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re: Ways to keep house cool while waiting to repair AC situation.

Posted on 6/19/23 at 2:29 pm to
Posted by baldona
Florida
Member since Feb 2016
20648 posts
Posted on 6/19/23 at 2:29 pm to
quote:

Tech came out one morning and said everything looked fine. Came out again and said maybe it just needs a cleaning and they did that. Then the next time it wasn't hot enough that day. Then fall came. No issues until this week.


Respectfully OP, this isn’t an acceptable answer. You gotta have an air leak or some other major issue. You should be able to get about a 15-20 degree temp drop, if your upstairs is getting 80 that means it’s 95 degrees? This just doesn’t make sense.

I’m not saying your attic heat isn’t an issue, it probably is part of it.

But I would either have an hvac company bring an infrared camera over or rent, buy, or borrow one yourself. Walk around your upstairs and look for an air leak from your attic into your home. Walk around looking for hot air. Or you could get a thermometer and shoot temps around, to look for it but that would be a pain and a lot harder.

If you had just minimal insulation in your attic between the roof and your upstairs, with a properly working 3 ton unit and 1100 sq ft you should have no issues staying at a proper temp upstairs.

ETA: if I had a space that was hot and an hvac temp left saying ‘sorry I can’t help you’, I’d be pissed. They don’t just work on the units, a good tech will help you find things like air leaks, poor venting, etc.

It may even be you have a broken vent that’s shooting cold air into your attic so you are getting poor flow into your home. Idk
This post was edited on 6/19/23 at 2:32 pm
Posted by Jon A thon
Member since May 2019
1712 posts
Posted on 6/20/23 at 8:04 am to
quote:

if I had a space that was hot and an hvac temp left saying ‘sorry I can’t help you’, I’d be pissed.


I was. Trust me. I called them back out and it was overcast and the whole house was cool. They poked around and said I'd have to call them back out when it was hot to determine what the issue was.

I can't recall why, but it took until early September last year to notice how bad the issue was (remember roof was changed in May). It was uncomfortable during the afternoon, but cooled back down in the evening when home. I guess the problem has worsened since last summer. This past week it hasn't even cooled enough by bedtime to miss it. So, when we started troubleshooting, it was September, and they felt it was just that I needed a cleaning. Gave that a day and realized it didn't work. Scheduled another appointment and we had a cool front. Third one I just canceled since it wasn't acting up and knew I'd get the same response. From then to now, never had a single issue keeping cool. Didn't even notice higher power bills. Admittedly, out of sight out of mind and I didn't follow up. They are coming out today again though.

When it acted up again this past week, I went in the attic to look at the ventilation. I knew they went from 2 hardwired power fans to 1 solar and added ridge vents. When I saw how close the new fan was to a ridge vent, I questioned it and called the roofers to come check. They agreed. It's a hip roof and that particular ridge is only like 6' long, so it's not really doing anything and didn't exist before the new roof. I asked them to also recalculate if the single fan is enough (it is a larger volume fan). They showed me the calcs and I agree they took a very conservative approach and all seems in line. They did notice they covered the old fans, but left the motor and fan in the rafter and forgot to disconnect them, so I had fans just blowing at OSB. They've fixed that, but it doesn't seem to have been the issue.

By the end of the week, I'm hoping to just fix every possible issue. New insulation, cover ridge vent and possibly add another fan, full overview of the AC etc..


quote:

ou should be able to get about a 15-20 degree temp drop, if your upstairs is getting 80 that means it’s 95 degrees? This just doesn’t make sense.


What do you mean by this? A 15-20 degree drop from return to air vents? I understand that, but I don't have a thermometer to reliably measure that right now. But the reality is the thermostat reads 80-82 at hottest parts of the day.
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