scorched air

grindog

I am going to look at a basement remodel thursday. The house is forced hot air with two furnaces one in the attic one in the basement. The question i have is, the home owner thinks that i can just cut registers and run flex duct off the first floor supply duct in the basement, this will obviously cause problems for the first floor, has any one tried doing this with out suffering any consequences?
I told him that i would look at the duct work, as always money is a factor and forced hot water will be a tough sell. Any insight would help greatly

grindog

forced air question

I am going to look at a basement remodel thursday. The house is forced hot air with two furnaces one in the attic one in the basement. The question i have is, the home owner thinks that i can just cut registers and run flex duct off the first floor supply duct in the basement, this will obviously cause problems for the first floor, has any one tried doing this with out suffering any consequences?
I told him that i would look at the duct work, as always money is a factor and forced hot water will be a tough sell. Any insight would help greatly

JimGPE_3

No easy answer.

You have to run load calcs. It may well be that the furnace is oversized enough to handle the addtional load, but you won't know until you run the numbers.

It is by no means obvious that the first floor will suffer.

Jack_21

You are correct

Depending upon the use of the basement it is frequently not the best idea to co-mingle the air streams. You can definitely creat all kinds of air imbalances. Self srerving here, as I rep them, but the Rinnai Energysavers are excellent DV heaters. Vent extension kits allow DV install. Efficient, quiet, not cheap...but you get what you pay for. It is nice having a separate heating unit from the central. My boiler has had some recent intermittent outage issues. It has been a comfort having a separate unit to kepp the place comfortable. www.rinnai.us

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Almost Hate to Say This...

...but around here such is the ONLY way I've seen basement remodels--old AND new and NEVER a return in sight...

Surprising thing is that it seems to work reasonably well without ill effects upstairs. One such basement with which I'm quite familiar has 3x6" ducts for a very large room about 2,500 sf with 2 large banks of W casements, a N sliding glass door and about 30' of the foundation (W & N) above grade, the rest fully below grade. Air temp rises rapidly when you open the registers, but it takes a couple of days to alleviate most of the "cold 70" problem. The remaining 1,500 sf or so is partitioned off without heat registers.

Bud_14

Pa-lease

There that word is again “Scorched Air.” Your water pipes get hotter then the air in the furnace. You know the ooh aah test, yes? But putting all this aside, the basement may or may not be figured in on the heat loss, but most basements are easy to heat. It is the Air Conditioning that becomes a challenge if designed with the existing ductwork. As for the summer, you’re going to have needed to remove more humidity from the basement then the 1st floor. Research Products has a whole house central dehumidifier that works for those conditions? What size duct is in there now and how many runs are on the main branch?

Bud

www.TheSheetMetalShop.Com

Jeff Lawrence_24

First off

You do need to run a heat load on the basement.

I don't know where you're at, but usually basements don't need a lot of cooling. I prefer to add another heat source, either furnace or (ugh) a heat pump. Given the other option, I will install a zoning system off of the existing system.

IF (and I meant the caps) the homeowner won't spend the money on either option, I try to get a signed acknowledgement that the options were offered. I have disguised this acknowledgement by writing a quote letter with the options and asking them to sign it. No signature, no work.


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Dof3

heat load?

Most knew houses have to big a furnace in them anyway. So adding a couple of supplies in the basement won't hurt. The t-stat on the first floor will dictate the basement runs{on or off}. What I have done to heat a basement is to install a couple of liquid filled electric baseboards. Put them on their own t-stat and away you go. Fast and easy to install. Very quiet and economical. For a/c, if you need it for humidity control, install a nice Sanyo mini. JMHO