Currently my HVAC is located in the crawlspace of my house. The house is only about 1350 square feet and is a ranch with attached garage. For a period of time we had some moisture problems in the crawl that you can tell by looking at the unit has caused corrosion and today when I replaced the filter I noticed some mold on the outside of the evaporator. The moisture problems have been corrected, but I don't like the idea of mold being around the a/c.
I really want to replace the unit and get it out of the crawlspace so we can have better indoor air quality and so it is not so much of a pain to change the filter.
If you are replacing a filter on the unit, it must be the air handler, and so connected to duct work. If it is part of a split system, the relocated AHU (air handling unit) will have to connect to both. The duct work will be difficult to relocate, so look at the location where it enters the building envelope to see if there is room for the AHU. TB
Agreed, crawl-mounted HVAC units are a sick joke by the builder on the poor SOB who has to maintain the thing. Unless your yard, house design, and budget can stand a lean-to addition on the back for a mechanical room, only other choices are the attic, or give up a closet in the existing house. Hard and expensive part will be figuring out how and where to re-route all the ductwork, since those are probably also in the crawl.
Simplest solution, if you truly have fixed the moisture problem, and if local groundwater and soil conditions allow, is a 'mini basement' with an outside door tall enough to almost walk through. IOW, at least 54" tall. Not difficult to engineer, basically dig an oversize window well with steps where current scuttle hole is, add a lintel if you want to go wider than the existing scuttle hole, and cut and install a door. Once that is done, start hand-digging a bucket at a time, pour a half-ass slab in the bottom, and lay up some retaining walls strong enough to keep the dirt back. Maybe a sump pit and a pump in the corner just in case water comes back. Around here, they were quite common on retrofitted houses 50 years ago. Once all this is in place, you can put a normal furnace down there when this one goes belly-up.
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