Possible A/C Duct Leak between floors of 2 story home

[Jeffrey S]

We recently had a new central A/C system installed, but this problem was ha ppening BEFORE the new installation. After hurricane Andrew, our home's upstairs (CBS downstairs/wood frame upst airs) twisted 4". The entire upstairs had to be gutted and new drywall, in sulation, roof, etc had to be replaced.

Since then, our house has been shaken by Rita, Katrina, and others. We hav e now noticed that the upstairs is up to 5 degrees higher. The new system is super efficient and the humidity downstairs is 40%. Upstairs, the humid ity is 60%+. In addition, we have noticed that the two adjoining bathrooms upstairs which also share the same wall with the kitchen downstairs have b een having problems.

The wall in the Master Bathroom is starting to warp, and the laminate backs plash has bowed about 2". The wall has bowed to the point that the mirror (glued to the wall) is starting to pull away.

The Kitchen wall is also having problems with bowing. Plus, when you turn on the hot water taps in either bathroom or kitchen, the water comes out IC E COLD for about 1-2 minutes and then turns hot.

I'm afraid that the ducting between the floors (not replaced after Andrew) has a major leak. There are other symptoms:

• on a windy day, if I stand on the front porch which is covered and with c eiling vents, I can actually feel air-conditioned air pouring out of the ve nts

• I recently slipped in the Master Bath shower stall and my foot broke a ce ramic tile and the drywall behind it. I removed the tile and felt inside t he cavity and the air was cold.

I'm having a home inspector come and look at all of the problems because th ese are covered by our homeowner's insurance. Can a hole or break in the d ucting between floors be found without tearing out the ceiling downstairs o r the flooring upstairs? I hope so, because this would mean a lot of furni ture moved to storage and a total uprooting of our lives.

If anyone has had a similar problem, please share with me the solution that you had. OR, if someone is a general contractor or HVAC contractor, I wou ld greatly appreciate your input.

Thanks in advance, Jeffrey S.

PS. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

[makolber]

Seems like an in duct camera inspection would help id the problem.

Mark

[hrhofmann]

Don't apologize for a llong description, too many folks don't give enuf info to respond thoughtfully.

Sounds like you live on the NJ shore.

The in-duct camera seems like a good idea. Also, maybe some sort of smoke bomb inserted into the system to see if it comes out anywhere it shouldn't be coming out.

[trader_4]

Andrew, Rita, Katrina? Jersey shore?

+1

A camera should be able to easily scope this out. From the description, I agree the logical conclusion is that the duct has disconnected. Also interesting is that cold air is making it all the way outside to the porch. That seems very wrong too, because even absent the HVAC issue, cold air from the porch should not have an easy direct path inside to interior wall cavities. It's going to result in energy losses.

Aside from the disconnected duct, another big issue with upstairs spaces is that they frequently don't have adequate return ducting. That is something worth looking into, as it may be possible to add, if needed. It all depends on if you can get a clear vertical path through some walls.

Regarding fixing it, hopefully the disconnect point will be accessible without tearing a lot apart, but I guess if walls are warped already, maybe it doesn't matter.... I'm wondering how homeowner's is going to pay for this? I guess because the original damage was from a storm and it wasn't fixed right. Hope you can easily prevail on that.