Home Improvement Thread

[mac5155]

They do have room sensors, yes. But to do zoned cooling/heating, like you said, you need a system that can actually do it.

[NTP66]

we have some odd zoning issues related to HVAC. two of our rooms getting very warm in the summer and very cool in the winter when the rest of the house does maintain appropriate temperature. does nest/ecobee have individual room sensors? i assume this would require some sort of damper integration for individual room control but looking for some solutions

If you have multiple zones (multiple units; not a single unit that has dampers), you will need one thermostat for each unit. Speaking only for ecobee, it does have the ability to control dampers from what I’ve read. I have no real world experience with it, though. And yes, they have remote sensors that you can place everywhere. Depending on which sensors are enabled in the particular “Comfort Zone” in ecobee, it will average the temp between the sensors to determine how much to cool/heat.

[NTP66]

I may have mentioned this a while back, but I finally got around to replacing one of the 60w bulbs in my garage with a 6000 lumen LED garage light (they look like mini ceiling fans). Man, what a difference.

Ignore the mess in the photo, and know that it doesn’t do the light justice:



Bought 9 more of them to replace all of the bulbs in my garage and basement. The blades can fold up to direct the light rather than shining straight down, which comes in handy for open areas.

[LITT]

we have some odd zoning issues related to HVAC. two of our rooms getting very warm in the summer and very cool in the winter when the rest of the house does maintain appropriate temperature. does nest/ecobee have individual room sensors? i assume this would require some sort of damper integration for individual room control but looking for some solutions

If you have multiple zones (multiple units; not a single unit that has dampers), you will need one thermostat for each unit. Speaking only for ecobee, it does have the ability to control dampers from what I’ve read. I have no real world experience with it, though. And yes, they have remote sensors that you can place everywhere. Depending on which sensors are enabled in the particular “Comfort Zone” in ecobee, it will average the temp between the sensors to determine how much to cool/heat.

we have 2 heaters and 2 AC units. 1 thermostat zone on the first floor and 2 themostat zones on the second floor

[NTP66]

Since you mentioned them, do you have active dampers, where the units are opening and closing dampers as part of your heating/cooling schedule? I’m curious to know how that works with a system like ecobee. For passive dampers, I don’t think that matters at all. If you don’t have a humidifier/dehumidifier, you don’t need a higher end ecobee. The 3 Lite is sufficient. I have a 4 and love most of it (hate eco+ and will never use it).

[mac5155]

I may have mentioned this a while back, but I finally got around to replacing one of the 60w bulbs in my garage with a 6000 lumen LED garage light (they look like mini ceiling fans). Man, what a difference.

Ignore the mess in the photo, and know that it doesn’t do the light justice:



Bought 9 more of them to replace all of the bulbs in my garage and basement. The blades can fold up to direct the light rather than shining straight down, which comes in handy for open areas.

What do them there things cost?

[NTP66]

$50 for a 4 pack, $30 for a 2 pack:

[mac5155]

muchas gracias. I may pick a few up for the basement. i have linkable LEDs in the garage.

[Trip McNeely]

Nice. Gonna get one for my shed

[King Colby]

I think i need that.

[King Colby]

Aaaaaand done. 2 for the geerage, 2 for the shed.

[mac5155]

How thick of EPS/XPS insulation board would you suggest on a basement foundation that has 2 inch on the exterior?

[NTP66]

Can you close a vent or two on the first floor?

I did close a few, but you want to be cautious with doing that. It strains the system more than you'd think. My BIL is an HVAC guy and is going to come over at some point and take some readings everywhere to see what's really going on.

I've heard from an HVAC friend that closing vents to circulate more to other rooms is not a solution.

Do you have an open ceiling plan in the master bedroom? Ours is open with no attic above us. I think that's the reason the room is always cooler in the winter and hotter in the summer than all other rooms in the house. Even if they put insulation between the supports on the trusses, you don't have that extra space of air acting as another thermal barrier.

No open ceiling - fully insulated (above code) attic that spans the entire second floor, too. I don't think air leakage can account for this degree of difference, so it could be something like an undersized unit. I should know more later this week.

Undersized unit would only make sense if all the other rooms were struggling.

Obviously hot air will rise so the upper floors will be warmer than the lower floors. I'm not an HVAC expert, but you would think more returns would be needed upstairs to remove the extra heat that is coming from the lower floors. Our house only has two returns that I could think of - one upstairs and one downstairs.

Let me know what your BIL says. Could be something useful for my situation as well.

My BIL stopped by earlier today to look at everything. First thing he noticed was that my supply trunk was undersized thanks to the use of flex board paneling instead of traditional steel ducting. He confirmed that all of the runs have manual dampers in them, which works in my favor. However, the dolt who installed it had the master bedroom mostly closed. We ended up adjusting the dampers on basically every vent in the house. I don’t have a flow meter or anything, so we were guesstimating everything based on how the air felt coming out if the vent. I was actually using a sheet of paper to see how high it would blow it. Very scientific, but it was easily reproducible. The airflow from the two registers in our master are now easily 50% higher, if not more. I may see if I can find a company who balances system, and possibly have them come out and truly balance the system to maximize efficiency in the areas that I care about the most.

The second issue he saw was that there were too many runs coming straight off the trunk where the unit is, so those registers had crazy highly volume.

The last issue he saw was that the wiring for the fan for the AC was wrong. York wired it for medium high fan speed in cool mode, but it should have been on high.

After balancing the dampers and changing the fan setting, I believe it’s helping. Instead of the 7-12 degree difference between upstairs and downstairs, it’s currently at around 3-4 degrees. Gonna give this a few days to see how it compares to last week to truly confirm it, though.

He’s pricing out a small 1.5 ton unit for my attic, using a high velocity system. If it’s reasonable enough, I may add one for the upstairs only, and use it to keep that level more comfortable. He’s refusing to let me pay him if I go that route, and I’d be getting the unit for what he pays.

[robbiestoupe]

I did close a few, but you want to be cautious with doing that. It strains the system more than you'd think. My BIL is an HVAC guy and is going to come over at some point and take some readings everywhere to see what's really going on.

I've heard from an HVAC friend that closing vents to circulate more to other rooms is not a solution.

Do you have an open ceiling plan in the master bedroom? Ours is open with no attic above us. I think that's the reason the room is always cooler in the winter and hotter in the summer than all other rooms in the house. Even if they put insulation between the supports on the trusses, you don't have that extra space of air acting as another thermal barrier.

No open ceiling - fully insulated (above code) attic that spans the entire second floor, too. I don't think air leakage can account for this degree of difference, so it could be something like an undersized unit. I should know more later this week.

Undersized unit would only make sense if all the other rooms were struggling.

Obviously hot air will rise so the upper floors will be warmer than the lower floors. I'm not an HVAC expert, but you would think more returns would be needed upstairs to remove the extra heat that is coming from the lower floors. Our house only has two returns that I could think of - one upstairs and one downstairs.

Let me know what your BIL says. Could be something useful for my situation as well.

My BIL stopped by earlier today to look at everything. First thing he noticed was that my supply trunk was undersized thanks to the use of flex board paneling instead of traditional steel ducting. He confirmed that all of the runs have manual dampers in them, which works in my favor. However, the dolt who installed it had the master bedroom mostly closed. We ended up adjusting the dampers on basically every vent in the house. I don’t have a flow meter or anything, so we were guesstimating everything based on how the air felt coming out if the vent. I was actually using a sheet of paper to see how high it would blow it. Very scientific, but it was easily reproducible. The airflow from the two registers in our master are now easily 50% higher, if not more. I may see if I can find a company who balances system, and possibly have them come out and truly balance the system to maximize efficiency in the areas that I care about the most.

The second issue he saw was that there were too many runs coming straight off the trunk where the unit is, so those registers had crazy highly volume.

The last issue he saw was that the wiring for the fan for the AC was wrong. York wired it for medium high fan speed in cool mode, but it should have been on high.

After balancing the dampers and changing the fan setting, I believe it’s helping. Instead of the 7-12 degree difference between upstairs and downstairs, it’s currently at around 3-4 degrees. Gonna give this a few days to see how it compares to last week to truly confirm it, though.

He’s pricing out a small 1.5 ton unit for my attic, using a high velocity system. If it’s reasonable enough, I may add one for the upstairs only, and use it to keep that level more comfortable. He’s refusing to let me pay him if I go that route, and I’d be getting the unit for what he pays.

Good info. Where exactly were your dampers? I haven't seen any in my ducting, but maybe they are well hidden

[NTP66]

Good info. Where exactly were your dampers? I haven't seen any in my ducting, but maybe they are well hidden

Mine were located on the runs directly after leaving the main supply trunk in the basement. From the outside, it’s basically just a wing but that’s you adjust. I was told that not everyone installs ductwork that has dampers, and really, if the system was sized and designed correctly, you shouldn’t need them.

You’d look for something like this:

[DigitalGypsy66]

Our original HVAC system was a mess, and well documented here and at LGP. They used flex ducts for the trunks AND the runs, which lowers the velocity of air able to pass through the ducts and runs (the ridges in the ducts slow the airflow down). My favorite is that the guy was looping the ducts up from the trunk line over one of the roof crossbeams, then back down to the returns/vents. Air doesn't flow in two directions, obviously.

We moved into this house almost 13 years ago, and that first week it was SO hot here. We hadn't bought blinds or had curtains up, and the house is in the middle of a field with no shade. We set it for 75F and it never dropped below 82F. The builder blamed the movers for leaving doors open, but after 3-4 days, it still hadn't cooled down. It would be 18 months of back and forth, threatened lawsuits/contractor's license pulled before the duct work was fixed enough for us to be remotely comfortable. And it wasn't until 2018 when we pulled the contractor grade HVAC unit out that we really are comfortable year round (it never heated very well).

[robbiestoupe]

Pretty sure I don't have any dampers. There's a humidifier that you can adjust but that's about it

[NTP66]

I’ve got 6” rigid tubing throughout, so at least they did that right. If you don’t have dampers, they’re like $20 a pop or so, it’d be a bit of work to install them, though. Cheaper than redoing all of the ductwork, though.

[mac5155]

Source of the post the house is in the middle of a field with no shade.

This is my house too

I've been setting my AC to 68 at night. It usually means that the unit will not kick on until about noon-time (my normal temp is 73). I figure better to cool it way down when it's 70 outside than 90.

[NTP66]

Source of the post the house is in the middle of a field with no shade.

This is my house too

I've been setting my AC to 68 at night. It usually means that the unit will not kick on until about noon-time (my normal temp is 73). I figure better to cool it way down when it's 70 outside than 90.

Do you have your ecobee set to run the fan continuously even when the condenser's off? That seemed to help my situation, even before the damper adjustments. If you have a newer AC system, I also assume that you have a variable speed fan in it?

[mac5155]

Source of the post the house is in the middle of a field with no shade.

This is my house too

I've been setting my AC to 68 at night. It usually means that the unit will not kick on until about noon-time (my normal temp is 73). I figure better to cool it way down when it's 70 outside than 90.

Do you have your ecobee set to run the fan continuously even when the condenser's off? That seemed to help my situation, even before the damper adjustments. If you have a newer AC system, I also assume that you have a variable speed fan in it?

Yep. I think I have it at 15 min / hr. I am not sure if it's variable speed or not.

[NTP66]

Source of the post the house is in the middle of a field with no shade.

This is my house too

I've been setting my AC to 68 at night. It usually means that the unit will not kick on until about noon-time (my normal temp is 73). I figure better to cool it way down when it's 70 outside than 90.

Do you have your ecobee set to run the fan continuously even when the condenser's off? That seemed to help my situation, even before the damper adjustments. If you have a newer AC system, I also assume that you have a variable speed fan in it?

Yep. I think I have it at 15 min / hr. I am not sure if it's variable speed or not.

I stopped using that particular setting (had it at 15m/h, too). Instead, in my Comfort Setting, I changed the fan to On. This is done in the zone that runs during the hottest part of the day.

[mac5155]

So your fan just continuously runs then?

[mac5155]

I have a single story ranch with a wide open great room in the middle of the house, so I don't really have any cooling problems per se, just trying to make it run most efficiently.

[shafnutz05]

While we are talking HVAC...as I was walking through the neighborhood, I noticed some fairly large central air units next to some of the houses. Assuming nothing is wrong with my duct work, etc., would just buying a larger central air unit help push more of the cool air upstairs? I'm afraid it would just cool the downstairs even faster and the upstairs would still be hot as balls.