Duct work in an old House

Kelley

I am recently a stay at home mom. This means that I now realize how hot my house is during the summer and how cold it is during the winter.
We have a 130 year old, working class Victorian twin,
in West Chester, PA. We are about to replace a 30+ year old heater ( currently oil/hot air) and will hopefully add central air. None of this will help too much unless we do something about our duct work. Where can I get info on duct work?
Also, I am hearing that even the type of grills/covers that we have on our supply outlets can make a difference with air flow and static air pressure. Our third floor outlets are from chimneys which also supply air to rooms on the first and second floors. Alas, not much heat flow up on the third floor. I would love to make small changes that could give me a big payback(ie, with the grill covers).

There is only one return in the house, at the
base of the 1st floor steps. It is about 9"x13" for a house with about 1700 sq ft. I've had two contractors here already and neither one suggested much for ductwork other than making the 1st floor return bigger. Both contractors have told me that they can not guarantee that I won't need to continue using a window air conditioner on the 3rd floor. Yikes.... what can be done? What other questions should I be asking? Can I get this house to be comfortable????

Dale

What is comfort and what is it worth to you?

To answer your last question sure you can if you're willing to spend enough. My standard answer and I'm sticken to it is to forget about mechanical stuff until you understand your building envelope. I would start with a professional ( non heating contractor) energy audit and then a blower door test. Once the blower door finds the gross holes plug them and insulate and vent as much as you can afford, insulation is always cheaper than oil or elect. My guess is your major delta t problem is the attic and roof. Then when you know how much you need to heat and cool look at the options, I don't know what you are or will use the 3rd floor for or how many rooms are there, I have one floor and don't use all of it. Since cool air makes the biggest bang up stairs perhaps you have room up there for a separate air handler just to cool that and most of the time it will cool the rest of the house ok also. Or, You can zone if you choose from a basement furnace. You can cool the large single room on the 3rd floor with a mini split system ( very nice and quiet but not cheap) if you have a place to hang the outdoor unit or you can go with a unico hi velocity system put the condenser on the ground or roof. You need to be sure the return air for what ever you do equals the supply, return is just a spill hole that allows air to return to the blower with as little static pressure as possible. Since this is a wet site you could buy a boiler and use hot water coils for each floor and then go with an AC coil upstairs ( or on any other floor) right next to the hydro air heating coil. This is done alot for new rich folk big sprawling houses or in office blds. As far as ductwork study, look at the ashrae and nhaw websites or you library for design data, the ductwork design software is so cheap you may want to buy a copy. However all real warm air contractors have it. Don't plan on any magic from grill choices, the ceiling mounted AC versions for a large room is about the only place IMHO that more money equals alot more benefit. For max benefit go with the insulation and blower door data. Then for max comfort summer and winter a nice boiler and separate AC systems.

Joe_13

multiple-systems

You probably are not looking to start ripping out walls to put in ductwork upstarts, so I would guess 2 heating and 2 cooling systems might be in order. As Dale said, your best bet would be to install an air handler in the attic with duck work for the bedrooms and a return in a hallway ceiling. This handler will have it's own condenser unit outside and will mostly used for night time coling. You could also have a small gas furnace in the atic in the same unit. If you must stay oil, hydro-air is an excellent way to go, bringing some hot water lines from a boiler in the basement to a heating coil in the air handler.

Hopefully you can reuse the ductwork downstairs for the rest of the house. Another air handler would replace the furance unit, Here you would have the second set of heating and cooling coils. The boiler would service the 2 air handlers and could also supply hot water. (how are you making hot water now?). A second condenser unit would handle the lower floor cooling coil. The hydro-air system might take up a little more room in the basement depending on how large a monster your old furnace is, but you're looking at the best overall solution that won't rip up the inside of your home as much (still not cheap!) The energy audit wil also address things like windows and insulation needs.

Steamhead

Or, you could

abandon the heating function of the ductwork and go hydronic. If you want comfort in the winter, hot-water or steam is the way to go. And you can probably find some beautiful radiators!

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