,which has a variable speed blower fan. I just had a York Olympian A/C unit (I know it's builder quality, but the price was right and it came with a 10-year parts AND labor warranty) installed, and it's working fine except the second floor is hotter than the first.
Because the furnace is in the basement and the air for the second floor has to travel all the way up to the attic and come down from the ceiling (it was how the duct work was done by the previous owners), the air force is much weaker than the first floor. None of this is a surprise.
What is a surprise is that even though I have a variable-speed fan in my furnace (which of course also drives the A/C), according to the installers, the fan will only kick in at a single speed.
This doesn't seem right to me. In my other house, the furnace fan ran at two speeds: low for heat and high for A/C. When I questioned them, they made it sound like the newer systems don't do this. Are they right? Any help would be much appreciated.
in a two story house the upper floor is always hotter than the fist floor... the reason: the attic is just above the second floor and the attic has a temp. of about 135-170 degrees in it.. then the heat infiltrates down through the ceiling of the second floor...thr first floor does not have this attic over it and has an airconditioned room over it... so its always gonna be cooler than the second floor........ yes, you have insulation, but you also have too much heat in the attic...
Whew...thats a good one, since it is neither builder quality, thats another line based upon the Olympian case, and they dont come with but a 90 day warranty for labor, unless you paid the extra $325 for the extended labor warranty.
10 year parts...again...its 5 parts, and 10 compressor....and big hint..you wont need the parts warranty....:) You didnt say what tonnage...but that would be interesting to know, along with a price....
And you EXPECT it to work?
Umm...bud..you do NOT have a VS motor...you have a multi-SPEED motor..meaning...its got two that is uses...lower for heating, and higher for cooling...thats the way that unit is...
Depends on how its wired, but you do NOT have a VARIABLE speed motor...you have a fixed tap for each speed...and normally, on those..no more than
3...one isnt used. An ICP rep can offer more, if he wants, but you dont have a furnace problem....you have an install issue, and no amount of monkeying with the fan speed will fix that.
That should read: In a home that the HVAC system was not designed correctly, the second floor will normally be warmer than the 1st floor due to the installers lack of intellegence when designing the system.
Wrong again.
First, lets look at basic, simple thermodynamics, before we get into the air flow issues.
Make it simple for you, hot air rises. Cooler air falls.
Now, thats a simple lesson.
Now, lets get into the reason hes got a warmer 2nd floor.
His system is designed wrong. A builder, or a homeower prior to him that had either no clue about what they were doing, or wanted to get out as cheap as possible thinking one unit would do the job, used that..one unit. The upper floor NEEDS a second unit, and any 1st year apprentice can tell you that. The reason is as stated in the basic thermodynamics course shown above. Air, is fluid. It also has a weight, and the duct has resistance. Improperly designed duct systems will create this issue he as, as I have seen many smaller homes with single systems and multiple returns, and while they work so so, a home with more than one floor, needs the additional help a 2nd system will give.
In a case like this, a single system might work, provided he has oversized returns to insure that the air from the 2nd floor will make it to the furnace in a manner that allows for a high volume of turnover on the 2nd floor...this will work fine in the summer...but what about the winter months? Again...a SECOND UNIT is needed.
Ten to one, hes got a serious case of stagnation, and no amount of monkeying with the existing unit will fix that.
Well you have a Air flow problem of not enough air is being sent to the second floor. So Call the installer and tellhim that the top floor is not cooling off like it is suppose to.
Second if you have a Veriable Speed furnace it will start at a high rate and then move down or up on the speed as the need occures.
If you truely have a Veriable Speed blower the blower will stay in high speed if the ductwork is too small for the system. If the ductwork is correct. It will move up and down in speed to meet the need of air flow as the amount of Cubic feet per minute needed.
The top floor should be the same temperature as the lower floor or you have a problem. Now when you have one thermostat on the bottom floor and on a not so hot day. You could have some warner temperatures on the second floor due to thermostat being satistied and the temperature of second floor not being read by the thermostat.
Lot of veriable here and you need the installer to address them.
I looked your furnace up on the website you give and it is not a veriable speed fan in the furnace. It is a multy speed fan blower but you can only use the one speed that you put it on. It will not very in anyway but just blow at one speed. A true veriable speed blower will or can go from high to low as the case may be needed. So You don't have a Veriable speed blower on your furnace.
fan in the furnace. It is a multy speed fan blower
but just blow at one speed. A true veriable speed
have a Veriable speed blower on your furnace.
Veriable Speed blowers is a DC motor which will be controlled by a cubic feet per minute control and will sence the speed of the air and speed up or slow down to keep the cubic feet per minute up to a set point.
Multi-speed blowers are 220 volts AC or 120 volts AC and comes in furnaces to be set at one speed that you set it at. The Multi-speed motor are only run at 1 set speed or R.P.M. and it will never change as the furnace runs.
The Multi-Speed AC Motors are about $100.00. The Veriable Speed Motors DC are about $600.00.
Definately a big difference.
The lady has stated she had a veriable speed blower motor on here furnace. She can not have a veriable speed blower fan on that model number. She has a set speed Multi-speed AC blower motor [ standard motor ] . If a HVAC contractor says you have a veriable speed blower on the furnance you add about $600.00+ to the job for just the Veriable speed Blower fan. I think she thinks she has a veriable speed motor to do here job. If you bid a Veriable speed motor on a job and then just put a standard motor on it. You can short change the Job by $600.00 atleast. This is what I'm getting at.
The people up North don't need Cooling very much and try to save some money by having one unit. Here in the South You will get baked by tring to have one unit. If you ever try it you better know what your doing or you can mess it up real fast for it is just too much to go wrong with two level cooling with one unit. I wouldn't try it in Az, Tex, or La. Here in the South if the Air Quiets the house goes to about 110ºF to 130ºF and even the refrigerators quiet working and you can imagine what it does to people when a refrigerator will not run because it is too hot. Here Air conditioning is life support and not a wanted item. It gets hard to breath above 120ºF and 100% RH. Most people with breathing problems keep a back up window unit on hand plugged in for use and just about everyone of them has my phone number for some reason or the other.
They do that in Vegas..We had a small 1200 sq foot house there we sold recently, and most of the homes around it were two story, and they all had one unit..Was very odd to me being as hot as it gets there...I don't know if they were zoned or not.... John
First of all -- thanks for all your input. Yeah, I know the system should have a 2nd unit on the 2nd floor. It'll be another $2500-$3000, which we just can't afford right now. So for the time being, we'll have to make do with a unit that can't work a 100%, so I'm just trying to do what I can to get as much out of this imperfect system.
2.5 tons, 14 SEER, 10-year parts, 10-year compressor, 10-year labor warranties. Didn't pay the extended labor warranty, but most likely, it was included in the price. After the rebates kick in ($200 from York, $500 from energy company), the total comes to $3300. I had estimates for a Carrier Puron unit for $5000 (3 tons, 13 SEER) and a Trane unit (2.5 tons, 13 SEER) for $4500. From all that I've read, Carrier and Trane seem to be the preferred choices, but the 10-year labor warranty seemed like a decent alternative (both Carrier and Trane carried 1 year labor warranties). And I've also read that installation matters more than the brand...
I didn't realize that my unit isn't VS but MS. But that's OK -- what the installers were telling me is that the unit is running at the same speed for both heating and AC. And that's what I have a problem with.
All I want is for the unit to run at 2 speeds, low for heat and high for AC. What do you mean by a "fixed tap for each speed" and "no more than 3"? Are you saying that there are 3 speeds on this unit and that one of the speeds is not used? And what is an "ICP rep"? Sorry for all these questions, but I'm a newbie when it comes to all this.
And as far as branch duct dampers are concerned, yes, I do have these in the basement. They look like semicircles and I can set them at 1,
3/4, 1/2, and 1/4. Right now, both of them are set at 1. Seems like HVAC fella ( snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net) thinks this is a possibility while CBHVAC ( snipped-for-privacy@carolinabreezeREMOVETHIS.com) thinks this is not a viable option. Can you guys elaborate?
Right now, I have half of the vents on the 1st floor closed off, and that's actually making the upstairs cooler. I know I'll never achieve the same temperature on both floors with my single AC unit, but if I can get that temp difference to something like 3-5 degrees, I'll be satisfied. Maybe what I should do is open up all those closed vents on the 1st floor and just use the dampers instead? Seems like that's a more efficient workaround.
As far as an attic fan is concerned, yes, I do have one of those -- it turns on automatically, depending on temperature. It's still hot as hell up there, though. It doesn't help that I have a black slate roof...
Your unit has several speeds which can be set maybe 2 maybe 4 my lennox has maybe 5 that can be picked from the tap on the furnace, tap meaning a plug in point.
ICP rep , a Carrier sales rep
You might be able to Zone the second floor
Do you have a 2nd fl return.
Are you sure your ducts are sealed and insulated as well as the attic.
Running an attic fan that is to large or with to small air intake venting will pull airconditioned air out of your house, A blowerdoor test will determine your houses air exchanges and weak points, the tech goes around with a smoke stick pinpointing arteas for yu to fix. Air infiltration, negative induced attic pressure, blower door tests are all something Daves Hack Heating never learned and could be giving you problems. If you cut off 1st floor registers you risk freezing your A coil ,
Means that the motor has different "taps" on the motor windings to give the user different speeds. (3 speeds have 3 taps, while 4 speeds have 4 taps)
Most motors are 3 speed. (one for heat, one for cool, one not used or used for constant fan)
ICP products come with 4 speed motors. (Hi, Med-hi, Med-lo, & Low)
he really has no clues as to how things work.
Yes, Steve unlike Davey "the moron", knows how a HVAC system is supposed to work.
And by closing off to many registers you could create another problem down the road. (this is like putting cardboard in front of your vehicles radiator)
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