At Home In The Woods

[CurlyDave]

When I was at that stage of HVAC balancing, I bought 6 thermometers from a hardware store. If you go into a store with a large enough stock you can buy them all calibrated the same -- just pick ones out of the bin that all read the same temperature.

It can take quite a while to get this right, and in some instances there may be different damper settings for summer and winter.

 

[tommu56]

RadarTech,
The topic fits in nicely to where our project is. Our house now has between 2 and 3 degrees difference between one end of the house and the other. The people we've talked to won't really say how many degrees difference between the rooms is acceptable. We can tell just by walking in the rooms that the bedrooms are a little cooler than the kitchen, LV, and DR that are on the other end of the house.

After talking to a GC friend of my and two HVAC companies, I am learning that balancing the HVAC system in a house can be tricky and that 2 or 3 degrees temperature variance may not be that big of a deal. My GC friend said that to really do it right takes hours. The damper in one of the bedrooms is wide open so we can't increase flow to the bedrooms. The GC said we should be able to tweak our house ourselves by closing the dampers in the warm parts of the house ever so slightly, wait a few house, take temp measurements, tweak the dampers some more, take temp measurements, etc. until we get the temps just right. We might do that.

Obed

I actually wouldn't worry over 2-3 even 5 degrees because heat season now the whole balance thing will change with in ac season.
You need to look at over a whole year and hit a happy medium.

tom

 

[CurlyDave]

Obed:

The other thing to think about is that the HVAC contractor may file a lien on your house if he is not paid promptly, and that is his definition of promptly, not yours.

Depending on your state laws, you may need to strike preemptively by filing a complaint with the contractor's licensing board. Doing this early can head off a lot of trouble.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

zoning is best way to adjust.

Balancing and zoning are two different things. Zoning provides separate control over different areas. In my house the upstairs is on one zone, the downstairs another zone. Each has their own thermostat. Each zone still needs to be balanced.

Balancing is as obed described, where you adjust the air flow with a damper in the ductwork for each room. When you do a manual J, it gives you a cfm requirement for each room. Balancing makes sure you are getting the proper air volume to provide the correct and even temperature thru out the zone. Some people will use the diffuser to control the flow, but it is best to do it in the ductwork. Each residential room gets installed with the same size ductwork, but a small room doesn't need the full flow of one duct, so it gets reduced. Some rooms might have 3 ducts, so you adjust for the air flow that the manual j says it needs and try to balance the flow among the 3 for the room.

 

[firefighter9208]

Obed:

The other thing to think about is that the HVAC contractor may file a lien on your house if he is not paid promptly, and that is his definition of promptly, not yours.

Depending on your state laws, you may need to strike preemptively by filing a complaint with the contractor's licensing board. Doing this early can head off a lot of trouble.

I'm with CurlyDave on this one. A friend of mine ended up firing the GC on the house he was building. When subs stopped showing up he got to asking questions and they were not being paid, even though the GC was making draws from the construction loan (lock and key job). He fired the GC and took over construction himself.

When he got ready to close there were over $80,000 in liens agains his house. He could not get a clear title and close his permanent loan without paying off the liens. He took his life savings and paid them off. He then turned around and sued the GC. Guess what?? The GC promptly filed for bankruptcy.

My friend ended up paying for $80,000 of his construction twice. Once when the GC drew the money from the construction loan and again when he had to pay off the liens.

Chris

 

[PAGUY]

All this talk of temperature settings made me remember when I was working as a technician and the women in the teller area of the bank were constantly complaining that it was either too cold for some or too hot for others so to satisfy everyone I installed a wall thermosat in the teller area. It was a dummy but I told them they now had the power to control their environment. Never had a complaint again. They enjoyed themselves turning that Honeywell up and down and in the meantime the real thermostat had a locked cover that could not have the setting seen or tampered with - problem solved.

PAGUY

 

[dcyrilc]

All this talk of temperature settings made me remember when I was working as a technician and the women in the teller area of the bank were constantly complaining that it was either too cold for some or too hot for others so to satisfy everyone I installed a wall thermosat in the teller area. It was a dummy but I told them they now had the power to control their environment. Never had a complaint again. They enjoyed themselves turning that Honeywell up and down and in the meantime the real thermostat had a locked cover that could not have the setting seen or tampered with - problem solved.

PAGUY

:shocked: You lied!


:laughing::laughing:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

All this talk of temperature settings made me remember when I was working as a technician and the women in the teller area of the bank were constantly complaining that it was either too cold for some or too hot for others so to satisfy everyone I installed a wall thermosat in the teller area. It was a dummy but I told them they now had the power to control their environment. Never had a complaint again. They enjoyed themselves turning that Honeywell up and down and in the meantime the real thermostat had a locked cover that could not have the setting seen or tampered with - problem solved.

PAGUY

My workplace used to do that also. :laughing:

 

[simonds]

I like that PAGUY, That is so true
Clayton, General Contractor for 42 years

 

[MikeyB]

All this talk of temperature settings made me remember when I was working as a technician and the women in the teller area of the bank were constantly complaining that it was either too cold for some or too hot for others so to satisfy everyone I installed a wall thermosat in the teller area. It was a dummy but I told them they now had the power to control their environment. Never had a complaint again. They enjoyed themselves turning that Honeywell up and down and in the meantime the real thermostat had a locked cover that could not have the setting seen or tampered with - problem solved.

PAGUY

Funny, we have the same on some aircraft I fly. Some flight attendants are cold, other's hot. Some of the wide body airplanes have temp controls in the cabin. But maintenance decided they were too hard to maintain so they were deactivated. But, we neglected to tell the cabin crew. No more calls about the temp!

Mike