected to anything. These oversize trunks were once connected to a huge atmospheric gas furnace, but that was replaced in 2002 with a Coleman hot air furnace. Next to this is an extremely low efficiency Rheem gas water heater.
Under the addition is a different story. A second Heil condensing furnace was added to heat said addition and resides in a pretty big six foot high "crawl" space. This unit works okay, but the ducts are uninsulated and very leaky.
The "old" furnace delivers horribly low CFM to the registers, many of which see no heat at all during the winter. The ducts in the original part of the house are also uninsulated and I assume are dumping heated air into the walls. What I would like to do is to zone the original ducts in two in order to more evenly deliver pressure to where it's needed, along with adding insulation. But since the ducts are buried in drywall I assume that that would cost an arm and a leg. I have also pondered installing a Lochinvar Knight boiler and running some zones to two air handlers which would be in place of the furnaces. However, all of this would be crazy expensive.
Any ideas on how we can make this work? We have had the ducts "scoped" and cleaned for dust and found no obstructions.
