Real World Event Discussions
In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 107 of 1154
Monday, December 10, 2018 8:28 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:So all of your heat supply outlet vents are in the ceiling of your 1st & 2nd floors? And your furnace is above the ceiling of the 2nd floor?
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:\
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Do you have a programmable thermostat? That saved me a bunch.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Sorry to hear that Brenda. :(
Usually I'd be right with you there in solidarity, but I decided this year not to live in extreme cold inside the house because all I do is veg out under the covers playing games or watching youtube when I'm not at work. I refuse to let myself fall back into bad habits because it's cold outside, although I fear my heat bill is going to be a majority of what my take home pay is the next few months because of it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I don't.
I'm not going to say that it wouldn't help, because it probably would, but my furnace is from the early 60's and is still chugging along. It's in the attic, it's an upflow furnace, it puts the hot air along half of my roof before going down, and only heats from the ceilings in the 1st and 2nd floors, putting no hot air to the basement. There aren't enough returns, so the flow is very poor. You actually have to get up on a chair and feel about a foot 1/2 under the ducts to even feel the hot air coming out.
There is a slab and pipes for a basement furnace in the crawlspace, but until I'm sure I won't be having any flooding issues I'm not going to invest any money into that.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Where are your returns? In the floors, at the bottom of the walls, also in the ceiling? One in each room, one on each floor?
Do you have flow dampers in your ducts? Probably near your furnace, in the attic, but maybe elsewhere. Looks like an "L" lever in the side of the duct, or sometimes a "T"?
Is the ductwork in your attic bare metal, or wrapped in insulation, like a silver solar wrapping?
Have you used a thermometer to measure the temp at your heat vents, so you know what the temp is at each vent?
Do you have an air filter on the intake of the furnace, like before the air return goes into the furnace? Have you replaced it or cleaned/blown it out?
I'd bet your heat issue can be resolved for cheap, you just need to let it work. And I'm including your basement.
After you answer, I'll tell you what to try. But before I forget, the cheap options I'll talk about are at places like Restore, for instance. Plus St. Vincent's, Goodwill, Salvation Army.
Programmable thermostats do not need a new furnace, they just tell the furnace when to be on. So you can program it to be on an hour before you get home, an hour before you wake up, and mostly off the rest of the time. Unless you want it to be working mostly when the Sun is also helping, which saves the most $$. The last one I got was $14 about 8 years ago. The one I got 13 years ago was $30.
Once I tell you how to heat your house for cheap, instead of your roof shingles, you should save $$.
After you post a reply, you can start prep by measuring and writing down the temp at every single vent. You should also have at least one vent and also return which cannot be shut off, closed, etc. Identify which ones are those, if you don't already know. Also rest your thermometer on the main/central duct which comes out of the furnace, and record what that temp is when the furnace has run awhile, long enough for it to get warmed up. And if you can, rest/lean the thermometer against the duct at the attic floor, as it leaves the attic to go down through the house. You might have several of those, so any one is OK to record, or you can record 2: the one with the longest stretch of ductwork, with all twists and turns, from the furnace, and then the one with the shortest stretch of ductwork.
If you didnNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Wednesday, December 12, 2018 1:05 PM
Rain and a broken umbrella yesterday. More rain tomorrow.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Saturday, December 15, 2018 5:06 AM
My idiot landlady just came down here a while ago and accused me of putting too much strain on the electrical in the house. They have a flickering light in their kitchen and she's worried that when it blows it will knock out the power. I don't think so but I couldn't say that to her.
Also they are just figuring out that this house wasn't designed to handle all the strain. I could only look at her and think, "Well, no bloody duh."
That's what you get for building illegally. Now my worry is that they may try to sell the house.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Saturday, December 15, 2018 8:52 AM
Well, I just had a fall in this place. Tripped over something and went down hard on my knees and right hand.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Saturday, December 15, 2018 9:08 AM
:(
Hope you're okay Brenda.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Saturday, December 15, 2018 10:16 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
:(
Hope you're okay Brenda.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Hey Jack. Yeah, I'm okay. My knees will be sporting lovely bruises tomorrow and over the next week. Right pinky finger is a little sore still and feeling a little stiff. Have to make sure that I wear gloves tonight in bed, so my hand doesn't seize up.
Got things to do on the morrow. Forgot to pay a bill yesterday(Friday).
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Saturday, December 15, 2018 10:35 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:So all of your heat supply outlet vents are in the ceiling of your 1st & 2nd floors? And your furnace is above the ceiling of the 2nd floor?
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:\
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Do you have a programmable thermostat? That saved me a bunch.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Sorry to hear that Brenda. :(
Usually I'd be right with you there in solidarity, but I decided this year not to live in extreme cold inside the house because all I do is veg out under the covers playing games or watching youtube when I'm not at work. I refuse to let myself fall back into bad habits because it's cold outside, although I fear my heat bill is going to be a majority of what my take home pay is the next few months because of it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I don't.
I'm not going to say that it wouldn't help, because it probably would, but my furnace is from the early 60's and is still chugging along. It's in the attic, it's an upflow furnace, it puts the hot air along half of my roof before going down, and only heats from the ceilings in the 1st and 2nd floors, putting no hot air to the basement. There aren't enough returns, so the flow is very poor. You actually have to get up on a chair and feel about a foot 1/2 under the ducts to even feel the hot air coming out.
There is a slab and pipes for a basement furnace in the crawlspace, but until I'm sure I won't be having any flooding issues I'm not going to invest any money into that.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Where are your returns? In the floors, at the bottom of the walls, also in the ceiling? One in each room, one on each floor?
Do you have flow dampers in your ducts? Probably near your furnace, in the attic, but maybe elsewhere. Looks like an "L" lever in the side of the duct, or sometimes a "T"?
Is the ductwork in your attic bare metal, or wrapped in insulation, like a silver solar wrapping?
Have you used a thermometer to measure the temp at your heat vents, so you know what the temp is at each vent?
Do you have an air filter on the intake of the furnace, like before the air return goes into the furnace? Have you replaced it or cleaned/blown it out?
I'd bet your heat issue can be resolved for cheap, you just need to let it work. And I'm including your basement.
After you answer, I'll tell you what to try. But before I forget, the cheap options I'll talk about are at places like Restore, for instance. Plus St. Vincent's, Goodwill, Salvation Army.
Programmable thermostats do not need a new furnace, they just tell the furnace when to be on. So you can program it to be on an hour before you get home, an hour before you wake up, and mostly off the rest of the time. Unless you want it to be working mostly when the Sun is also helping, which saves the most $$. The last one I got was $14 about 8 years ago. The one I got 13 years ago was $30.
Once I tell you how to heat your house for cheap, instead of your roof shingles, you should save $$.
After you post a reply, you can start prep by measuring and writing down the temp at every single vent. You should also have at least one vent and also return which cannot be shut off, closed, etc. Identify which ones are those, if you don't already know. Also rest your thermometer on the main/central duct which comes out of the furnace, and record what that temp is when the furnace has run awhile, long enough for it to get warmed up. And if you can, rest/lean the thermometer against the duct at the attic floor, as it leaves the attic to go down through the house. You might have several of those, so any one is OK to record, or you can record 2: the one with the longest stretch of ductwork, with all twists and turns, from the furnace, and then the one with thNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Sunday, December 16, 2018 7:31 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
When I mentioned ducts in the attic, I was referring to ductwork which comes out of the furnace, to eventually arrive at the vents in the rooms below. Ducts could be circular sheet metal, aka "stovepipe" tubes, or rectangular sheetmetal for larger volumes.
Without looking at it again, I'm going to say that most if not all of the duct work is the rectangular fashion.
Quote:
I am assuming you do not have an outlet vent in the attic, only the return which you have now mentioned.
No outlet in the attic, just the return. It's about 2.5 ft from the filter and the blower, so it's probably doing more harm than good even existing since it's pulling cold air from the attic instead of warmer air from the larger return on the first floor living room.
Quote:
When I said leaning the thermometer against the duct at the floor of the attic, this means just measuring the temp on the outer surface of the ductwork, at the point the ductwork is leaving the attic space. I can understand that this spot may be not easily accessible.
This would probably not be too hard, actually. It would probably be interesting to see how "warm" that duct work is since it already traveled along the roof before making its way down.
Quote:
And I'm not talking about any ductwork that is inside your walls. None of these solutions should mess with any wall interiors.
Cool. I can't really do anything about those without causing a lot of damage anyhow.
Quote:
It sounds to me that you have the 2 standard and common issues, which I had assumed were the case, and which have largely inexpensive and fairly simple "bandaids" - unless you tell me something new.
In addition to these 2 common issues, you mention this 2nd unused ductwork system, which can really be useful, assuming it is still intact.
It's not all still intact. I'd say about half of it is. I'd have to plan out how to properly lay it out in the crawl space whenever I get around to putting a furnace down there since I wouldn't want it blocking my entry or making it even harder to get down there when I need to for the extremely necessary sump pump system.
Quote:
Your 2 common issues, which often snowball on each other, are (1) system flow and (2) directional heat retention/Integrity.
Not wanting to add strain to the blower fan of the furnace, I would not want to restrict intake flow of the attic return. Instead, you should add some booster fans to refocus the flow.
You can use temporary bandaids until you understand how well your system is capable of working.
1. Put a floor fan on your 1st floor return, right up against it, forcing air into the return. A simple, cheap box fan should work. You didn't specify if the return is in the floor, or ceiling, or wall. Regardless, this will help pull more heated air out of the 1st floor vents.
This could be a problem. The return is very high up... about a foot from the ceiling. I haven't measured it, but I'd guess it's around 10" tall and 24" wide. A box fan probably wouldn't be a good solution.
Quote:
2. Put some more smaller fans on the heat vent grates of the 1st floor vents. All of these will also help reduce work and strain on the blower fan of the furnace. Small fans like personal fans, or desk fans can work, whatever you find for cheap. These will be mounted to suck the air out of the vent on 1st floor. A small enough fan can be placed/rested right on top of the vent grate (in the ceiling) with the power cord dangling through the vent slot. You could also mount/strap a lightweight fan directly to the bottom of the vent grate.
Do you know if they make fans specifically for this purpose?
Here's a picture of a similar vent cover for the vents in my ceiling:
Accord Ventilation White Steel Ceiling Diffuser (Rough
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Sunday, December 16, 2018 8:47 AM
For a treat today I bought $12 in scratch lottery tickets and won about $17.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
