HVAC Upgrades

A little over a week ago I posted a picture of some duct piping I creatively put together to attack a problem with hot air in the condo. That solution was obviously temporary – and given that I had today off from work and the weather was supposed to be mild (in the upper 60s), I took the opportunity to start putting the permanent solution in place. Up into the attic I went…

As you can see, it was pretty warm in the attic despite only being 67ish outside. The sun beating on the shingles for several hours this morning is the culprit.

I started with the vent into the A frame of the cathedral ceiling. Used a 14×6 opening for this one. I had to pull back a lot of insulation to get at the drywall.

This is a shot of the transition out of the wall cavity I’m using as a pipe. This is directly above the return air duct vent below the thermostat. You can see the top side of the can light in the hallway by my left foot. The transition piece is a 14 or 12 by 3.5 that’s made for this purpose. This was the hardest part of the whole day: I had to cut through 3 2x4s laid on top of each other to get into the cavity from the top… finally borrowing a reciprocating saw to make it easier.. otherwise I’d probably still be up there drilling holes. After about three hours, I’d gotten it trimmed and perfectly sized.

I used six inch piping throughout.. a y-pipe here allows me to put one vent in the A frame of the living room and another into the master bedroom (which gets really warm on summer afternoons as it’s on the west side of the condo).

I did quite a bit of eyeballing on this project… not typical for me but it worked out well. Here you can see the two pieces that will eventually connect.

By this point, I’m sweating like there is no tomorrow. It’s climbed to 70 outside and about 105 inside.. enough to max out the thermostat.

Here’s the cut and placement of the pipe for the master bedroom. Used a 12×6 here.

Here’s a shot from above the master bedroom showing the entire system. I had to break from the project to head to a 4th of July party so I left the duct taping and clamping for tomorrow. I also need to insulate the pipes to prevent the hot attic air from warming the air in the pipes on the way to the air handler.

After returning from the festivities earlier than expected, I finished the drywall and vent work on the visible side. Here is the A frame vent. Almost looks like it has always been there.

Here is the master bedroom vent. A little close to the door for my liking but there is a few inches of clearance between the edge of the vent and the wall. Both vents have levers for opening and closing so this should allow a lot of flexibility for efficient cooling.

Tomorrow I’ll finish up and in addition to a little work in the attic, I need to open up the bottom of the wall cavity and seal off the existing vent (below the thermostat) so that the suction is from the two new vents in the ceiling. After tomorrow, bring on the hot weather!