Regarding Attic to House Leaks....


  #1  
Old 08-18-06, 11:33 AM
G
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Regarding Attic to House Leaks....

This message is going to set a new standard in ignorance around here. But I assure you, I am not just doing it to be goofy, I am looking for your responses to tell me just HOW important this is.... and how much of a problem for the AC in this house it is.

If you need more info I can certainly provided it, but I think it wioll suffice to cut right to the chase.

There is, and has been for years, in my front room about a 2' x 3' hole in the ceiling. I had done a lousy repair on the hard duct years ago, it condensed and dripped seriously and I didn't know it. Finally that section of ceiling caved in. It was cleaned up and covered with plastic neatly and stapled around. Eventually we had a contractor come in and repplae the duct system with a good quality flex ducting. Things felt great back in early May when we had the job done..... but now, in the extreme heat that summer is bringing in Houston, in the afternoon, the west sun beats down on the side of the house with the room that has the hole in the ceiling. From about 1pm it gets hotter, and hotter, and hotter, until finally around 6pm or so, it is over 80 in some of the bedrooms, and the A/C is cranking full tilt, with no cutting off and has been for hours. It often takes until 12 midnight or 1am to get things back to normal. When we wake up, it is chilly again...and the A/C is cycling.

My question is.....how big of a problem is that hole in the ceiling? I know many readers' first word will be "Idiot!!!!!" and I can live with that. I know it is a problem, I just want to get a sense from your responses, how big of a problem IS it???

I appreciate any responses that I may get.

Bob
 
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Old 08-18-06, 01:18 PM
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Wink

If I have it right you have a hole there. So No insulation there in the attic over the hole at all. Big Big heat load. Fix the hole and get insulation up there.Nail drywall over it .Is the air filter clean ?????

ED
 
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Old 08-18-06, 01:50 PM
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Pretty much right......

Thats about right.

It is a hole in the ceiling...

a heavy duty piece of plastic stapled securely (although certainly NOT air-tight) to the drywall around the hole....

no insulation above it.......

I think that this will get fixed this weekend. I'm thinking of cleaning the opening up to the framing properly, putting up drywall, taping it up right, texture too.... then get bag or two of blown in and scatterit over the area well....
and,

yes, we do keep the filters changed out. Since this is an old house that originally had heat only....the bigger filtered returns were added later..... a 20x25 in the entry hallway and a 12 x 24 in the hallway to th ebedrooms. the original return air for the original furnace is just a little bitty thing about the size of a vent register close to the floor in the wall of the HOT room with the hole in the ceiling.
 
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Old 08-18-06, 08:38 PM
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Hey guitar,

I feel for you. I actually have a 7x10 and a 10x12 hole in my ceiling covered with plastic sheeting, no insulation and no roof ventilation at all due to last year's hurricane. We have been doing the repairs along with major remodel and it hasn't been going fast with my workload.

A/C ran for a couple months 24-7 and the bills liked to kill me. Finally got some insulation and sheetrock up in half of the house last week and it feels so much better But tomorrow we are going to be ripping out a 24x14 ceiling and it will be down for about a week so its back to being a little warm again I'm sure. Helps that I had a couple window units to help bail the central out.

Fix your hole it will definitely help but don't be totally shocked if you still have problems. It would depend on where the hole is, how the unit was sized, and whether the unit is running properly.
 
 

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