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 Looking for competent HVAC contractor 
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Location: Pierce County
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I have a problem with the air conditioning at my house (Puyallup). The compressor cools the air but the system as a whole does not move the air into the upstairs vents. When the fan is running and you place your hand on the upstairs vents there is barely any noticeable draft coming out of the vent.

I currently have a three ton unit. I do not presently have a Manual J calc.

I understand that heat rises and that the upstairs will usually be warmer than the downstairs. However, the upstairs is not receiving any cooled air to mitigate the rising heat from downstairs or the thermal load shining on the house.

Two contractors now have said to simply shut the ground floor vents. Well yeah, that would divert air upstairs at the expense of the downstairs. One contractor admitted he has no way to evaluate the blower or the airflow. Why couldn’t he even look at the unit itself?

Are there any HVAC people here who can evaluate not only the compressor’s ability to cool, but the system’s ability to push that cooled air into both floors of the house?

Thanks.


Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:09 pm
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Location: Olympia, WA
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I assume you have a whole house fan or your return is in the upstairs hallway? If so, run the fan 24/7. It’ll pull the heavier cold air up.

Also. Closing a couple of the downstairs vents do help.


Thu Aug 18, 2022 4:51 pm
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assumption: there's plenty of airflow coming from the lower vents?

One item I ran into is I had a filter that was too 'powerful' and was slowing the airflow down too much. I reduced the filtration 'power' one notch and now my system works properly. The Google searching has informed me you can overfilter a system.

Also, does your thermostat allow you to set the fan to 'circulate' that runs the fan on randomly for about 33% of the time (may vary depending upon controller). That will also move the air about.

After replacing the filter I was able to close all my downstairs registers and not have the heat exchange freeze up. Now when the AC runs its not frozen downstairs. I'd see if you can do that during the summer. YMMV (your mileage may vary)


Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:06 pm
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Thanks to you both.

My return is in the upstairs, in the area next to the hallway where the rising heat naturally ends up.

I use the average Joe filters. Not the cheapest ones, but not the Noveske bling filters either.

Right now I have some of the downstairs vents closed, and as expected it helps divert some of the cooled air upstairs at the expense of the downstairs comfort.

Can blowers be upgraded without replacing the remainder of the system?


Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:01 pm
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do you mean the main blower or an augmented blower inside the ducting?

I actually added an inline duct fan to get air OUT of a room that didn't have any registers. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/VIVOSUN-Inline-B ... c5f3ad1001

If you have access to the duct work you could add something like that on the rooms that need more OOMF to get the air there. You could automate it where it only turns on or off at a specific temperature as well.


Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:35 pm
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