airflow upstairs


  #1  
Old 10-31-05, 07:09 PM
kj425
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Question airflow upstairs

The upstairs in my house is a lot cooler than the basement and even when the heat is on it doesn't seem to really blow hot air from the vents.

Any ideas what i need to do... or who to call... and how much it would cost?

Thanks
 
  #2  
Old 11-01-05, 06:45 AM
E
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Are all the registers upstairs not working?
Are you able to see where the ducts start which lead to the upstairs?
Are the ducts metal or flex duct?
 
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Old 11-01-05, 08:56 AM
kj425
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clueless

I'm really not so handy and don't know the answer to that question or what to look for. I know heat is coming to the upstairs... and possibly moreso in the other rooms, but in the master bedroom i don't really feel any push of air from the vents. (the furnace is located in the basement of a 3 floor home).
thx
 
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Old 11-01-05, 04:35 PM
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Is your house very old? I have the same problem. My home is a century house and poor upstairs heating is a common problem. In my case, there are only two round vertical ducts that measure only 5" in diameter. There are several T-junctions with 4" and 5" ducts branching out to the 2nd floor rooms. The air flow in my office is particularly poor. When I opened the register I found that the duct feeding it was just the white plastic flex duct normally used for clothes dryer exhaust. There are also no cold air returns on the 2nd floor. Fixing any of this would involve cutting big holes in the floor, which I'm not yet ready to do. If we decide to stay long-term, I will. I will also look into running a cold air return down the outside of the house and enclosing it.
 
  #5  
Old 11-02-05, 07:18 AM
condor47
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I had the same problem. I found out the hard way that most of my supply duct work for the upstairs was NOT insullated. Also, the length of the duct runs also hurts.

I could have tried to increase the airflow upstairs. For a single room, I could have put in a duct booster, a fan that installed at the register but that would not have solved the problem for the whole upstairs, only one room. A zone controller may help too, so that the downstairs gets closed off automatically as necessary & the upstairs continues to get airflow.

I opted to put a whole new second system in the attic. Then I eliminated long duct runs and non-insulated duct work.
 
  #6  
Old 11-02-05, 09:36 AM
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Originally Posted by kj425
I'm really not so handy and don't know the answer to that question or what to look for. I know heat is coming to the upstairs... and possibly moreso in the other rooms, but in the master bedroom i don't really feel any push of air from the vents. (the furnace is located in the basement of a 3 floor home).
thx
Do you have dampers located near the furnace which enable you to adjust airflow to various parts of the house? If so, you should be able to see some type of handle sticking out on the side of the vent.

If you hold a tissue 2-3 feet above the vent does it flutter? If not, then there is insufficient flow.

Here is a link to a site which shows another test you can perform to see if you have proper airflow:

http://www.joneakes.com/cgi-bin/getd...ls.cgi?id=1337
 
 

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